"Shearing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mores, he failed. He tried many times to put a stop to the usages of mourning which were violent and excessive,—loud outcries, destruction of clothes and furniture, blackening the walls of the house and one's face, and shearing the beard. He did not succeed. These were ancient and popular customs and they were maintained.[1575] It is improper for any Moslem, male or female, to uncover the head.[1576] They uncover the feet to show respect. This was Semitic and is Oriental.[1577] Robertson Smith[1578] thinks that the reason ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... the Pont Neuf, where there are a number of little stalls erected, the owners of which advertise upon little boards, which are raised upon poles, that they possess extraordinary talents for shearing dogs and cats; I could not help stopping and laughing most heartily to observe the following address to the public from one of these ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... purposes it is sufficient to cement the fibres in position by means of ordinary yellow shellac, but where very great accuracy is aimed at, the shellac (being itself imperfectly elastic and exposed to shearing stress) imposes its imperfections on the whole system. This source of error can be got over by soldering the threads in position. Attempts were made by the writer in this direction, with fair success, in 1889, but as Mr. Boys ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... whirlwind meeting, too, over the island, drove the lagoon hither and thither, catching up the white pond-lilies by their long stems, twisting off the dense thickets of mangroves by the roots, burrowing holes in the sandy beds of the cactus, and shearing off their flat, thorny leaves and needle points by the acre together; then a rushing whirl around the cocoa-nuts, bowing their tufted tops at first till they nearly touched the earth, when, the stout trunks snapping like glass, they would go pitching and tossing ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... and best of the bean straw grown on the farm was selected and scattered on the floor of the sitting-rooms as warm and dry to the feet, and that was all the carpet in the house. Just before sheep-shearing time, too, Jonathan used to have the nettles cut that flourished round the back of the sheds, and strewn on the floor of the barn. The nettles shrivelled up dry, and the wool did not stick to them, but ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... had one solitary Sheep. At shearing time, wishing to take his fleece and to avoid expense, she sheared him herself, but used the shears so unskillfully that with the fleece she sheared the flesh. The Sheep, writhing with pain, said, "Why do ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... he'll think nothing good enow for him. And if he brought Will Trenton with him, I'd not sit at the board with the fellow.—But ye'll ride over, Wilfred, and take care the minx Agnes knows what she's lost. Ay, and if you knew of a safe hand, Sir, when the shearing is over I'd send the lad a purse of nobles to keep up his knighthood in ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... accepted, through fear of losing another's money. He felt that if he took the money and lost it he would have to be a slave for life. So he quit coachmaking and went to work for a man at Hempstead, L. I., making machines for shearing cloth. In three years, on $1.50 a day, Cooper had saved enough money to buy his employer's patent. Immediately he introduced improvements in the manufacture and in the machine, which the war with England made a great demand for by excluding foreign cloths. At this time Cooper married. In ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... at hand without an anxious feeling. His thousand sheep had cost him twelve hundred and fifty dollars, and his cattle as much more. The lambing season had come and gone, and the flock of sheep had doubled in number. The cattle, too, had greatly increased, and the sheep were nearly ready for shearing. Altogether the value of the stock was over five thousand dollars. The loss would not be absolute ruin, as he had still three thousand dollars of his original capital in the bank at Buenos Ayres; but it would be ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... and over again until he was tired, then sat still, smiling and stroking the fox skin. He had learned the song when he was a child from his mother, who had sung it all day long one spring while she was shearing the sheep. And he could not think of any other for the moment. It wasn't, in fact, a bad song. There were many good rhymesters in Iceland. He began singing again, rocking his body back and forth vehemently, and stroking ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... swung, and down they rolled again, dead or dying. And ever as the fight thickened, the old Zulu's eye seemed to get quicker and his arm stronger. He shouted out his war-cries and the names of chiefs whom he had slain, and the blows of his awful axe rained straight and true, shearing through everything they fell on. There was none of the scientific method he was so fond of about this last immortal fight of his; he had no time for it, but struck with his full strength, and at every stroke a man sank in his tracks, and went rattling ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... occasionally hunted and captured. Last night two were brought into the station. Of course every accommodation is provided for the care and treatment of sheep in the various stages of their existence, including the means of washing and shearing them. An orchard and fruit-garden close by yield tons of fruit every year for the merest scratching of the soil. To obtain labour is the difficulty. The birds, especially parrots, are terrible enemies to the fruit-crops. In the early morning one may see a tree ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... warmed to his labor, the long muscles of arms and shoulders limbering, the blows fell in a shower. The sturdy pines fell one by one, and he stripped them of branches with long, sweeping blows of the ax, shearing off several at a stroke. He was not an expert axman, but he knew enough about that cunning craft to make his blows tell, and a continual desire to ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... very compact, and one of great symmetry. If the plants are set about a foot apart, and in two rows,—these rows a foot apart,—you will have a low hedge that will be as smooth as one of Arbor Vitae after the gardener has given it its annual shearing. When the bush takes on its autumnal coloring it is as showy as a plant can well be, and is always sure of attracting attention, ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... She had come all the way from Nuremberg to this spot, thinking it possible that in this spot alone she might receive succour; and now she stood there, fearing to raise the knocker on the door. She was a lamb indeed, whose fleece had been shorn very close; and the shearing had been done all in the sacred name of religion! It had been thought necessary that the vile desires of her human heart should be crushed within her bosom, and the crushing had brought her to this. She looked up in her desolation at the ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... take your answer! Have you no stomach for my message? 'Fore God, is there no black ram to lead his sheep to the shearing? ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... community. On leaving the business of carriage-making Peter Cooper went to Hempstead, L. I., where he found work in a woollen factory. Here he invented and patented an improvement on the machine in use for shearing the nap of cloth; and as during the war of 1812 all commerce with England ceased, cloth-making in America flourished, and from the sale of his machines, which he could hardly make fast enough to supply the demand, young Cooper reaped a considerable profit. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... with indomitable pluck, those who were not hit leaping out, regardless of personal danger, to pick up those who were wounded. They were a strange, motley-looking crowd, dressed in all kinds of common farming apparel, just such a crowd as one is apt to see in a far inland shearing shed in Australia, but no man with a man's heart in his body could help admiring their devotion to one another or their loyalty to the cause they were ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... to the garden, where Bob was shearing the spring grass from the paths. 'What is John's direction?' she said, holding the sealed letter ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... But the sheep shearing came, and the hay season next, and then the harvest of small corn ... then the sweating of the apples, and the turning of the cider mill and the stacking of the firewood, and netting of the wood-cocks, and the springes ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... to the sturdy stroke, for several of those behind me were masters of the paddle, and as I plied my blade I felt with a thrill that it was good to fight the might of the river in such a company. Snowy wreaths boiled high about the shearing prow, I could hear the others catch their breath with a hiss, and once more after a heavy thud the cedar floor seemed to raise itself beneath me and leap to the impulse, while, with a hardening of every muscle, I swept the leaf-shaped blade outward ready for the ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... Aristophanes. Then, as now, mourners had recourse to the friendly onion; and if Pythagoreans had never dreamed of a donkey becoming a man, they had often known a man to become a donkey. If they were not able to skin a flint, they knew well what was meant by "skinning a flayed dog," and "shearing an ass." These and similar sayings, being of a simple character, may have been due to the same thought occurring to different minds, and this may be the case even where there is more point; thus, "an ass laden with gold will get into the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... and grows—are we the same, The feeble band, the few? Or what are these with eyes aflame, And hands to deal and do? This is the host that bears the word, No MASTER HIGH OR LOW - A lightning flame, a shearing sword, A storm ...
— Chants for Socialists • William Morris
... in such cases—the increased rate of growth, or the dilapidation of the worn-out parts? We can hardly suppose that both these effects of use will be inherited. Would shaving destroy the beard in time or strengthen it? Will the continued shearing of sheep increase or lessen the growth of wool? What will be the ultimate effect of plucking geese's quills, and of the eider duck's abstraction of the down from her breast? If the mutilated parts grow stronger or more abundantly, why were the motmot's ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... that you have betrayed the first symptom of age, that your back is bent a twentieth of an inch from the perpendicular, I shall hasten to believe you are shearing your prodigal overgrowths, and are calling in your troops to the citadel, and I may come in the first steamer to drop in of evenings and hear ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... be permitted to linger for a while in the border land, he must soon receive command to march over the boundary, and enter the eternal world. Just as a shock of corn remains in the field to dry and ripen after the shearing, so our old friend remained in his place here for a short time, ripening for the ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... should be cut back evenly, and in accordance with the shape the hedge is to take. The pyramidal form appears to me to be the one most in harmony with Nature. In October, the hedge should receive its final shearing for the year; and if there is an apparent deficiency of vigor, the ground on both sides should receive another top-dressing, after removing the summer mulch. As the hedge grows older and stronger, the principal ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... from the furrows of a tiny field, Demeter lover of wheat, Sosicles the tiller dedicates to thee, having reaped now an abundant harvest; but again likewise may he carry back his sickle blunted from shearing of the straw. ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... but that the owners of those first-born which are not appointed for sacrifices in the laws of our country, should bring a shekel and a half in their stead: but for the first-born of a man, five shekels: that they should also have the first-fruits out of the shearing of the sheep; and that when any baked bread corn, and made loaves of it, they should give somewhat of what they had baked to them. Moreover, when any have made a sacred vow, I mean those that are called Nazarites, that suffer their hair to grow long, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... name under which are comprised coarsely foliated rocks banded with irregular layers of feldspar and other minerals. The gneisses appear to be due in many cases to the crushing and shearing of deep-seated igneous rocks, such ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... speaks o't. He that teaches himsell has a fule for his maister. It's an ill cause that the lawyer thinks shame o'. Lippen[156] to me, but look to yoursell. Mair whistle than woo, as the souter said when shearing the soo. Ye gae far about seeking the nearest. Ye'll no sell your hen on a rainy day. Ye'll mend when ye grow better. Ye're nae ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... made flat on their cutting edge, as shown in Fig. 12. There are also punches made spiral on their cutting edge, as shown in Fig. 13. This punch, instead of being flat, as in Fig. 12, is of a helical form, as shown in Fig. 13, so as to have a gradual shearing action commencing at the center and traveling round to the circumference. Its form may be explained by imagining the upper cutter of a shearing machine being rolled upon itself so as to form a cylinder ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... villages are as much a part of the stories as the people dwelling there. In fact, Egdon Heath has been called the principal character in the novel, The Return of the Native (1878). The upland with its shepherd's hut, the sheep-shearing barn, the harvest storm, the hollow of ferns, and the churchyard with its dripping water spout are part of the wonderful landscape in Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) This is the finest artistic product of Hardy's genius. It contains strongly-drawn characters, dramatic incidents, a most interesting ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... id Romae factum, the book ends. The next treats of stock (de re pecuaria), and one or two new personages are introduced, as Mennas, Murius, and Vaccius (the last, of course, taking on himself to speak of kine), and ends with an account of the dairy and sheep-shearing. The third is devoted to an account of the preserves (de villicis pastionibus) which includes aviaries, whether for pleasure or profit, fish-tanks, deer- forests, rabbit-warrens, and all such luxuries of a country house as are independent of tillage or pasturage—and a most brilliant catalogue ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... of Saturday, the 19th, among the mountains that surround Loch Morar, no better shelter could be found than a shieling used for shearing sheep. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... said Warner. "I don't like the way twigs and leaves are raining down on me. It shows that if they were to depress their fire they would be shearing limbs off of us instead of boughs off ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... serious barrier in their path. But with the crisis, democratic Belgium united in a rush to arms, which recalls similar action by the American colonists at the Revolution. Every form of weapon was grasped, from old muskets to pitchforks and shearing knives. It was remarked by a foreign witness that in default of properly equipped armories, the Belgians emptied the museums to confront the Germans with the strangest assortment of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... hand round and round as though uncorking a bottle — like him—him— Corkscrew! cried Ahab, aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seen —Moby Dick— Moby Dick! Captain Ahab, said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... advancing with his 'bangwan,' or broad stabbing assegai, raised above his head. In another quarter of a second I had fallen from the horn, and heard the blow of the spear, followed by the indescribable sound of steel shearing its way through flesh. I had fallen on my back, and, looking up, I saw that the gallant Mashune had driven the assegai a foot or more into the carcass of the buffalo, and was turning ...
— Hunter Quatermain's Story • H. Rider Haggard
... wanting in alluring colours, but in what manner will Yan interpret the commands of those who place themselves before him, when he has attained sufficient proficiency to be entrusted with the knife and the shearing irons?" ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... one effective discharge. Ithuel succeeded the best He repaid McBean in his own coin, sending a grist of bullets into the bows of his launch, which admonished that prudent officer of the necessity of shearing toward the islet of the ruins. Pintard's assailant was brought up by the barrier in front, and turned aside also. Then, in the midst of a cloud of smoke, shouts, curses, cries, shrieks, orders, and the roar of guns, all the English precipitated themselves in a body on ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... earthly relationships that receive their consecration thereby, and in correspondence are the natural festal occasions presented by the vicissitudes of life. Year after year the return of vintage, corn-harvest, and sheep-shearing brought together the members of the household to eat and to drink in the presence of Jehovah; and besides these there were less regularly recurring events which were celebrated in one circle after another. There was no warlike expedition which was not inaugurated in this fashion, no agreement ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... choked and half-blinded, to windward to throw his weight on the careening gunwale, the helmswoman had pounced upon the tiller and was standing knee-deep in the water pouring over the submerged lee rail to pay out and steer and miss the island headland by a shearing hand's-breadth. ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... which he imparted to a Byzantine chronicler of the strolling competitive order, a man of still worse character than himself, called, I believe, Cocconas. The pair went about living on occult pretensions, shearing 'fat-heads,' as they describe ordinary people in the native Magian lingo. Among these they got hold of a rich Macedonian woman; her youth was past, but not her desire for admiration; they got sufficient ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... Mr. Medlicot, will burn for weeks sometimes. I'll tell you fairly what I'm afraid of. There's a man with you whom I turned out of the shed last shearing, and I think he might put a ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... AND THE LITTLE MISS THE KITE Simple Simon met a pieman I had a little hobby horse He that would thrive Tom, Tom, the piper's son A Farmer went trotting upon his grey mare Old woman, old woman, shall we go a-shearing? Little Tommy Tittlemouse Little Miss Muffett Eggs, butter, cheese, bread Rain, rain Tom he was a Pi-per's son I had a little dog, they called him Buff Molly, my sister, and I fell out Solomon Grundy Handy Spandy, Jack a-dandy Go to bed Tom, go to bed Tom Mary had ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... conversations; and how such visit being expected, as his head lay on the side of the bedstead, it was there immovably fixed, by the application of a half-pound of warm cobbler's wax, and release could only be obtained by the Jason-like operation of shearing the fleecy locks. We must rapidly pass on. I was eager to get away from this school, and my desire was accomplished in the following ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... who have always hung around the home districts, doing a job of shearing here or a turn at horse-breaking there, look with reverence on Riverine or Macquarie-River shearers who come in with tales of runs where they have 300,000 acres of freehold land and shear 250,000 sheep; these again pale their ineffectual fires before the glory ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... it is doubtful how much of it is really interpreted by him; the village shop with its inexhaustible stores probably means much more in the way of origins, and he may never go behind its contents in his speculations. It is true he sees milking, harvesting, sheep-shearing, and many other operations, but he often misses the stage between the actual beginning and the finished product—between the wool on the sheep's back and his Sunday clothes, between the wheat in the field ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... intimation of discord came to Cass Grimshaw one night in the hang-out where the six sat smoking. Purdy casually mentioned that it was getting along towards shearing time and that the Wolf River bank ought to be heavily stocked with cash. The leader blew a double plume of smoke from his nostrils ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... themselves to the others, and persuading them to follow their example. Whilst, therefore, the powder was drying, I began with a large pair of scissors to execute my new office upon the eldest of four or five chins presented to me; and as great nicety was not required, the shearing of a dozen of them did not occupy me long. Some of the more timid were alarmed at a formidable instrument coming so near to their noses, and would scarcely be persuaded by their shaven friends to allow the operation ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... treacherous Updegraff's treacherous advice, I suspect. But they would not have adopted his suggestion had it not been so exactly congenial to their own temper of arrogance and tyranny and contempt for the people who meekly, year after year, presented themselves for the shearing with fatuous bleats ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... is a problem. Each Body-corporate, each privileged, each organised Class has secret hopes of its own in that matter; and also secret misgivings of its own,—for, behold, this monstrous twenty-million Class, hitherto the dumb sheep which these others had to agree about the manner of shearing, is now also arising with hopes! It has ceased or is ceasing to be dumb; it speaks through Pamphlets, or at least brays and growls behind them, in unison,—increasing wonderfully their ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... in disguise, arrived at the old shepherd's dwelling while they were celebrating the feast of sheep-shearing; and though they were strangers, yet at the sheep-shearing every guest being made welcome, they were invited to walk in, and join in the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... the majority of the old Boers went directly from their farms to the battlefields, and they wore the same clothing in the laagers as they used when shearing their sheep or herding their cattle. When they started for the frontier the Boer farmers arranged matters so that they might be comfortable while the campaign continued. Many, it is true, dashed away from home at the first call to arms and carried with them, besides a rifle and ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... all was bustle; the watch below tumbled up to lend a hand without waiting to be called; and in five minutes the noble ship was clothed with canvas from her trucks down, and shearing through the deep blue water with her lee ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... had lost her intelligence. The soft cones of the larch could be easily cut down the centre with a penknife, showing the structure of the cone and the seeds inside each scale. It is for these seeds that birds frequent the fir copses, shearing off the scales with their beaks. One larch cone had still the tuft at the top—a pineapple in miniature. The loudest sound in the wood was the humming in the trees; there was no wind, no sunshine; a summer day, still and shadowy, under large clouds high up. To this low humming ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... his dog beg for a morsel of the food; music is provided behind by a self-sacrificing person with the bagpipes, and a fourth shepherd stands in the distance with some sheep, like a martyr to his duty. The window beneath this is decorated with a sheep-shearing scene, which I have reproduced from the outline drawing by E.H. Langlois, published by Delaqueriere in his "Description Historique des Maisons de Rouen" (Paris: Firmin Didot. 1821). The presiding shepherdess carries on her work with the usual ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... for the brute that had my foot, put a vast strain upon it, trying to pull me down; but I resisted, using my hands and seat to sustain me, and so, discovering that it could not compass my end in this wise, it slacked somewhat of the stress, and bit at my boot, shearing through the hard leather, and nigh destroying my small toe; but now, being no longer compelled to use both hands to retain my position, I slashed down with great fury, being maddened by the pain and the mortal fear which the creature ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... "Sure," said Mrs. Egg, shearing the whisper. "Only Dammy ain't got any sense about cards. I tried to teach him pinochle, but he never could remember none of it, and the hired men always clean him out shakin' dice. He can't even beat his papa at checkers. And ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... take no heed. Presently Ivan smites off six of his antagonist's heads, but they grow again as before.[83] Half buried in the ground by the monster's strength, Ivan hurls his other glove at the hut, piercing its roof this time. But still his brothers slumber on. At last, after fruitlessly shearing off nine of the Chudo-Yudo's heads, and finding himself embedded in the ground up to his armpits, Ivan flings his cap at the hut. The hut reels under the blow and its beams fall asunder; his brothers awake, and hasten to his aid, and the Chudo-Yudo is destroyed. The "Chudo-Yudo wives" as the widows ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... you there's rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long; Grace and remembrance be to you both, And welcome to our shearing.' ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... stores of thy observant mind, a slight sketch or two of anything characteristic of the seasons, in mountainous scenery especially, I shall regard them as apples of gold. I am very anxious to learn whether any particular customs or festivities are kept up in the sheep-districts of Scotland at sheep-shearing time, as were wont of old all over England; and where is there a man who could solve such a problem like thyself? I am sensible of the great boldness of my request; but as my object is to promote the love of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... gained at the shipbuilding docks in Barrow-in-Furness, where the Brush system has been applied to illuminate several large sheds covering the punching and shearing machinery, bending blocks, furnaces, and other branches of this gigantic business. In one shed, which was formerly lighted by large blast-lamps, in which torch oil was burnt, costing about 5d. per gallon, and involving an expenditure ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... prisoners, of course, would not work effectually without extra wages, and thus gave a deal of trouble; knowing that there was no fear of my sending them to the magistrate (fifty miles off) during such a busy time. However, all evils must come to an end some time or another, and so did shearing, though it was nearly Christmas before our wool was pressed and ready ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... this yard was also a machine shop, in which were fitted lathes, punching and shearing machines, and a bolt and nut machine, also a band saw and a circular saw table. To drive this machinery a 12 h.p. engine was used, and this was placed under the charge of a convict who had been employed in the engine-room of a P. and O. steamer, and had gone through his ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... soon therefore, as his means would allow, he bought a small stock of the necessary articles and began afresh,—his amateur master showing him how to paint; and the pupil succeeded so well that he excelled the master's copy. His first picture was a copy from an engraving called "Sheep-shearing," and was afterwards sold by him for half-a-crown. Aided by a shilling Guide to Oil-painting, he went on working at his leisure hours, and gradually acquired a better knowledge of his materials. He made his own easel and palette, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... us very cordially, and then we were told to sit down on the chairs. I looked about for the bride, and saw a crowd of women in one corner, and a boy holding a gilt umbrella over the young lady, who was being shaved. A woman with a razor was shearing her eyebrows into a delicate line, and all round her forehead trimming disorderly hairs. Four women, seated on their heels in front of her, were fidgeting over her face; she, impassive as a log in their hands. A vast deal of singing ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... endeavour to make up its mind to blow from this quarter or that, died away altogether. At the same time the horizon appeared to close in perceptibly; what little definition it had had in earlier hours was erased; and the Sybarite, shearing the oily and lifeless waters of a dead calm, seemed less to make progress than to struggle sullenly in a pool of quicksilver at the bottom of a slowly revolving sphere of clouded glass, mutinously aware that all her labouring ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... currant wine." A rob of black Currant jam is taken in Scotland with whiskey toddy. Shakespeare in the Winter's Tale makes Antolycus, the shrewd "picker-up of unconsidered [141] trifles" talk of buying for the sheep-shearing feast "three pounds of sugar, five pounds of currants, and rice." In France a cordial called Liqueur de cassis is made from black Currants; and a refreshing drink, Eau de groseilles, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... mother's brother—James Hepburn, thy great-uncle as was; she were a poor, friendless wench, a parish 'prentice, but honest and gaum-like, till a lad, as nobody knowed, come o'er the hills one sheep-shearing fra' Whitehaven; he had summat to do wi' th' sea, though not rightly to be called a sailor: and he made a deal on Nancy Hartley, just to beguile the time like; and he went away and ne'er sent a thought after her ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Judah to his Sheep-shearing, and placed a Whore (Tamar) in his Way, in the Posture of Temptation, so made him commit Incest and ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... and it left him hot with indignation. He felt impelled to tell the victim how he had been robbed, but thought better of the impulse and assured himself that this was none of his affair. For perhaps ten minutes he looked on while the sheep- shearing proceeded. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... And then weave a cloak for Orestes the thief, lest he strip men of theirs if it freezes. And again thereafter the kite reappearing announces a change in the breezes. And that here is the season for shearing your sheep of their spring wool. Then does the swallow Give you notice to sell your great-coat, and provide something light for the heat that's to follow. Thus are we as Ammon or Delphi unto you. Dodona, nay, Phoebus Apollo. For, as first ye come all to get ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... fire on which is a cauldron, whilst a woman fills his cup from a skin over her shoulder, behind hang sausages. Above is a pig which a man is about to kill. The other side is similar. Above are shepherds shearing sheep in a wood; then comes a figure holding a scroll upon which there is no inscription; below is a warrior with sword, baton, and shield, below him a nude man with flying hair, both among twining branches. Upon the other face are spirals of leaf ornament with heads of men and beasts, ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... was determined rather to help him in educating the rest. I went therefore to what was known as the Lamb Fair at Lockerbie, and for the first time in my life took a "fee" for the harvest. On arriving at the field when shearing and mowing began, the farmer asked me to bind a sheaf; when I had done so, he seized it by the band, and it fell to pieces! Instead of disheartening me, however, he gave me a careful lesson how to bind; and the second that I bound did not collapse when shaken, and the third ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... always too anxious about his sheep when overtaken by a fog to think of his own danger. Then the wages were good, and the same all the year round, with the chance of making some extra money in the shearing season, and so much a head on each lamb that he reared; and to all intents and purposes he was his own master, for the farmer to whom the sheep belonged entrusted the management of ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... until he reached Richmond Braley's land. A long upturning sweep ended at the house, directly against the base of the mountain; and without decreasing his gait he passed over the faintly traced way, by the triangular sheep washing and shearing pen, ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... his face flushed crimson with suppressed emotion. As to the sea-birds, curiosity seemed to have overcome fear, for they came circling and wheeling overhead in clouds so dense that they almost darkened the sky—many of them swooping close past the Eskimos and then shearing off and ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... 1st, The combination of the side pieces, D D, constructed as described, containing the bearings for the cutting mechanism, the shearing bar, B, with square faces, and the spirally bladed knife, C, arranged ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... the croppers of the West Riding were a rough set. Their occupation consisted in shearing or cropping the wool on the face of cloths. They used a large pair of shears, which were so set that one blade went under the cloth while the other worked on its upper face, mowing the fibers and ends of the wool to a smooth, even surface. The work was hard and required considerable skill, ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... objects of great interest to the children, and the little lambs they very justly regarded as types of purity and innocence. When the season of sheep washing and shearing came, they went over to the farmer's, and witnessed these amusing ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... highest social point of observation that he takes those views of the lower ranks, which he has occasion to introduce into his Plays, from the mobs of 'greasy citizens' to the details of the sheep-shearing feast; and even in Eastcheap he keeps ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... are disposed at an angle for the purpose of giving them a shearing cut, which is the case when the file moves across the work on a line ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... less, according to the amount of trouble you have taken with your sheep. This is the way the younger generation likes to treat its wool. If you are older, and are blessed with a wife able to card and spin, you deal differently with Mr. Quinn. For many evenings after the shearing your wife sits by the fireside with two carding-combs in her hands, and wipes off them wonderfully soft rolls of wool. Afterwards she fetches the great wheel from its nook, and you watch her pulling out an endless gray thread while she steps back and forwards across the ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... for I already perceive the tears gathering in thine eyes, for thou hast them indeed very ready at hand; I admonish thee for thine own good without any self-interest. Cut thy hair off, shear thyself, shave thyself, good Maria, and to allay the bitterness of the shearing, I will give fifty maravedis, always on condition that thou dost hand ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... a boy like this should develop into the finest shepherd on the hills. Ralph knew every path on the mountains, every shelter the sheep sought from wind and rain, every haunt of the fox. At the shearing, at the washing, at the marking, his hand was among the best; and when the flocks had to be numbered as they rushed in thousands through the gate, he could count them, not by ones and twos, but by fours and sixes. At the shearing feasts he was not above the ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... often with W. to some of the big farms to see the sheep-shearing and the dairies, and cheese made. The farmer's wife in France is a very capable, hard-working woman—up early, seeing to everything herself, and ruling all her carters and ploughboys with a heavy ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... I went along." He continued in the hat trade until he had thoroughly mastered it, and afterwards became a brewer, pursuing this trade for two years, at the end of which time he apprenticed himself to a coachmaker. Upon completing his term at this trade, he engaged with his brother in the cloth-shearing business, and continued in it until the general introduction of foreign cloths, after the War of 1812, made it unprofitable. He then became a cabinet maker, but soon after opened a small grocery store on the present ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... deep, If the good steed that I bestride his footing can but keep." Swift was the steed, but swifter borne on Bavieca's stride, Three fathoms from the sea my Cid rode at King Bucar's side; Aloft his blade a moment played, then on the helmet's crown, Shearing the steel-cap dight with gems, Colada he brought down. Down to the belt, through helm and mail, he cleft the Moor in twain. And so he slew King Bucar, who came from beyond the main. This was the battle, this the day, when he the great sword won, Worth a full thousand ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... resumed Alister, "that I had my shearing to do, and hadn't the time to go with him. 'Is this your season for sheep-shearing?' said he.'We call cutting the corn shearing,' I answered, 'because in these parts we use the reaping hook.' 'That is a great waste of labour!' he returned. I did not tell him that some of our ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... little cot so dreary, With eyes and forehead hot and bleary, Sat a mother sad and weary, With her darling on her knee; Their humble fare at best was sparing For the father he was shearing, With his three brave sons of Erin, All down in the ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... whale-oil, and to both of these productions there is a limit. The country is totally unfit for canals, therefore there is a not very distant point, beyond which the land-carriage of wool will not repay the expense of shearing and tending sheep. Pasture everywhere is so thin that settlers have already pushed far into the interior: moreover, the country further inland becomes extremely poor. Agriculture, on account of the droughts, can never succeed ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... years last shearing-time," said the shepherd, whose dates were few and simple, sheep-washing, shearing, lambing, and next and last ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... the phenomenon of the age that millions of people throughout this great country of ours come of their own free will to the shearing pens of the "System" each year, voluntarily chloroform themselves, so that the "System" may go through their pockets, and then depart peacefully home to dig and delve for more money that they may have the debasing operation repeated on ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... I had seen coming along the street sitting there, some eating and all drinking; their cased bows leaned against the wall, their quivers hung on pegs in the panelling, and in a corner of the room I saw half-a-dozen bill-hooks that looked made more for war than for hedge-shearing, with ashen handles some seven foot long. Three or four children were running about among the legs of the men, heeding them mighty little in their bold play, and the men seemed little troubled by it, although they were talking earnestly and seriously too. A well-made ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... body shot out like a spring. The opening she had been feeling for had appeared, and she had driven her death-blow home. At the same instant, with a supreme effort, she bent double and shot herself free, the last convulsive, shearing crush of her foe's laws clashing to so close above her head that they actually caught in their death-grip, and held, till she pulled them out by the roots, two bristles of ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... he's fond of Tilly. It's only that his life is so unsettled. He's been a barman at Euroa since then; and the last we heard of him, he was shearing somewhere on the Goulburn. He doesn't seem able to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... in some few instances it is speckled. The Indians make blankets and ponchos of the alpaco wool. It is also frequently exported to Europe, and it sells at a good price in England. The alpacos are kept in large flocks, and throughout the whole of the year they graze on the level heights. At shearing time only they are driven to the huts. They are in consequence very shy, and they run away at the approach of a stranger. The obstinacy of the alpaco is remarkable. When one of these animals is separated from the flock, he throws himself on the ground, and neither ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the stairs. "He's up in his room. He complains his new shoes are too tight. I think it's nervousness. Perhaps he'll let you shave him; I'm sure he'll cut himself. And I wish the barber hadn't cut his hair so short, Ralph. I hate this new fashion of shearing men behind the ears. The back of his neck is the ugliest part of a man." She spoke with such resentment that Ralph broke into ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... counties of Kent and Sussex, the restrictions are still more troublesome. Every owner of wool within ten miles of the sea coast must give an account in writing, three days after shearing, to the next officer of the customs, of the number of his fleeces, and of the places where they are lodged. And before he removes any part of them, he must give the like notice of the number and weight of the fleeces, and of the name and abode of the person to whom they are ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... charms did once adorn My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme, And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn? The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime; The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time; My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied; The cowslip-gathering at May's dewy prime; The swans, that, when I sought the water-side, From far to meet me came, spreading their ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... between three and four dollars). Of every animal slain the shoulder, two joints, and the stomach went to the priests. Of the vintage and oil and grain they received about one-fiftieth. In addition a tithe was turned over to the Levites. Part of the wool in every sheep-shearing, as well as a part of the bread which they baked, found its way to the temple. In addition a large income came through the vows made by the people or the conscience money which was paid either in currency or gifts. Although the priests had no temporal authority by which ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... frivolous pretexts. "A sergeant of the North Cork Militia," says Mr. Hay, the county historian, "nicknamed, Tom the Devil, was most ingenious in devising new modes of torture. Moistened gunpowder was frequently rubbed into the hair cut close and then set on fire; some, while shearing for this purpose, had the tips of their ears snipt off; sometimes an entire ear, and often both ears were completely cut off; and many lost part of their noses during the like preparation. But, strange to tell," adds Mr. Hay, "these atrocities were publicly ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... climbing the rough pass one feels thankful for even small favors, and I plod along, now riding, now walking, occasionally passing little clusters of mud huts and meeting with pack animals en route to Ismidt with the season's shearing of mohair. "Alia Franga!" is the greeting I am now favored with, instead of the "Ah, I'Anglais." of Europe, as I pass people on the road; and the bicycle is referred to as an araba, the name the natives give their rude ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... rug is durable, harmonious in color and design, and is distinctly a home product. The wool of which it is made is sheared from the flocks of sheep in the vicinity. The shearing takes place annually in June; the wool is then carded, spun, and dyed. The threads of hand-spun wool are worked through a hand-woven webbing, and securely knotted or tied with a specially devised knot. The designs thus far are mainly adaptations from the native American ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... getting of money. He would say in his cynical, loud way that the end justifies the means, and with him the end is Angelique des Meloises. She is probably going to be the Delilah of New France, the woman who is shearing it of its upholding strength, but she ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... the sea otter have six small incisor teeth in each jaw; the canines are large; the molars never show flattened, curved crests after the ruminant pattern, but are more or less tubercular, and one tooth in the hinder part of each jaw becomes blade-like, for shearing off lumps of flesh. This tooth is ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... under free donation or by sale, and which tax, aggravated by the timbre,[3235] is enormous[3236] since, in most cases, it takes 5, 7, 9, and up to 10 1/2 % on the capital transmitted, that is to say, in the case of real-estate, 2, 3 and even 4 years' income from it. Thus, in the first shearing of the sheep the exchequer cuts deep, as deep as possible; but it has sheared only the sheep whose fleece is more or less ample; its scissors have scarcely touched the others, much more numerous, whose wool, short, thin and scant, is maintained only by day-wages, the petty gains of manual labor.—Compensation ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... he continued to keep eye on Shagpat, and the hunger that was in him passed, and became a ravenous vulture that flew from him and singled forth Shagpat as prey; and there was no help for it but in he must go and state his case to Shagpat, and essay shearing him. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... went right on grazin' 'em, same as he had always been in the habit of doing. Well, I'm told they up and makes Simpson an offer to get rid of the sheep. Jim has over five thousand, an' it's just before lambing, and them pore ewes, all heavy, is being druv' down to Watson's shearing-pens, that Jim always shears at. Jim an' two herders and a couple of dawgs—least, this is the way I heard it—is drivin' 'em easy, 'cause, as I said before, it's just before lambing. It does now seem ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... department of railroad engineering. This latter embraces all the machinery, both fixed and rolling; locomotives and cars coming under the latter,—and the shop-machines, lathes, planers, and boring-machines, forging, cutting, punching, rolling, and shearing engines, pumps and pumping-engines for the water-stations, turn-tables, and the like, under the former. Of this branch, little, except the design and working of the locomotive power, needs to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... this very place! Nothing material. We meant to have sown a little barley to-day, but the ground is too dry; and the sheep-shearing is not ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... tight, buxom girl, With lips like a cherry and teeth like a pearl, With eyes bold as Here's, and hair floating free, And full of the sun as the spray of the sea, 1100 Who can sing at a husking or romp at a shearing, Who can trip through the forests alone without fearing, Who can drive home the cows with a song through the grass, Keeps glancing aside into Europe's cracked glass. Hides her red hands in gloves, pinches up her lithe waist, And makes herself wretched with transmarine taste; She loses ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... pier-heads, and through the falling snow the tall buildings in New York twinkled with thousands of electric lights, like great Christmas-trees. At one wharf a steamer of the Red D line, just in from La Guayra, was making fast, and I guiltily crept on board. Without, she was coated in a shearing of ice, but within she reeked of Spanish-America—of coffee, rubber, and raw sugar. Pineapples were still swinging in a net from the awning-rail, a two-necked water- bottle hung at the hot mouth of the engine-room. I found her captain and told him I only wanted to smell a ship again, and to find ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... loads of hay—of a coarse kind, but serviceable. As for the flocks, they are now pasturing for the summer upon the slopes of the Zagros mountains. There were six thousand head of sheep and two thousand head of goats at the shearing in the spring, and the wool is already sold for eight talents. As for the slaves, I have provided for them after a new fashion. There were many young men from the captives that came after the war two years ago. For these I have purchased wives of the dealers from Scythia. These ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... the table-cloth, setting on the salt beef, and that rare luxury of pickles (the last pot in our store), and the produce of our garden and poultry-yard, which few Bushmen can boast of, and the dampers, and a pot of tea to each banqueter,—no wine, beer, nor spirits; those are only for shearing-time. We have just said grace (a fashion retained from the holy mother-country), when, bless my soul! what a clatter without, what a tramping of feet, what a barking of dogs! Some guests have arrived. They are always ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... over a few beasts of the field, should assert his right to shear a wolf, because it had wool upon its back, without considering whether he had the power of using the shears, or whether the animal would submit to the operation of shearing. He remarked:—"Are we yet to be told of the rights for which we went to war? Oh, excellent rights! Oh, valuable rights! Valuable you should be, for we have paid dear at parting with you. Oh, valuable rights! that have cost Britain thirteen provinces, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... enough to feed a hired man! Then we pay the Temple tax to feed the priests. They get the first-born of all the sheep too. When a man's first son is born, he must make a big gift to the synagogue. Farmers have to give part of the wool at sheep-shearing; part of the wood at woodcutting; and the best of the fruit at harvest." He looked around and spat on the ground. "On top of that we pay for the schools and synagogues! Is it any wonder we have hardly enough left to ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... ploughman plies his toil With shear and coulter shearing through the soil, That costs him dear and ditches it about, Or crops his hedge to make it undersprout, And never stays to ward it from the weed, But most respects to sow therein good seed; To th' end when summer decks the meadows plain, He may have recompense ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... staring a wee astonished like, and not a little surprised to see my birse up in this manner; for, when he thought upon shearing a lamb, he found he had catched a tartar; so, calming down as fast as ye like, he said, "Hooly and fairly Mansie" (or Maister Wauch, I believe, he did me the honour to call me), "they'll maybe no be sae hard as they threaten. But ye ken, my friend, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... closely. To even name the various looms here would be to make a list of ribbons, velvets, cloths and other tissues. The subsidiary machines for dressing the fabrics are here also—for napping, teasling, shearing, stretching and brushing, for measuring, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... visited the sheds where the sheep are sheared, and also the surrounding sheds and yards where the animals are driven up at shearing time. We were sorry that it was not the time of the annual shearing, so that we could witness the process. Our host told us that the shearers travel about the country, and take contracts for shearing the flocks at so much a head. In addition to their wages, they were supplied with food, and ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... custom. It has a special fund to put competitors up in business. Whenever a Japanese arrives in Panama, the Barbers' Association opens a shop for him, buys the chairs-provides him with everything necessary to compete with them for the scarce trade in the shaving and shearing industry! ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... have," said the black ram. "And Farmer Green paid me the honor of shearing me himself, the first ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey
... of course: Christmas to Epiphany was one long feast; then Plow Monday, Shrovetide, Sheep-shearing, Wake-Day, Harvest Home, Seed-Cake—these as the times came round. But there was a weekly regale too, which was known as Twice-a-Week-Roast. On Sundays and Thursdays a hot joint was the custom at supper. Tusser is clear about the value and ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett |
