"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract his attention, without suspecting their neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll and spin round before you in such a dishabille, that you cannot, for a few moments, detect what kind of creature it is. The young squat still and flat, often running their heads under a leaf, and mind only their mother's directions given from a distance, nor will your approach make them run again ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... ghosts," said the captain, "listen while I spin you a bit of a yarn which dates back some twenty-five years ago, when, but a wee bit of a midshipman, I was the youngster of the starboard steerage mess on board the old frigate Macedonian, then flag-ship of the West India ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... we once were. Nor could any sane man expect that we should for ever retain our former exceptional position. Other nations move as well as we. They buy the machines which we invent and make; they employ our foremen to teach them the arts we have acquired, and in time they learn to weave and spin for themselves instead of coming to us for every yard of cloth or every pound of yarn. This relative advancement of foreign nations and, too, of our own Colonies and Dependencies was and is inevitable. It is part of the general industrialization ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... good-natured and common. It likes big, unmistakable, knock-down effects; it likes to get its money back in palpable, computable change. It's in a tremendous hurry, squeezed together, with a sort of generalized gape, and the last thing it expects of you is that you will spin things fine. You can't portray a character, alas, or even, vividly, any sort of human figure, unless, in some degree, you do that. Therefore the theatre, inevitably accommodating itself, will be at last a landscape without figures. ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... how to play all sorts of games with marbles, how to make and spin more kinds of tops than most boys ever heard of, how to make the latest things in plain and fancy kites, where to dig bait and how to fish, all about boats and sailing, and a host of other things which can be done out of doors. The volume is profusely illustrated and will be an ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... went on, rising and lighting his pipe, "if you fellows like, I will spin you a yarn. I was telling one of you the other night about those three lions and how the lioness finished my unfortunate 'voorlooper,' Jim-Jim, the boy whom we buried in ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... Balfour, carelessly, though he felt his brain spin round and his heart stop at the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... to spin and an irresistible force bore him to the floor. As he slowly was pressed downward, he wondered who he was—why he was here—what had happened. Then, the floor came at him with blinding speed and he ceased to wonder. The haze about him ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... vexation to give an intelligible account of his accident to his uncle and Patty, who anxiously inquired what had detained him so long, and what had been the matter. In the midst of the history of his disaster, he was just proving to Patty that his taking the hatband to spin his top had nothing to do with his misfortune, and he was at the same time endeavouring to refute his uncle's opinion that the waste of the whipcord that tied the parcel was the original cause of all his evils, when he was summoned to try his ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... twanging his jew's-harp. He was shy at first, and tongue-tied; then wildly excited on learning that there were "presents" in Mr. Curtis's pocket. When the top was produced, he dropped his jew's-harp to watch it spin on a string held between Maurice's hands; then he devoted himself to the hatchet, and chopped his father's knee, energetically. "Pity there's no cherry tree round," said Maurice; "Look here, Jacobus, I want you always to ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... found various seeds to vegetate sooner, and to grow taller which were put upon his insulated table and supplied with electricity, but also that silk-worms began to spin much sooner which were kept electrified than those of the same hatch which were kept in the same place and manner, except that they were not electrified. These experiments of M. D'Ormoy are detailed at length in the Journal de Physique of ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... "This is our last spin together on the high plains, I suppose," he said. "Your mother has fixed upon to-morrow for our return to ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... the hour is to spin in the hammocks. These contrivances being hung from the roof swing freely, and the special excitement is to hold on with both hands, and run round so that the hammock twists into a knot and spins when released, ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... don't mind telling you about that, youngster, though I ain't much of a story-teller. You just wait till I get my pipe filled, and I'll spin a yarn for you, as they used to ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... for the only brother, and so well did she do the work, that he gave her a dollar a week for her services. This she used in buying books and clothes for school. Besides, she found opportunities to spin and weave for some of the neighbors, and thus added a little more to ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... alive with the hum of the bees.... Such somber, golden music, like an autumn honeycomb, slowly gives forth the rhythm which shall mark its path: the round of the planets is made plain: it begins to spin.... ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... "I'll spin my yarn as soon as I've rested a hit, lads," he said, as he finished the last morsel of food. "I'm clean spent, now, and want to stretch out for ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... exchange;' but he answered, 'I cannot barter the riches of the world to come for those of this world.'" It is reported also that Bishr's sister once went to Ahmed ben Hembel[FN82] and said to him, "O Imam of the Faith, we are a family that work for our living by day and spin thread by night; and oftentimes, the cressets of the watch of Baghdad pass by and we on the roof spinning by their light. Is this forbidden to us?" "Who art thou?" asked Ahmed. "I am the sister of Bishr ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... so great that it set them spinning together through the air—which was just getting into its proper place, like all the rest of the things—only, as luck would have it, they forgot which way around they had been going, and began to spin around the wrong way. Presently Center of Gravity—a great giant who was managing the whole business—woke up in the middle of the earth and began ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... pull in, lads," said Jack, giving a stroke with his oar that made the boat spin. In a few seconds we ran the boat into a little creek, where we made her fast to a projecting piece of coral, and running up the beach, entered the ranks of the penguins armed with our cudgels and our spear. We were ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Little Bear, "you just spin yourself a cocoon caterpillar fashion and go to sleep, and you will surely find yourself turned into a butterfly when you wake up! Mother said so! Now there! Why didn't I remember that caterpillars turn into butterflies, before I promised to give away my porridge ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... English historian (Freeman) while visiting Vassar College went in to hear the rhetoric class. After the exercises were over he said to the professor, "Why don't you teach your girls to spin a plain yarn?" I hope Miss Lawrence teaches you to spin a plain yarn. There is nothing like it. The figures of rhetoric are not paper flowers to be sewed upon the texture of your composition; they have no value ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... they walked and kept some sort of line. Then some began to run. Soon they were all running, isolated or in groups of two or three. And all the time those puffs of dust pursued their feet. Sometimes there was no puff of dust, and then a man would spring in the air, or spin round, or just lurch forward with arms outspread, a mere yellowish heap, hardly to be distinguished from an ant-hill. I could see many a poor fellow wandering hither and thither as though lost, as is common in all retreats. A man would walk sideways, ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... time he felt; the third time he came forward graciously smiling. The web might be in danger from the beetle; the fly at the point of kicking up her heels and flying gayly away; but it may be in the power of the spider to spin enough fresh threads on the spur of the moment to rebind the fly, and even to ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... minister of the gospel to teach me Mikey to stand on one leg and spin around on the other with his hands over his head is a quare thing, but the Riverend Goodloe is no ordinary man," said Mrs. Burns to ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... thirty francs, a pair of boots eleven to twelve francs. This does not, however, apply to the country. There the women, besides doing field work and managing the household, make all the clothes, the men's as well as their own; and by that is meant that they spin, weave, and make up the garments. The custom, already referred to, of wearing the national costume by ladies in the country and on state occasions in Bucarest, gives very lucrative employment to the native women, and such costumes are exposed for sale in the shops of the capital at prices ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... bounded to the ladder, and up on the poop-deck, to spin round the spokes of the wheel; and the next minute, almost before I could grasp what had happened, the sails, which had hung for days motionless, had filled, and we were running free, leaving the two boats ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... child's fingers are entangled by the string in playing cat's cradle, so they will be entangled by the harpoonline when he is a man and hunts whales. Again, among the Huzuls of the Carpathian Mountains the wife of a hunter may not spin while her husband is eating, or the game will turn and wind like the spindle, and the hunter will be unable to hit it. Here again the taboo is clearly derived from the law of similarity. So, too, in most parts of ancient Italy women were forbidden by law to spin on the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... court; but chile, the lie-yers are aworking day and night fur to hang you, and little is made of much, on your side, and much is spun out of little, on theirn. They are more cunning than foxes, and bloodthirstier than panters, and they no more git tired than the spiders, that spin and piece a web as fast as you break it. Three nights ago, I got down on my knees, and I kissed a little pink morocco slipper what your Ma wore the day when she took her first step from my arm to her own mother's knees, and I swore a solemn oath, if I could help free ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... to obtain knowledge, by travelling and conversing with many persons, and studying many sciences; but you desire it for yourself alone. Me you think poor, weak, and contemptible; fit for nothing but to spin and churn. Provided I exist, am screened from the weather, have enough to eat and drink, you are satisfied. As to strengthening my mind and enlarging my knowledge, these things are valuable to you, but on me they are thrown away. I deserve ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... bent over a map, marking out positions for the troops with red and blue pencils. In his free hand he carried, as always, the enormous bluesteel revolver. Anon he sat himself down at a typewriter and pounded away with one finger; every little while he would pause, pick up the revolver, and lovingly spin the chamber. ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... humorous mind of a cynical cast, Party change many matters for mirth affords; But of all the big jokes, we've the biggest at last, In CHAMBERLAIN's backing the House of Lords! They toil not, nor spin? That's a very old jeer! Won't the Lilies take back seats when ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... the day the iron wheels go onward, Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... satisfied with the answer, for he promptly initiated him; and he filled his place not only to the satisfaction of his employer, but also to the delectation of the loiterers about the polls, for whenever things dragged he immediately began "to spin out a stock of Indiana yarns." So droll were they that years afterward men who listened to Lincoln that day repeated them to their friends. He had made a hit in New Salem, to start with, and here, as in Sangamon town, it was by means ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... philosopher is the last sort of animal I should choose to resemble. I find it enough to live, without spinning lies to account for life. Fowls cackle, asses bray, women chatter, and philosophers spin false reasons—that's the effect the sight of the world brings out of them. Well, I am an animal that paints instead of cackling, or braying, or spinning lies. And now, I think, our business is done; you'll keep to your side of the bargain ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the night when he felt himself being dragged into a sitting posture. He remonstrated in a mumbling voice. "'S too early," he said. "Altogether too early. Early. Whew! Watch 'er spin. Jus' his job. Paid for it, ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... foot work made him a "good man on the round stuff" and in spite of his weight he had no trouble running around on the floating logs, even the small ones. It was said that Paul could spin a log till the bark came off and then run ashore on the bubbles. He once threw a peavy handle into the Mississippi at St. Louis and standing on it, poled up to Brainerd, Minnesota. Paul was a "white water bucko" and rode water so rough it would tear ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them, leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life was in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grind the axe, and hammer the nails into ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... salt, but not much because of their slender consumption, but if the gentry, upon whose woods and gleanings they live, and who employ them in day labour, and if the manufacturers, for whom they card and spin, are overburdened with duties, they cannot afford to give them so much for their labour and handiwork, nor to yield them those other reliefs which are their principal subsistence, for want of which these miserable wretches must perish ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... believe it," says Inger. But she had long had in her mind about a lamp for all that. They lit it the same evening, and were in paradise; little Eleseus he thought, no doubt, it was the sun. "Look how he stares all wondering like," said Isak. And now Inger could spin of an ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... took a pleasure spin on the Sea of Marmora, with S.'s adjutant, and his motorboat. We passed the Sultan's palace and went to Skutari, where I made a short stop. Then we went to the Princes' Islands, where we landed at Princepu. Princepu is to Constantinople ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... wonders why! Father rises, bows politely - Mother smiles (but not too brightly) - Doctor mumbles like a dumb thing - Nurse is busy mixing something. - Every symptom tends to show You're decidedly DE TROP - Ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! he! ho! ho! Time's teetotum, If you spin it, Give its quotum Once a minute: I'll go bail You hit the nail, And if you fail The ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... dreaded ones That spin life's thread all-silently, Who can resist the singer's tones? Who from his magic set him free? With wand like that the gods bestow, He guides the heaving bosom's chords, He steeps it in the realms below, He bears it, wondering, heavenward, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... with the hair left on, and very comfortable—and smoke their pipes. This was the only time of the day when old Joe unbent. At first silent, he would presently shift his pipe to the corner of his mouth and spin them yarns of the early days, told with a queer, dry humour that kept his hearers in a simmer of laughter. It was always a matter of regret to poor "Captin" that he used to be the one to end the telling, since no story on earth could keep him, after a while, from nodding off to sleep. He ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... and all they admitted that Jack was imperiling his hold on the girl in question if he allowed her to stay near this red-headed fiend. But one and all they swore that Jack Landis had ruined himself with her by taking her away. And this was a paradox which made masculine heads in The Corner spin. The main point was that Jack Landis had backed down before a rival; and this fact was stunning enough. Donnegan, however, was not confused. He sent big George to ask Milligan to come to him ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... the soul is the gift of God, out of whose eternal law it blossoms and has therein its ever living roots, its air and light, its inherent grace and sweetness: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" Such is the normal development of all imagery; its actuality limits ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... spin him a yarn about great bonanzas in Yukon, which he had discovered. It was to have been a hard-luck tale of claims which had been stolen, and claims which had been jumped, and claims which had been given away for a few pounds of flour or slices of bacon in crises of starvation; but in ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... visits to Chartley Castle, Sidney became more and more in love with the little Penelope; but when he declared his passion, she held him off, like the coquette that she was, while she took pains to spin the web of her fascination ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... was prone to spin her sentences without a sure guidance, and beyond the sympathy of her reader. But in discourse, she was quick, conscious of power, in perfect tune with her company, and would pause and turn the stream with grace and adroitness, and with so much spirit, that her face beamed, and the ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... soon as the latter is hatched, it is placed on mulberry-leaves, and for five weeks it does nothing but eat, in that time consuming many times its weight of food.[33] Then it begins to spin the material that forms its chrysalis case or cocoon. The outer part of the case consists of a tough envelope not unlike coarse tissue-paper; the inner part is a fine thread about one thousand feet long that has been wound around the body of the worm. This thread or ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... friends whom he had fondled and tended with such constant care. Never again to swing along through the sweet freshness of the morning before the sun was up to find the earliest snowdrops for Mrs. Hawthorne, or take a spin in the moonlight with every nerve a-tingle across the frozen bosom of the lake, or wander in delight along the wood roads when every tree was clad in the witching beauty of a silver thaw, or sweep across the wide stretching country in the ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... outside Germany as well as within. Only by operating this machine, continuously and at full blast, could she find occupation at home for her increasing population and the means of purchasing their subsistence from abroad. The German machine was like a top which to maintain its equilibrium must spin ever faster and faster. ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... "despised, and which are, indeed, but too often made the subject of wanton sport by many persons, who amuse their children by passing a pin through the bottom of their abdomen, in order to excite pain and long-suffering in the insect, and thus making them spin, as they ignorantly term it," has the following most humane and benevolent observations:—"Many of these cruel sports might undoubtedly be effectively checked, if the teachers of schools were occasionally to exhibit to their pupils, under the microscope, the various parts of an insect ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... been used to spin when in Scotland, having taken a fancy to the thing. But, not all the wishes in the world could produce a spinning wheel, so I kept my desires secret until I saw some hope of accomplishment. Every day each person had to bring in their quota of discoveries and ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... sheep, who gave us wool, which my mother spun, and wove it into cloth. Just think of that! Do you imagine you would have as fine clothes, if your mothers had to spin all the cloth? She knit, too, O, so fast! as well in the dark as the light. I have known her to knit a coarse stocking easily of an evening—her fingers flew along the needles! Cotton cloth was a great rarity among us. I remember ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... father couldna work, and my mother couldna spin; I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win; Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, and wi' tears in his e'e Said, Jennie, for ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... splendid one after all—a little hot, perhaps, but the ground was in grand order, and hosts of people would be sure to turn up. My race yoke-fellow and I went out quite early for a final spin over the course, and found one or two of the more diligent of our schoolfellows taking a similar advantage of the "lie-abeds." Of course, as we were of opinion that the three-legged race was the ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... is very bumpy and ends in a big drift; not half so nice as this one. Hop on and we'll have a good spin across the pond;" and Jack brought "Thunderbolt" round with a skilful swing and an engaging air that would have won obedience from ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Rovers saw the boat ahead spin around and the two men leap to their feet in alarm. But then the craft steadied itself, and a moment later shot into the shadows of the trees beside ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... Commodore," nodded one of the newspaper men, good-humoredly. "You're all right. Go ahead and spin your yarn in your ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... diligence," "Die to the world," "Present your bodies a living sacrifice"—and you would not make these final renunciations. You "turned back to seek the beautiful things of the eye." Well, if one is only wise enough to know what the really beautiful things are, it is as good a way as any to spin up to God. Meanwhile, I doubt if that "Western ideal," the kind-hearted naturalism which "makes a fetish of our neighbour's welfare," will hold you long. Already you "see one door" of escape. I wonder into what starry desert of heaven ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... evidently began the novel in no very strenuous frame of mind. He wished to profit by the popular interest in tales of mysterious charlatanry which had been aroused by the exploits of Cagliostro. So he set out to spin a yarn in that vein, but he had no definite plan and did not himself know where he would bring up. The literary merits of 'The Ghostseer', Schiller's most noteworthy attempt in prose fiction, will come up for consideration in connection with the conclusion, or rather the continuation, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... rocks, waiting with uplifted ax. A shaggy, white demon, snapping his jaws, sprang like a dog. A sodden, thudding blow met him and he slunk away without a cry. Another rabid beast launched his white body at the giant. Like a flash the ax descended. In agony the wolf fell, to spin round and round, running on his hind legs, while his head and shoulders and forelegs remained in the snow. His ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... would not like it," her companion reminded. "He would be very angry if he came home and found that you had left Glen West. Why not take a spin on the lake this evening? You once were very fond of ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... original savage. She was required to play incessantly on the first reclaiming chord which led our ancestral satyr to the measures of the dance, the threading of the maze, and the setting conformably to his partner before it was accorded to him to spin her with both hands and a chirrup of his frisky heels. To keep him in awe and hold him enchained, there are things she must never do, dare never say, must not think. She must be cloistral. Now, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... screamed, the fence buckled, wrapped itself around the car, but did not break. Jason flew off the seat and into the padded dash. By the time Kerk had the warped door open, he realized that the ride was over. Kerk must have seen the spin of his eyeballs because he didn't talk, just pulled Jason out and threw him onto the hood of the ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... my boy," said he, "spin along, we'll show them how we can get over the ground, if we only ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... But to spin off this thread, which is already grown too long; what honour and request the ancient poetry has lived in, may not only be observed from the universal reception and use in all nations from China to Peru, from Scythia to Arabia, but ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... him," says Hobbie Elliot; "ye may think Elshie's but a lamiter, but I warrant ye, grippie for grippie, he'll gar the blue blood spin frae your nails—his hand's like a smith's vice."—Black Dwarf, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... appraise the effect of this startling proposition on me. At any other moment I should inevitably have broken loose again, but the fascination of his personality was upon me and I let him spin his webs. Any man, and there are scores adrift, who falls under the spell of Henry H. Rogers, invariably, as did the suitors of Circe, pays the penalty of his indiscretion. Some he uses and contemptuously casts aside useless; others he works, plays, and pensions; still others serve ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... revelation has been made known to me by a philosopher. Wisdom flowed from his mouth. All the spiders in their gray, self-woven nets, whispered and sang in his corridor, 'We weave at the fountain of life, we spin the web of time.' The little mice crept out from the corners, whispering, Hallelujah! Here lives the great philosopher Moses, who has devoured wisdom, and is unknowing of earthly vanities. Oh! the mice and the spiders waltz together upon the threshold of the great philosopher. Hey, ha! a waltz ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... touch of that blue-white radiance, stirred uneasily and half unfolded his wings. The movement caught the great, gleaming eyes of an immense brown hunting spider who chanced at that moment to be prowling down the underside of the roof. He was one of the kind that does not spin webs, but catches its prey by stealing up and pouncing upon it. He knew that a little bat, when young enough, was no stronger than a big butterfly, and its blood would be quite good enough to suck. Stealthily he crept down into the brightness of that narrow ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... recollect that it is not a book to be read with as much ease as its pleasant style may lead you to imagine. You spin through it as if it were a novel the first time you read it, and think you know all about it; the second time you read it you think you know rather less about it; and the third time, you are amazed to find how little you have really apprehended its vast scope and objects. I can positively say that ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... silk thread, and weaving it into cloths is, however, a fairly considerable industry amongst the Khyrwang and Nongtung villages of the Jaintia Hills. The Nongtungs and Khyrwangs rear their own Eri worms, and spin the silk from the cocoons. The late Mr. Stack, in his admirable note on silk in Assam, says, "Throughout the whole range of the southern hills, from the Mikir country, Eri thread is in great request for weaving those striped cloths, in which the mountaineers delight," but ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... placing the hoods of their orders upon dead bodies.] By such accumulations the blessings brought us in Christ, and the righteousness of faith have been obscured. [These are acute and strong arguments, all of which they can spin from the single word reward, whereby they obscure ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... "Spin a gun! Huh! Why don't yez get a job wid a dhrama that shows the West as it used to wasn't? I knowed wan iv thim gun twirlers wanst. He was a burrd pluggin' tomatty cans an' such—a fair wonder he was. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... moon, than Jupiter, Venus, Mars, This condensation of the universe, (nay here the only universe, Here the idea, all in this mystic handful wrapt;) These burin'd eyes, flashing to you to pass to future time, To launch and spin through space revolving sideling, from these to emanate, To ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... hourly men waved and perspired and rubbed against scratching posts, and daily and hourly the Willy-Willys whirled and spun and danced, and daily and hourly as they threatened to dance, and spin, and whirl through the house, the homestead sped across the enclosure to slam doors and windows in their faces, thus saving our belongings from their whirling, dusty ravages; and when nimbler feet were absent it was no uncommon ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... always of a social nature, and never either solitary or useful in their tendencies; of this character was every thing he engaged in. He would not make a ship of water flaggons by himself, nor sail it by himself—he would not spin a top, nor trundle a hoop without a companion—if sent upon a message, or to dig a basket of potatoes in the field, he would rather purchase the society of a companion with all the toys or playthings he possessed than do either alone. ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... yarn has always been in their hands from time immemorial. And they tend our modern machinery as deftly as of old they twirled the distaff and worked the spinning-wheel; and as steadily as they used to trudge the rope walks and spin, like spiders, from the masses of flax or hemp at ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... bag or with his eyes shut. Two bodies may, however, be alike in weight and outward appearance and yet behave differently when otherwise mechanically tested, and, consequently, when they are handled. For example, take two eggs, one raw and the other hard boiled, and spin them on the table; press the finger for a moment upon either of them whilst it is still spinning: if it be the hard-boiled egg it will stop as dead as a stone: if it be the raw egg, after a little ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... sigh? No smile? Is all forgot? Then spin my shroud out of that golden skein Thou callst thy tresses! I shall stay thee not— My struggles ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... all the activity and clearness of mind and gayety of spirits of a young man. How delightful it is to see such intellectual and joyous old age: to see life running out clear and sparkling to the last drop! With such a blessed temperament one would be content to linger and spin out the last thread ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... slogan, and the translation of the slogan into terms of Nesbitese was found in a rather elaborate plan to legalize the issuance of bonds by the coal and oil towns adjacent to Harvey, so that Daniel Sands could spin out his web of iron and copper and steel,—rails and wires and pipes into these huddles of shanties that he might sell them light and heat and power and communication ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... on the eve of visiting foreign parts; a ship of war is commissioned by its Royal Master to carry the Author of Waverley to climates in which he may possibly obtain such a restoration of health as may serve him to spin his thread to an end in his own country. Had he continued to prosecute his usual literary labours, it seems indeed probable, that at the term of years he has already attained, the bowl, to use the pathetic language of Scripture, would have been broken at the fountain; ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... whirl, revolve, rotate, turn, gyrate, spin, trundle, circumgyrate; inwrap, infold, convolve; wallow, welter; rock, sway, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... them did not care about sending their children to school. They did not think that reading or writing was of much use; but thought that it was far better for boys to learn to be good soldiers, and for girls to learn to spin ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... time there was a lazy maiden who would not spin, and, let her mother say what she would, she could not make her do it. At last, the mother, in a fit of impatience, gave her a blow which made the girl ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... with ease by a spider can scarcely offer insuperable difficulty to the chief of the vertebrates. Of course, each man's production will be more or less guided and limited by his capacity.—Thus, fat men will spin forth cathedrals, opera-houses and railway stations. Thin men will devote themselves to obelisks, church spires, factory chimneys, and artistic bric-a-brac. Short men will willingly produce artisans' dwellings, busts of famous men ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... Burgdale, and the way is long. Yet would I have thee see my children. Forget not the token on my hand which thou holdest. But now get thee to thy folk with no more words; for after all, playmate, the sundering is grievous to me, and I would not spin ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... rhyme, and huff And fret these Muses with their playhouse stuff? The player in mimic piety may storm, Deplore the Comb, and bid her heroes arm: The arbitrary mob, in paltry rage, May curse the belles and chintzes of the age: Yet still the artist worm her silk shall share, And spin her thread of life in service of the fair. The cotton plant, whom satire cannot blast, Shall bloom the favourite of these realms, and last; Like yours, ye fair, her fame from censure grows, Prevails ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... appetites, have the goody sort! By the poker! they sell their sermons dearer than we sell the rarest and realest thing on earth—pleasure.—And they can spin a yarn! There, I know them. I have seen plenty in my mother's house. They think everything is allowable for the Church and for—Really, my dear love, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—for you are not so open-handed! You ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... current was seizing them in its remorseless grip; and the overloaded boat began to spin down-stream, turning around and around in ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... evidence of the spontaneousness of growth. The first is Science. And the argument here could not be summed up better than in the words of Jesus. The lilies grow, He says, of themselves; they toil not, neither do they spin. They grow, that is, automatically, spontaneously, without trying, without fretting, without thinking. Applied in any direction, to plant, to animal, to the body or to the soul this law holds. A boy grows, for example, without ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... on the ground, hold his tail in his mouth, and fumble head over heels, or roll over and over, or spin round and round—just for fun! In fact, the black bear is among the few grown-up animals that love to play. Many young animals of course, such as kittens, puppy dogs, calves, and many others, love to play. But most grown-up animals do not seem ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... New Mexico, or at least some of them, still manufacture earthen vessels, and spin and weave cotton fabrics in the aboriginal manner, and live in houses of the ancient model. Some of them, as the Mokis and Lagunas, are organized in gentes, and governed by a council of chiefs, each village being independent ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... sunset colours grew fainter, and the moon's silver brightened, the passengers became quieter. The Piper went below and listened to the Ancient Mariner spin a yarn, and let the birds along the shore furnish music. The babies fell asleep in the arms of Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, lovers drifted away in pairs to retired nooks. In a quiet corner J. P. Thornton and Lawyer Ed ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... family. The journeyman shoemaker dropped in and fitted out the family with boots. The great city industries were then unknown. The farmer's wife in those days was perhaps the most expert master of trades ever known. She could spin and weave, make a carpet or a rug, dye yarns and clothes, and make a straw hat or a birch broom. Butter, cheese, and maple sugar were products of her skill, as well as bread, soap, canned fruits, and home-made wine. In those days the farm was a miniature factory or combination ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James
... patient, as the phrase is, for all he was worth Unrelieved realism is apt to give a false impression Warm up to the doctor when the judgment Day heaves in view Yankee ingenuity,—he "could do anything but spin," ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... overprize their works, if their God should not sometimes deal in this manner with them. (3.) It is also to the advantage of the righteous, that they be kept and led in that way which will best improve grace already received, and that is, when they spin it out and use it to the utmost; when they do with it as the prophet did with that meal's meat that he ate under the juniper-tree, 'he went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights, even to the mount of God' (1 Kings 19:8). Or when they ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he's keepin' company with her, by the looks. I got as nigh to 'em as I could, but I didn't hear much they said. Only, just as they was goin' out, he said somethin' about goin' for a little spin in the car. She said no, her father would want his letters. Carver, he said, why not send Oscar home—that's the chauffeur, you know—with the letters, and he'd run the car himself. She kind of laughed, and said she guessed not, she'd taken one trip with him already that ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sometimes, when he had said good-bye to her after a luncheon or tea together, he would turn his car southward and find himself driving down the avenue to Washington square and the old house on the south side, to invite Marcia Terroll for a spin beside him. And sometimes he would call her on the telephone and they would meet for ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... our narrative, "there lived at Smyrna a man named Phemius, a teacher of literature and music, who, not being married, engaged Critheis to manage his household, and spin the flax he received as the price of his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her son, who, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... only one means of stopping the spin. That was to use the tubes of rocket fuel left over from correcting the course. They had three tubes left, but he didn't know if that was ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... voce," to spin the voice from a tiny little thread into a breadth of sound and then diminish again, is one of the most beautiful ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... pay for their burial; so I have been left alone and without means. But since you are kind enough to receive me, I shall repay you for your hospitality. I have been taught the work of women, although my condition did not oblige me to perform it. I can spin and weave linen with thread of various colours; I can imitate flowers and embroider ornaments on stuffs; I can even, when you are tired by your work and overcome by the heat of the day, delight you ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... out of water; handy enough for beaching, but not to be taken through breakers, by reason of its sitting low in the stern. O'Hara, as I yelled at him, pulled his starboard paddle and brought her (for these prams spin round easily) almost broadside on to a tall comber. As we slid up the side of it and hung there, I had a glimpse of a steep clean fissure straight through the wall of rock ahead; and in that instant O'Hara sprawled his arms and toppled overboard. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Bay of Biscay Oh!" and "Here a sheer hulk lies poor Torn Bowling!" "Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer!" who, when ashore, at an eating-house, call for a bowl of tar and a biscuit. These are the fellows who spin interminable yarns about Decatur, Hull, and Bainbridge; and carry about their persons bits of "Old Ironsides," as Catholics do the wood of the true cross. These are the fellows that some officers never pretend to damn, however much they may anathematize ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... funeral pyre, will there not be sparks flying? Alas! some millions of men have been sucked into that high eddying flame, and like moths consumed. In the burning of the world-Phoenix, destruction and creation proceed together; and as the ashes of the old are blown about do new forces mysteriously spin themselves, and melodious death-songs are succeeded by ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... last; or simply as a prisoner toiling at the treadmill because you must: the well in the garden is a pleasanter conception than all these and wholesomer. Foster it while you may. Now that India has wakened up and begun to spin after the rest of the great world down the ringing grooves of change, these tints of dawn will soon fade away, and in the light of noon the instructed Aryan will learn to see and deplore the monstrous inequalities in the distribution of wealth. ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... Messiter's daily custom either to take a ride on her pony or a spin in her motor car, but since Bannister had been quartered at the Lazy D her time had been so fully occupied that she had given this up for the present. The arrival of Nora Darling, however, took so much work off her hands that she began to continue ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... said to have been in times past a very large monastery with many houses for teachers and scholars within its walls. Nothing of all that is to be seen now except the ruins of a splendid gate and a dry cistern in which the Jews spin, throw, and prepare silk. In front of the church there is a large court surrounded by a covered passage (porticus), which is adorned with beautiful figures from the Old and New Testaments painted on gilded quadrangular glass cubes with Greek inscriptions; ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... difficult to spin and weave unless some softening material such as wax or resin is rubbed lightly over them. The matter added to facilitate spinning and weaving generally detracts from the appearance of the uncolored fabric, and also interferes with successful dyeing. Thus it is easy ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... music was at its height, And the waltz was wildest—behold, a sight! The stilts began to hop and twirl Like the saucy feet of a ballet-girl. And their haughty owner, through the air, Was spin, spin, spinning everywhere. Everybody got out of the way To give the dangerous stilts fair play. In every corner, at every door, With faces looking like unfilled blanks, They watched the stilts at their airy pranks, Giving them, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... work. Abundantly supplied with every article of convenience from Europe, and prejudiced in their favour because from thence, we make but little use of the raw materials Sumatra affords. We do not spin its cotton; we do not rear its silkworms; we do not smelt its metals; we do not even hew its stone: neglecting these, it is in vain we exhibit to the people, for their improvement in the arts, our rich brocades, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... its wiry stem, Its fringed border nicely spin, And cut the gold-embossed gem, That, set ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... when he was at home; once in two weeks—sometimes seldomer—never oftener—the small flat was turned inside out and upside down. He filled it with noise and merriment. If a theater party were not on hand, it was a spin out to Forest park behind a fast team, closing with a wine supper at a road-side restaurant. Or a card party would be hastily gathered to which such neighbors as were congenial were bid in hot haste; deficiencies being supplied from his ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... that deep canon set his thoughts to whirling like drink-maddened bacchanals dancing round a punch-bowl. "That woman!" he exclaimed suddenly. "What asses they make of us men! And all these vultures—I'm not carrion yet. But THEY soon will be!" And he laughed and his thoughts began their crazy spin again. ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... the Severn. The advantages of position led to the erection of large manufacturing establishments on the spot. Steam has been brought to aid the Stour, whose waters are pounded back to create a capital of force to turn great wheels that spin, and weave, and grind; whilst iron works, vinegar works, and tan works, upon a large scale, have also sprung into existence. On the opposite bank of the Severn, about three-quarters of a mile from Stourport, is Arley Kings, or ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... seemed to be everywhere on automobiles, even outnumbering the yellow of Ontario. One had the impression that every American motor-owner within gasolene radius had decided that he would take his Sunday spin to Niagara Falls, and on to the Canadian side of the Falls ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... on a terrace at St. Cloud, spinning around like a dancing dervish. She, with her partner, danced down the whole wedding party; even the untiring street piano gave up, and their last spin was taken without music. The good-natured revelers applauded loudly; and some of them congratulated her on her powers of endurance; and the flattered bon pere declared that in his youth he had been able to dance down three charming partners ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... grumbled Tom, "you can spin along without any trouble with country constables, and ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson |
