"Spinning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which might be seen a large meadow: out of it grew lovely flowers, and in the center stood a castle built of gold. It was the home of Dede-Vsevede. So brilliant with light was it that it seemed to be built of fire. When he entered there was no one there but an old woman spinning. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... with a Bridport Dagger" was a polite way of breaking the news that your acquaintance had been hung! Leland was quite deceived by this old joke, probably ancient in his time—the sixteenth century, and refers to the dagger industry in perfect good faith. The arms of the town are three spinning hooks behind a castle; this proves that the industry is no modern one and until lately hemp was one of the staple products of ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... for five months?" "Certainly, nothing that I can think of," was the reply of my sister, whose scepticism, in fact, had not settled upon the five months, but altogether upon the five minutes. The apparatus for spinning him, however, perhaps from its complexity, would not work—a fact evidently owing to the stupidity of the gardener. On reconsidering the subject, he announced, to the disappointment of some amongst us, that, although ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... diplomatic comedies she played with the successive candidates for her hand. If political necessities made her life a lonely one, she had at any rate the satisfaction of averting war and conspiracies by love sonnets and romantic interviews, or of gaining a year of tranquillity by the dexterous spinning ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... butler was sent for a hansom cab, and Sarrasin and his wife were soon spinning on their way to St. James's Park. They had ample time to get there before the appointed moment, and nothing would be done until the appointed moment came. They drove to St. James's Park, and they dismissed their cab and made quickly ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... The lock gave way; the chest of drawers went spinning to the other side of the room, and Lumley tumbled over Spooner as both fell ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... Manufactories there were not as yet; Lawrence and Lowell. Pittsburg, and the great industrial New York towns, were still in the womb of the future. In almost every household throughout the land the old-fashioned spinning- wheel was humming under the pressure of matronly and maidenly feet, by which the homespun garments of the time were made. While the less well- to-do and laboring classes were content with clothing spun and knitted at their own firesides, the wealthier people arrayed ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... followed up the advantage I had gained with the law maxim, "Non minus ex dolo quam ex culpa quisque hac lege tenetur," which I found afterward was the wrong Latin, but it had its desired effect, so that the jury did not agree, and Carlo escaped with his life; and on the way home he went spinning round like a top, and punctuating his glee with a semicolon made by both paws on ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... gods and heroes to submit to all sorts of odd tests and means. Jupiter himself took the form of a bull to carry off Europa, and swam across the sea with her upon his back to the island of Crete. Hercules, dressed as a woman, sat spinning meekly at Omphale's feet. Even Aristotle went upon all fours that his mistress might ride on his back. What wonder then that our youthful baron thought that nothing could be too difficult or repulsive in the service ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... practical discretion, she contrived that Diana should give him a final dance; and the beautiful gill smiled quickly responsive to his appeal. He was, moreover, sensible in her look and speech that he had advanced in her consideration to be no longer the mere spinning stick, a young lady's partner. By which he humbly understood that her friend approved him. A gentle delirium enfolded his brain. A householder's life is often begun on eight hundred a year: on less: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... together the edges of a rent in an old and magnificent gold-embroidered bed-curtain. "Have you finished your spinning, daughter?" ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... sir, I've benefited enormously. I'm a new man and ready for anything—even the worst." How little did he dream that at that very moment Lachesis was spinning ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... who are trying to cure the world's evils and to still the world's wants, and are leaving Jesus Christ and His religion out of their programme, would take thought and ask themselves whether there is not something more in the hunger of humanity than their ovens can ever bake bread for! They are spinning ropes of sand, if they are trying to lift the world clear of its miseries and of its hunger, and are not presenting Jesus Christ. I hope I am no bigot; I know that I sympathise earnestly with all these other schemes for helping mankind, but this I am bound ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... calm area. They came back, frost-bitten, swearing that there was a drop of eighty degrees beyond the calm area, and a rise of temperature beyond the cold belt. The tripod-spinner was a different application of the principle of the cooking-pot. Somehow the spinning thing made an area that heat could enter but not leave, and wind could not blow through. If the device could be reversed, deserts would become temperate zones. As it was, the Arctic and Antarctic could be made to bloom. The gadget was ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... have some knowledge of spinning, as they would take a horse hair and seemingly wrap it with wool before placing it ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... by a horse and a mule. In the carriage he had, among other things, a parrot-cage which contained a screaming parrot, several pairs of ladies' shoes, a few yards of calico, the stock of an old musket, part of a spinning-wheel, and a box of garden seeds. In what way these things would contribute to the support of the army, it ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... has been successfully cultivated in this State for domestic use, and some for exportation. Two or three spinning factories are in operation, and produce cotton yarn from the growth of the country with promising success. This branch of business admits of enlargement, and invites the attention of eastern manufacturers with small ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... all are satisfied, about the fire They draw their seats, and form a cheerful ring. The thrifty housewife turns her spinning wheel; The husband, useful even in his rest, A little basket weaves of willow twigs, To bear her eggs to town on market days; And work but serves t'enliven conversation. Some idle neighbours now come straggling in, Draw round their chairs, ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... checked, but next Ella impetuously tore off her wraps for the convenience of spinning up and down wildly about the kitchen and parlour. Leonard himself did not seem to have great part in her joy; Henry's policy had really nearly rooted out the thought of him personally, and there was a veil of confusion over the painful period of ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... down upon the floor, leaned against the wall, and bent down his thought-laden brow towards his breast. The light of the moon fell on his bald pate, and Gerwazy drew upon it various patterns with his finger; it was evident that he was spinning warlike plans for future expeditions. His heavy lids were more and more weighed down; his head nodded on his powerless neck; he felt that sleep was overcoming him, and began according to his wont his evening prayers. But between the Pater Noster and ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... a shaft?" asked Toady, as Susie sent another pebble spinning after the first and counted rapidly until ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... arrival. These black people were "servants" and some of them were the friends and confidants of their master and his household. Phil paused in front of a cottage. The yard flamed with autumn flowers. Through the open door and windows came the hum of spinning wheels and the low, sweet singing of the dark spinners, spinning wool for the winter clothing of the estate. From the next door came the click and crash of the ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... I was aware that the room had two other occupants; for behind the door stood a truckle bed, and along the bed lay my father, pale as death and swathed in bandages; and by the foot of the bed, on a stool, with a spinning-wheel beside her, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... those countries; it would be interesting could these early corporation charters and monopoly grants be printed, for they are not usually found in the statutes of the realm. In 1605 stage players are forbidden from swearing on the stage. In 1606 is an elaborate act for the regulation of the spinning, weaving, dyeing, and width of woollen cloth, and the same year is an act for "repressinge the odious and loathsome synne of Drunckennes," imposing a penalty or fine and the stocks. In 1609 an act of Edward IV is revived, forbidding the sale of English horns unwrought, that people of strange lands ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... which is, like farm-work, perhaps the most varied and most salutary as well as most venerable of all schools for the youthful body and mind. They undertook extensive works of embroidery, bed-quilting, knitting, sewing, mending, if not cleaning, and even spinning and weaving their own or others' clothing, and cared for the younger children. The wealthier devised or imposed tasks for will-culture, as the German Kaiser has his children taught a trade as part of their education. Ten days at the hoe-handle, axe, or pitchfork, said an eminent educator lately ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... on musical instruments at the state banquets of the court, they accompanied their master to the battle-field or the chase, and probably performed the various inferior domestic duties in the interior of the harem, such as spinning, weaving, making perfumes, and attending to the confectionery and cooking. Each of the king's wives had her own separate suite of apartments and special attendants, and occupied a much higher position than a mere concubine; but only one was ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... far wrong about Miss de Frey and Courtenay Youghal, was I?" he chirruped, almost before he had seated himself. Francesca was to be spared any further spinning-out of her period of uncertainty. "Yes, it's officially given out," he went on, "and it's to appear in the Morning Post to-morrow. I heard it from Colonel Deel this morning, and he had it direct from Youghal himself. Yes, please, one lump; I'm not fashionable, you see." He had made the same remark ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... may mention to you that Muller of Dresden (Messrs. Meser) will shortly publish two transcriptions by me,—the "Spinning Song" ("Dutchman"), and "Santo Spirito Cavaliere" ("Rienzi"). I shall not talk to you about my coming to Paris until I am able to tell you the exact date; it will be ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... inveterate opponents to emigration could not but approve of and seek a blessing on such a change. Where in all England could we have found, in a few weeks, hearts and homes for forty adoptions? These families are thrifty and homely—spinning, weaving, knitting, knowing what small means with a blessing can do, and are the very people to train up our children for a common-sense battle with ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... Quarterly, as brief chroniclers of the times. Instead of this, here are Johnny Keats's * * poetry, and three novels by God knows whom, except that there is Peg * * *'s name to one of them—a spinster whom I thought we had sent back to her spinning. Crayon is very good; Hogg's Tales rough, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... foot right through it," said Gypsy, disconsolately. "It was hanging on a chair, and I just stepped in it and started to run, and down I went,—and here's the skirt. I was running after the cat. I'd put her under my best hat, and she was spinning down stairs. You never saw anything so funny! I'm always doing such things,—I mean like the skirt. I do ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... round the fire spinning yarns, as the sailors say, and singing songs. We were speaking of the necessity of trying to get some more fresh fish, as our stock was nearly exhausted, and Mike had told the party how successful we had been till our hooks were ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... to start the proceedings by spinning, at considerably greater length, the yarn which I had related to the Admiral earlier in the day, and which I was now able to supplement with the additional information that our 2nd Division had chased the Russian destroyer, of which they had started in pursuit, into ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... tools—shears, goose, and bodkin—are clear enough, and I was told that the figures on the stone in the lower left-hand corner (No. 3) are locally recognized as the shuttle and some other requisite of the weaver's trade. Inverness had spinning and weaving for its staple industries when Pennant visited the place in 1759. Its exports of cordage and sacking were considerable, and (says Pennant) "the linen manufacture saves the town above L3000 a year, which used to ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... girl seated herself on the horse, and rode a wearisome long way onward again, and after a very long time she came to a great mountain, where an aged woman was sitting, spinning at a golden spinning-wheel. Of this woman, too, she inquired if she knew the way to the Prince, and where to find the castle which lay east of the sun and west of the moon. But it was only the same thing once again. "Maybe ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... your daughter go now, how is Bastien here to account for his prisoner in the morning? He knows that one day he will have to stand on the little trap-door in the scaffold floor at Regina, and that he will twirl round and round so—like to that so"—picking up a hobble chain and spinning it round with his hand—"while his eyes will stick out of his head like the eyes of a flat-fish; but at the same time he does not want to be shot by order of Riel or Gabriel Dumont to-morrow for losing ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... ground, the plane tended to waver. The air was distinctly bumpy. To push a massive box out a doorway, so it would tumble down a thousand feet to desert sands, was not so safe a matter as would let it become tedious. But Joe helped. They got the box to the door and shoved it out. It went spinning down. The co-pilot hung onto the doorframe and watched it land. He chose another box. He checked it. And another. Joe helped. They got them out of the door and dropping dizzily through emptiness. The plane soared on in circles. The desert, as seen through the opened clamshell ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... thought, intelligent thought, seemed collapsing, and my brain spinning round and ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... accomplish this we propose that a big teaching wigwam should be built at Garden River where our sons may be taught to carpenter and make boots and other such things as are useful, and where our daughters may learn needlework and knitting and spinning. This is the desire of my heart, this is the cause for which I have come to plead. We Indians are too poor to help ourselves, and so we look to you white people who now occupy our hunting grounds to help us. We know that our great Mother Queen Victoria, ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... the usual slow and somewhat shambling pace which the Lancashire rustic assumes at times of leisure—pausing every now and then to emphasise the point of some remark, switching at the hedge with their sticks, playfully kicking up the dust, or sending a tempting pebble spinning along in front of them—faint notes of music reached them, coming apparently from the direction towards which they were bending their steps. These notes were feeble and faltering, as though the player were practising an unfamiliar air; in another moment ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... was in his own berth, winding up the chronometers, when the shock sent him spinning. Immediately it occurred to him—as he said afterwards—that the ship had struck something, and he ran out into the cabin. There, he saw, the cabin-table had vanished somewhere. The deck being blown up, it had fallen down ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... never noticed into how many different shapes harlequin and columbine change their little white hats? They turn and twist them so well that they become, one after another, a spinning-top, a boat, a wine-glass, a half-moon, a cap, a basket, a fish, a whip, a dagger, a baby, and a ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... were at once recognized and seated—the two boys still continuing their play about the room. "Tad" was spinning his top; and Lincoln, as we entered, had just finished adjusting the string for him so as to give the top the greatest degree of force. He remarked that he was having a little fun with ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... and chemical tests as used throughout the whole of the textile industry, so that not only the commercial and textile chemist, who has frequently to reply to questions on these matters, but also the practical manufacturer of textiles and his subordinates, whether in spinning, weaving, dyeing, and finishing, are catered for.... The book is profusely illustrated, and the subjects of these illustrations ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... for Struve and his enemy to become entangled in the net he was spinning. He made no pretense of fellowship with Fraser; nor, on the other hand, did he actively set himself against him with the men. He was ready enough to sneer when Dick France grew enthusiastic ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... So does everybody," said Madeline, oracularly, clearing a place on the polished tea-table and emptying out the miniature tops. "They renew your youth. Let's get all these things to spinning at once, Betty." ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... with a long sigh of pleasure; "that's the Sleeping Beauty, sure enough. There's the blue gown, the white fur-cloak sweeping round, the pretty hair, and—yes—there's the old nurse, spinning and nodding, just as she did in the picture-book mother got me when I cried because I couldn't ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... woman was seated spinning. Near her sat a young girl of much lighter complexion, with remarkably pretty features, engaged in working on some pieces of female finery. She rose as he entered, and the old woman ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... we can play steamboat!" cried Ted, getting quickly over his disappointment about a possible gun. "A spinning wheel is just the thing to steer a ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... is too sincere to play with ideas for their own sake. He takes no pleasure in the mere spinning of gossamer webs for display. All his beliefs are practical. They are geared into his life. By them he lives or dies, stands or falls for this world and for all time to come. From the ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... shake apiece, foiling all Clifford's rebellious attempts to dodge around him and embrace Gethryn. But Rex was lying back by this time, tired out, and he was glad when Braith closed the studio door. It flew open the next minute and an envelope came spinning ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... writhe free from Carey's iron grip. Lazarre, with a snarl like a wolf, sent Mrs. Joe spinning, and rushed at Paul. Carey struck out as best he could, and Lazarre went reeling back against the table. It went over with a crash and the light ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... get de cloth out de store to make us clothes. Den after de old head died, old Missus commence to buy cloth from somebody in de country cause people weave dey cloth right dere on dey own plantation in dat day en time. Had dese here loom en spinning wheel. I remembers old Missus would take out big bolt of cloth en cut out us garments wid her own hands. Den she would call us dere en make us try dem on en mine wouldn' never be nothin troublesome nowhe' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... and her friend were employed from the morning till the evening in spinning cotton for the use of their families. Destitute of all those things which their own industry could not supply, they walked about their habitations with their feet bare, and shoes were a convenience reserved for Sunday, when, at an ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... considered only the problems of offense and defense. As the governments of the world became more stable, as they developed, they still centered about war, offense and defense.... Woman still is the mother of the race but what of the home? It has become socialized and the spinning wheel is in the attic and millions of women are standing at the great looms of this country. The women are in the shops, the factories, the offices, everywhere that modern industrialism is extending itself. The school has been socialized and the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... a lot more'n father puts in. Look how I greased the handles! It works like butter now," and the boy sent the handles spinning round with a jerk to ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... to show in that parlor. He had gyroscopes: and he would wind them up and set half-a-dozen of those anti-natural tops spinning straight out in the air for my diversion. There were great sacks of uninflated balloons, and delicate sheet-rubber, from which Sorel made up balloons. There were other curious things in rubber,—a tobacco-pouch, for ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... dragged in many a 'grey one'. From the bottom of the boat Eric picked up one of the hooks and passed it to me; it was of wrought iron, half an inch thick, with a point of cast steel. But the spinning joint was almost chewed through and the hook shaft bitten and gnawed—the 'grey one' had fought ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... aimlessly at her mother with her pitch-black eyes. Answering the English nurse that she was quite well, and that she was going to the country tomorrow, Anna sat down by the little girl and began spinning the cork to show her. But the child's loud, ringing laugh, and the motion of her eyebrows, recalled Vronsky so vividly that she got up hurriedly, restraining her sobs, and went away. "Can it be all over? No, it cannot be!" she thought. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... manufactures are much improved, and the manufactories in that line are daily increasing in number and perfection. A new spinning-machine has produced here, I am told, 160,000 ells in length out of a pound of cotton. The fly-shuttle is now introduced into most of the manufactories in this country, and 25 pieces of narrow goods are thus made at once by a single workman. In adopting ARKWRIGHT'S system, the French ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... portal are the work of Ralph Stackpole. He is most fortunate in his treatment of the industrial types. The relief panel in the tympanum represents the industries of Spinning, Building, Agriculture, Manual ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... as he rested his wheel against the gate and turned back, "that would have been a rough joke on me if I'd gone spinning off and only remembered after I'd almost got there that I forgot to take the package of medicine out of dad's little runabout. So much for having my brain full of that wonderful scheme ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... great age and the golden age when still the cycle ran On upward curve and easily, for them both maid and man And beast and tree and spirit in the green earth could thrive. But now one age is ending, and God calls home the stars And looses the wheel of the ages and sends it spinning back Amid the death of nations, and points a downward track, And madness is come over us and great and little wars. He has not left one valley, one isle of fresh and green Where old friends could forgather amid the howling wreck. It's vainly we are praying. We cannot, cannot ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... at spang cockle, my lord?" said the Prince, placing a nut on the second joint of his forefinger, and spinning it off by a smart application of the thumb. The nut struck on Douglas's broad breast, who burst out into a dreadful exclamation of wrath, inarticulate, but resembling the growl of a lion in depth and ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... their carefully cooked food, and wore robes of silk. Ballads were sung, and dances were performed, on ceremonial and festive occasions; hunting and fishing and agriculture were occupations for the men, while the women employed themselves in spinning and weaving. There were casters of bronze vessels, and workers in gold, silver, and iron; jade and other stones were cut and polished for ornaments. The written language was already highly developed, being much the same as we now find it. Indeed, ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... the Hardt mountains there dwelt a giant whose fortress commanded a wide view of the surrounding country. Near by, a lovely lady, as daring in the hunt as she was skilful at spinning, inhabited an abandoned castle. One day the twain chanced to meet, and the giant thereupon resolved to possess ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... be known by its smaller size. He is more common and less dignified than the gray, and oftener guilty of petty larceny about the barns and grain-fields. He is most abundant in old bark-peelings, and low, dilapidated hemlocks, from which he makes excursions to the fields and orchards, spinning along the tops of the fences, which afford, not only convenient lines of communication, but a safe retreat if danger threatens. He loves to linger about the orchard; and, sitting upright on the topmost stone in the wall, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... just in time to see Smellie spinning the schooner's wheel hard over to port and lashing it there. Divining in an instant that he hoped by this manoeuvre to sheer the schooner alongside the brig, I seized the child I had brought up from below, dropped it into one of our own boats astern, and then stood by to make ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... came spinning through the heavy air toward him. He had run forward about five yards to get under it. He made the catch but slipped and fell as he started forward. As he got to his feet two Canton tacklers hit him. ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... possible that the Fairy Queen may have set the Princess spinning silk for the caterpillars to weave their little houses with this winter; and if she has, she may have left a letter there to tell me. If there is one, put it in your pocket, hold it close every step of the way, and you'll be safe coming ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... thirteenth century we have a triumph of this theological method in the great work of the English Franciscan Bartholomew on The Properties of Things. The theological method as applied to science consists largely in accepting tradition and in spinning arguments to fit it. In this field Bartholomew was a master. Having begun with the intent mainly to explain the allusions in Scripture to natural objects, he soon rises logically into a survey of all Nature. Discussing the "cockatrice" of Scripture, he tells us: "He ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... black-silk caps, short-waisted gowns and wooden shoes, whom she used to see watering long webs of linen bleaching on the grass, watching great flocks of geese, or driving pigs to market, knitting or spinning as they went. ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... snapped Smith, and grasping him by the shoulders, he sent him spinning along the hallway, where he sank upon the bottom step of the stairs, to sit with his outstretched fingers extended before his face, and peering at us ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... present condition of affairs. The spinning, weaving, and other home industries have been killed by the big factories, and the flax and wool have to be sold to raise a little ready money for the numerous new items of expenditure. Everything has to be bought—clothes, firewood, petroleum, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... the noise heard when, with one vigorous kick, the tray of glasses was sent spinning into the air, and the next moment the disputants were engaged in bloody battle. It was at this moment that our attention was first drawn towards them, and I need not say with what feelings of interest we ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... of the world we live in -not so much masses of facts as a comprehension of principles, insight into relations and tendencies. A man should be at home upon the earth; he should be able to call the stars by name, to realize something of the immensities by which this spinning planet is surrounded, and to see in every landscape a portion of the wrinkled, water-eroded surface of the globe. He should see this apparently solid sphere as a whirl of atoms, and come face to face with the old puzzles of matter and ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... form, bending humbly toward the earth, resembled the stem of a lily over-weighted with its blossom; the next, a branch of a tree flung upward by a tempest; the next, a column of autumn leaves caught up by a miniature whirlwind and sent spinning ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... advanced in the good graces of Walther. No other such industrious and skillful groom had appeared at Zillenstein in many a day, and he rapidly acquired dexterity also with the automobiles. None could send them spinning with more certainty along the curving mountain roads. He practiced with diligence because he had a vague premonition that all this knowledge would be of ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in such operations as pumping, wherein mere force is required. Soon, however, it vindicated its delicacy of touch in the industrial arts of spinning and weaving. It created vast manufacturing establishments, and supplied clothing for the world. It changed the ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... not only not hurt, but not frightened. Well do I remember how my mother placed baby on the pillows, drove out the strange cat, and then took up Muff, and petted and praised her till Muff's purr of pleasure was loud as the noise of a spinning-wheel. ...
— The Nursery, June 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... the absurdity of our ancestors' most cherished traditions and brought their idols beneath the iconoclastic hammer. In this general social and intellectual house-cleaning have we consigned virtue to the rubbish heap—or at best relegated it to the garret with the spinning-wheel, hand-loom and other out-of-date trumpery? Time was when a woman branded as a bawd hid her face for shame, or consorted only with her kind; now, if she can but become sufficiently notorious she goes upon the stage, and men take their ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... safe, so press and pamphlet indulged in wild generalities of debauchery and rapine. It must be confessed that Jefferson fared no better in the Federalist sheets. He was a huge and hideous spider, spinning in a web full of seduced citizens; he meditated a resort to arms, did he lose the election. As to his private vices, they saddled him with an entire harem, and ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... just after we had returned to our seats that the catastrophe occurred. There was no warning save a sudden lurch, the result, I suppose, of the pilot's futile last-minute attempt to swerve—just that and then a grinding crash and a terrible sensation of spinning, and after that a chorus of shrieks that were like the ...
— The Worlds of If • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... a number of books out, a cunning hand will keep them all spinning, as Signor Blitz does his dinner-plates; fetching each one up, as it begins to "wabble," by an advertisement, a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... mold!" Forepaugh cried. He rushed to his desk and took out his flash pistol, quickly set the localizer so as to cover a large area. When he turned he saw, to his horror, Gunga about to smash into the mold with his ax. He sent the man spinning with a blow to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... lord and husband! Wilt thou take A word of honest counsel from thy wife? I boast to be the noble Iberg's child, A man of wide experience. Many a time, As we sat spinning in the winter nights, My sisters and myself, the people's chiefs Were wont to gather round our father's hearth, To read the old imperial charters, and To hold sage converse on the country's weal. Then heedfully I listened, marking well What now the wise man thought, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... East had suddenly awakened and claimed her. With eyes half lowered she responded with easy familiarity to Page's talk of other lands. She said her father had traveled far and had spent many of their long winter evenings in spinning yarns of foreign countries for her enjoyment. She'd been brought up more regularly on pictures than she had food. Once they had copies of all the great paintings. Mother sold the last one to get money to pay the passage ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... face, and he studied the envelopes in his hand without reading a word of the address. Presently he raised his eyes and glanced at Hilda. She was holding a letter daintily between her two forefingers, cornerwise, and with little puffs of her pouted lips was spinning it round, evidently ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... A Magazine of Verse', and also co-editor, with Miss Monroe, of "The New Poetry", an anthology of modern English and American poets. She is the author of "Adam's Dream and Two Other Miracle Plays for Children" (in verse), and of a collection of poems called "The Spinning ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... and next morning made further inquiries into the matter. There was little more to be learnt, but I was told that farmers crossing the moors on their way home from Colne market had sometimes heard, among the rocks on the crest of the hills, the sound of a spinning-wheel; but others had laughed at this, and had said that what they had heard was only the cry of the nightjar among the bracken. It was also rumoured that on one occasion some boys from the village had made their way into a natural cavern ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... then, throw aside your top-knots of pride, Wear none but your own country linen; Of economy boast, let your pride be the most To show clothes of your own make and spinning; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Richard could endure hearing that hoarse vehemence from the lips of one whom he must wish to be gentle and unpassionate. But he was gazing at his mother trancedly and with slight movements of his hands and feet, as if she were dancing and he desired to join her in her spinning rhythm; and she, mad, changeable woman, shivered and pressed her fingers against her mouth to silence herself, and looked down on her skirt, drawling lazily: "Well, here I am, standing about in my outdoor clothes. If there's anything I hate, it's wearing outdoor clothes in the house. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... many sleep in one room, always under strict watch, being employed during the day at their respective trades, or going out in gangs to work in the fields connected with the establishment. Connected with this department is a considerable factory, with spinning-machines, weaving-frames, and dye vats; the whole of the clothes and blankets used in the gaol being made by the prisoners, as well as the blankets supplied by the Government to the natives. Adjoining are blacksmiths' ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... thing out, if left to himself; for he was of a most unsuspicious temper, and by no means quick of apprehension; but there was daily risk of his attention being aroused, by the cobwebs which his indefatigable wife was continually spinning about his nose. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... the spire, which, as well as the tower, is built of limestone, and surmounted by a cross, the distance from its apex to the ground being about 301 feet. We saw the weather vane fixed upon this spire, and how the man who did the job managed to keep his head from spinning right round, and then right off, was at the time an exciting mystery to us which we have not yet been able to properly solve. A little before the actual completion of the spire, we had a chance of ascending it, but we remained below. ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... on his way, and soon he passed by a cottage door where sat a woman spinning, and her ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... basking in the warmth of the fire, pricking up her ears, and turning her head from the children to Grandfather, and from Grandfather to the children as if she felt herself very sympathetic with them all. A loud purr, like the singing of a tea-kettle or the hum of a spinning-wheel, testified that she was as comfortable and happy as a cat could be. For puss had feasted; and therefore, like Grandfather and the children, ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... men go to bed early, they make up for it by rising early too; and if they are sleepy at night, they feel delightfully fresh in the morning. A brisk walk over the common sends the human barometer spinning upwards; they feel ready for any fun that comes in their way. And, alas! did not this same buoyancy of spirit not many years ago involve certain respectable oarsmen in a difference with the executive? Tacenda, indeed! Yet if a rabbit springs up out of the gorse, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... there is either a knife-grinder simple, or a devil with a knife-grinder's wheel. Of old it was the custom for the women to carry distaffs and to spin out thread as they went to and from the fields or along the roads (just as the women nowadays knit as they walk), and therefore a spinning-woman always is of the company. Because child-stealing was not uncommon here formerly, and because gypsies still are plentiful, there are three gypsies lurking about the inn all ready to steal the Christ-Child away. As the inn-keeper naturally would come out to investigate ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... East paused a moment after mounting, to turn up the collar of the rough shooting-coat which he was wearing, and button it up to the chin, before riding down the hill, when, in the hurly-burly of the wind, a shout came spinning past his ears, plain enough this time; he heard the gate at the end of Englebourn lane down below him shut with a clang, and saw two men running at full speed towards him, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... amply enriched with pots, pans, and pipkins, and adorned with flitches of bacon and sundry similar ornaments, that gave goodly promise in the firelight that gleamed upon the rafters. A woman, who seemed just old enough to be the boy's mother, had thrown down her spinning wheel in her joy at the sound of Robin's horn, and was bustling with singular alacrity to set forth her festal ware and prepare an abundant supper. Her features, though not beautiful, were agreeable and expressive, and were now lighted up with such manifest joy ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... Fulton studied enthusiastically. His own inventive genius was not idle, and while living in Devonshire, he produced an improved mill for sawing marble, which won him the thanks and medal of the British Society for the Promotion of the Arts and Commerce; a machine for spinning flax and making ropes; and an excavator for scooping out the channels of canals and aqueducts, all of which were patented. He published a number of communications on the subject of canals in one of the leading London journals, and a treatise ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... eyes followed all his movements with silent and grave curiosity. She was brotherless, he had no sisters, and both had been brought up without companions, so that each was an absolute novelty to the other; and when Gilbert threw his round cap, spinning on itself, up to the brown rafters of the dim fire-lit chamber and caught it upon one finger as it came down again, the little Beatrix laughed aloud. This seemed to him nothing less than an invitation, ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... this minute was his. They were spinning along the coast road, between sea and meadow, with the salt breeze in their faces. The red-gold earth rose and fell in gracious curves, like the breasts of a sleeping Indian girl, and now and then an azure inlet of the sea lit up a meadow as eyes light a face. In the distance, ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... I must stop. My head is spinning. Soon it will be dawn, and I am to ride again with Peter to-morrow. I told you I would ride every fair day with him, and I am hoping it will rain. But it will not rain, though to me the sky may be murky. I can see the clouds scudding before a west ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... grinning skeleton at her bedside? It grew harder daily. More than a year ago she thought that the worst was over, and since then had known the solace of self-forgetful idealisms, of ascetic striving. It was all illusion, the spinning of a desolate heart. There was no help now, for she knew herself and the world. Foolish, foolish child, who with her own hand had flung away the jewel of existence like a thing of no price! Her lot appeared single in its haplessness. She thought of Stella, of Letty, ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... laborers in the form of machines all but automatic, all to be diligently employed and kept at work by the force of natural powers. To this end these natural powers, principally those of steam and falling water, are subsidized and taken into human employment. Spinning-machines, power-looms, and all the mechanical devices, acting, among other operatives, in the factories and workshops, are but so many laborers. They are usually denominated labor-saving machines, but it would be more just to call them labor-doing machines. They are made to be active agents; ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... of the world's affairs is measured by the shadow of their village steeple. They are no more curious of the laws of causation than the thousands overwhelmed at Avezzano. They were ploughing and sowing, spinning and weaving and minding their business, when suddenly a great darkness full of fire and blood came down on them. And now they are here, in a strange country, among unfamiliar faces and new ways, with nothing left to them in the world but the memory of burning homes and ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... Abstinence. Wherefore did Nature powre her bounties forth, 710 With such a full and unwithdrawing hand, Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks, Thronging the Seas with spawn innumerable, But all to please, and sate the curious taste? And set to work millions of spinning Worms, That in their green shops weave the smooth-hair'd silk To deck her Sons, and that no corner might Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loyns She hutch't th'all-worshipt ore, and precious gems To store her children with; if all the world 720 Should in a pet of temperance feed on Pulse, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... soldier, spinning on his heels and falling on the threshold of the drawing-room, his face covered ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... never did go on. A bomb, only a short distance away as the distance from atomic disintegration is measured, sent the Shudos spinning away, end over end, like a discarded cigar butt flipped toward a gutter, one side caved in near the rear, as if it had been kicked in by ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... flocks, with the shepherds, present to the Wanton. Not one will be able to retain possession of what is alien to her taste. The Ungainly one will sell her wardrobe to procure wine; the Wanton will part with the lands to procure fine clothes; and she who delights in cattle, and attends to her spinning, will get rid of her luxurious abode at any price. Thus, no one will possess what was given, and they will pay to their Mother the sum named from the price of the things, which ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... felt herself obliged to rise and open to the call, and immediately a second witch entered, having two horns on her forehead, and in her hand a wheel for spinning wool. ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... that this girl's concern affected him deeply, for it was genuine—it was not in the least put on. All at once she seemed very near to him, very much a part of himself. His head was spinning now and something within him had quickened magically. There was a new note in his voice when he undertook to reassure his companion. At his first word Laure looked up, startled; into her dark eyes, still ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... these trees of benevolence for saving themselves. The Burdwan translator misunderstands vihinsa and makes nonsense of the idea. Altogether, though highly ornate, the metaphors are original. Of course, the idea is eminently oriental. Eastern rhetoric being fond of spinning out metaphors and similes, which, in the hands of Eastern poets, become ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... mare's neck as if in apology and loosened the reins. "Come, old girl," he said; "I'm sorry, but it can't be helped," and springing into the gig, he walked the mare clear of the gravel beyond the gate, so as not to rouse his mother, touched her lightly with the whip, and sent her spinning along the road on the ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... coils when the magnetism is varied in their iron or steel cores. Observes the lines of magnetic force as iron filings are magnetized. A magnetic bar moved in and out of a coil of wire excites electricity therein,—mechanical motion is converted into electricity. Generates a current by spinning a copper plate in a ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... little boy," he said, "I once wanted to stay at home from school. I had, I believe, a little headache, but nothing worth minding. I told my mother that I had a headache, and she kept me, and I helped her at her spinning, which was what I liked best of anything. But in the afternoon the Methodist preacher came in to see my mother, and he asked me what was the matter with me, and my mother answered for me that I had a bad head, and he looked at me; ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... called a comb, with several rows of pointed teeth; this, though not much used now, is still occasionally employed, except in large factories. This combing is repeated two or three times, till it is sufficiently smooth and even for spinning. Spinning or converting wool, or cotton, silk, &c. into thread, was anciently performed by the distaff and spindle: these we find mentioned in sacred history, and they have been used in all ages, and in all countries yet discovered. The ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... chair, within a suspended framework of steely bars, themselves the foundation for a network of fine-drawn colored wires. Shimmering, like the gossamer threads of a spider's spinning, they wove upward, around and over the chair, so that he who sat there would be completely surrounded ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... children are hardy and vigorous. They are allowed to do about as they please from the time they are able to walk. I have often seen them playing in winter in the snow, and spinning tops on the ice, barefooted and half-naked. Under such conditions, those which have feeble constitutions soon die. Only the hardiest reach maturity ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... that on a certain evening Glinda sat in her library, surrounded by a bevy of her maids, who were engaged in spinning, weaving and embroidery, when an attendant announced the arrival at the palace ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... premiership was a solid political achievement. The victory of June 23, 1896, crowned with triumph the daring strategy of the campaign. But popular opinion regarded the victory as a gift of the gods. The wheel of fortune spinning from the hands of fate had thrown into the high office of the premiership one about whose qualifications there was doubt even in the secret minds of many of his supporters. He was a man of charming manners and of gracious personality. His carriage on the platform and the grace and finish ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... higher class, Mrs. Duncan, the wife of the present excellent minister of Mertoun, informs me, that though she was younger than Sir Walter, she has a dim remembrance of the interior of Sandy-Knowe—"Old Mrs. Scott sitting, with her spinning-wheel, at one side of the fire, in a clean clean parlor; the grandfather, a good deal failed, in his elbow-chair opposite; and the little boy lying on the carpet, at the old man's feet, listening to the Bible, or whatever good book Miss ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the Chinese call the Milky Way the Heavenly River, and that the Spinning Girl referred to in the story is none other than the beautiful big star in Lyra which we call Vega, while the Cow-herd is Altair ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... highway just in front of a rapidly-driven carriage coming north. The mettlesome horses swerve and shy. The occupants are suddenly whirled from their reposeful attitudes, though, fortunately, not from their seats. A "top hat" goes spinning out into the roadway, and a fan flies through the midst of the glare. The driver promptly checks his team and backs them just as Billy, all impulsive courtesy, leaps out into the street; picks up the hat with one hand, the fan with the other, and restores them ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... Kettle falls, came up with us, and we pursued our route in company. Toward evening we met natives, camped on the bank of the river: they gave us a letter from which we learned that Mr. M'Donald and his party had passed there on the 4th. The women at this camp were busy spinning the coarse wool of the mountain sheep: they had blankets or mantles, woven or platted of the same material, with a heavy fringe all round: I would gladly have purchased one of these, but as we were to carry all our baggage on our backs across the mountains, was forced to relinquish the ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... her arm. She walked slowly, as if lost in thought, yet never missed pushing aside with a decided gesture of her foot every stone that lay in her way. There were many in that rocky path, but Becky left it smoother as she climbed, and paused now and then to send some especially sharp or large one spinning into the grassy ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... was called, and a pistol shot sent the five young athletes bending low over their handle-bars spinning down the course. They all wore the club colors of scarlet and white; but from Rod's bicycle fluttered the bit of blue ribbon that Dan had been sent to the young captain's room to get, and which he had hastily knotted ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... man has no right to say to his own generation, turning quite away from it, 'Be damned!' It is the whole Past and the whole Future, this same cotton-spinning, dollar-hunting, canting and shrieking, very wretched generation of ours." CARLYLE to EMERSON, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... simplicity of his dress and armour, a lion's skin and a club; and from the nature of many of his exploits, the destruction of wild beasts and robbers. This part of the history of Hercules seems to have related to times before the invention of the bow and arrow, or of spinning flax. Other stories of Hercules are perhaps of later date, and appear to be allegorical, as his conquering the river- god Achilous, and bringing Cerberus up to day light; the former might refer to his ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... The spinning and weaving of cotton on hand-looms is carried on almost universally. Besides that locally manufactured, the whole of the large import of Indian yarn is worked up into cloth by the women of the household. Four-fifths ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... alone in the house, and, while the battle was raging, sat in a room in the second story busily at work at her spinning-wheel, while the shot came dashing like hail against the walls. At length one, a twelve-pound ball from a British vessel in the river, just grazed the walnut tree at the fort, which the Americans used as a flag-staff, and crashed into her house through the ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... settlement) shall inhabit the said town." In Chintadripet to-day there are still many spinners and weavers; and one of the sights in Chintadripet—growing gradually more rare—is the spectacle of primitively-clad urchins or grown men spinning in the streets with primitive gear and in primitive fashion; and it is interesting to recall the fact that this has been going on in Chintadripet for nearly two centuries—an industry ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... them old Carey plows and was good at makin' the mould board out of hardwood. He make the best Carey plows in that part of the country and he make horseshoes and nails and everything out of iron. And he used to make spinning wheels and parts of looms. He was a very valuable man and he make wheels and the hub and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... friendly terms with mine, we used to see her continually. She would sit with us for hours at a time, either sewing, or spinning with her delicate, rapid, clever fingers. She was a well-made, rather thin girl, with intelligent brown eyes and a long, white, oval face. She talked little but sensibly in a soft, musical voice, ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... entrance they met another throng, but he shook them off with good-natured impatience and hurried through the great guard-room to the winding stairs, that were cut out of the core of the massive stones. Up and across another mighty hall, and then up again, and into a great women's-room, full of looms and spinning-wheels, where a buxom English housewife and half-a-dozen red-cheeked maids were gaping over their distaffs at the tale a jolly old monk was ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... expulsion from Eden makes a beautiful picture. Father Adam, stalwart and sunbrowned, clad in sheepskins, rests for a moment from his delving, to wipe the sweat from his brow. Eve, still looking fair and happy—though I suppose she ought not to,—sits spinning and watching the children playing at 'helping father.' The chorus from each side of the stage explained to us that this represented a scene of woe, the result of sin; but it seemed to me that the Adam family were very contented, and I found myself wondering, in my common, earthly way, whether, with ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... discussing bygone days,—and no one seemed disposed to leave the pavilion. Sir Henry, in his silent mood, was glad to escape from the party; and engaging Julia in a search for Emily, made his way to the crowded ball room. He there found his sister spinning round with Clarendon to one of Strauss's waltzes; and Sir Henry and his partner seated themselves on one of the benches, watching the smiling faces as they whirled past them. It was a melancholy thought to Delme, how soon Emily's brow would be clouded, were he to breathe ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... being placed, one of the men sent a coin spinning up into the air. Then followed ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... our account. At the age of sixty-five grandfather set himself to till the farm on a larger scale, and to renew his lumbering operations, winters. Grandmother, too, was constrained to increase her dairy, her flocks of geese and other poultry, and to begin anew the labor of spinning and knitting. ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... A recent writer has said: "Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, 'I won't count this ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... and found them to yield, letting him into a kind of smothered, troubled quietness even more oppressive than that outside. He passed an empty ropewalk, the hemp strewn untidily about, as if the workers had left hurriedly. He peered curiously at idle looms and deserted spinning-wheels—deserted apparently but the instant before he came. It seemed as if the people were fled maliciously just in front, to leave him in this fearfullest of all solitudes. He wondered if he did not hear their quick, furtive ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... finger cut the flesh he struck, and he gave a savage "Ha!" of triumph as he saw George go spinning and the red trickle come breaking down ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... spent enough to make the air inside the wood almost dark. The moss was soft; the tree-trunks spectral. Beyond them lay a silvery meadow. The pampas grass raised its feathery spears from mounds of green at the end of the meadow. A breadth of water gleamed. Already the convolvulus moth was spinning over the flowers. Orange and purple, nasturtium and cherry pie, were washed into the twilight, but the tobacco plant and the passion flower, over which the great moth spun, were white as china. The rooks creaked their wings together on the tree-tops, and were settling down ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... rock, I sold my reel, And sae hae I my spinning wheel, And a' to buy a cap of steel For Dickie Macphalion that's slain! Shoo, shoo, shoolaroo, And a' to buy a cap of steel ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... slammed down his accelerator, sent us spinning round the curve, and the next moment, throwing on his brakes, halted sharply at ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... virtues which could be accredited to Jose, and these were sufficient, were an unfailing lightness of heart, the facile and fascinating gift of yarn-spinning—for he was a born raconteur, with a varied experience to draw upon—a readiness for high play, at which he lost and won with the same gay and unruffled humor, and an incomparable ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... to visit the forts must be procured from the commandant. The large building down the Durance seen from the bridge, in the suburb called St. Catherine, is a manufactory where the waste of silk on cocoons is carded and prepared for spinning. About 800 people are employed. The women earn 14d. per day, working from 5 in the morning to 6 P.M., 1 hr. allowed for meals. The longitudinal streets of Brianon are narrow and steep, little better than staircases, down the centre of each ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... into the kitchen one afternoon when he came home from school, with his lips set and his jaws even squarer than usual. Miss Salome was making some of her famous taffy, and Clemantiny was spinning yarn on the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... takes place in autumn in a large village. The Scene represents PETER'S roomy hut. PETER is sitting on a wooden bench, mending a horse-collar. ANSYA and AKOULNA are spinning, and singing a part-song. ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... up at Aeson's son, and within her breast her heart panted fast through anguish, all remembrance left her, and her soul melted with the sweet pain. And as a poor woman heaps dry twigs round a blazing brand—a daughter of toil, whose task is the spinning of wool, that she may kindle a blaze at night beneath her roof, when she has waked very early—and the flame waxing wondrous great from the small brand consumes all the twigs together; so, coiling round her heart, burnt secretly Love the destroyer; and the hue of her soft ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... prow pointed for the ocean whereinto the River crammed its deep flood. A smaller boat, smoking its way up-stream, changed into the fabled bark of a man by the name of Jason, and at the bow of this Argo sat Johnnie Blake, fish-pole over the side, feet dangling, line trailing, and a silvery trout spinning at the hook. A third boat, smaller still, and driven forward by oars, bore a sad, level-lying, white-clad figure—Elaine, dead through the plotting of cruel servants, and now rowed by the hoary dumb toward a peaceful mooring at the foot of ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... advantages it offers." In the course of his address the Mayor said: "It has been my lot now, during my life, which has not been a short one, to aid a great many undertakings in this city—insurance offices, spinning factories, waterworks, literary and scientific institutions, and public charities; but I have never lent my assistance to any undertaking which more entirely commends itself to my judgment than that in which I am this day engaged in commencing" . . . "and I must here say that Mr. ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... writing, and copying Latin, as in the monasteries, as well as music, weaving and spinning, and needlework. Weaving and spinning had an obvious utilitarian purpose, and needlework, in addition to necessary sewing, was especially useful in the production of altar-cloths and sacred vestments. ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... every color and texture that lie raveled around me in old snarls. We need to be possessed with a mountainous conviction of the value of our advice to our contemporaries, if we will take such pains to find what that is. But no, it is the pleasure of the spinning that betrays poor spinners into the loss of so much good time. I shall work with the more diligence on this book to-be of mine, that you inform me again and again that my penny tracts are still extant; nay, that, beside friendly men, learned and ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... part of the Beginning, You are parcel of To-day. When He set His world to spinning You were flung upon your way. When the system falls to pieces, When this pulsing epoch ceases, When the IS becomes the WAS, You will live, for you will enter In the great Creative Centre, In ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... her with her errands and marketing and to-day I was staggering home under a load of parcels and slipped on the glassy pavement just in front of the house and fell flat. A smart motor which was spinning by slid to a standstill and the driver jumped out and ran back to me. He was a beautiful big youth and the machine was one of those low, classy, dachshund effects in mauve. THE MAIDEN'S DREAM picked me up and ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... afterward that he felt as though he had gone into a spinning nose dive with a Boche aviator on his tail, while Jack admitted that he felt somewhat as he did the time his gasoline pipe was severed by a Hun bullet when he was high in the air and several miles ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... the box with a smile on his face, wave the outfield back, and then groove the ball waist high. Nothing worried him. His ability to avoid tacklers in the broken field had always puzzled me. I had studied the usual methods quite carefully. Change of pace, reversing the field, spinning when tackled, etc.,—most of the tricks I had given thought to, but apparently Eddie relied little on these. He used them all ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... of day Nausicaa went in haste to her father and mother to tell them of her dream. She found them in their splendid hall. Her mother sat with her maidens spinning, and the king stood on the threshold, just going forth to meet his chiefs in council. The princess approached her father and said: "Dearest father, I pray that thou wilt give me two mules and a wagon, that I may go with my maids to the river and ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... the three mysterious women lived on in this island. It is now best known to us through the German Fairy Tales, where we have the three spinning women. In the Middle Ages there was a remembrance of these mysterious visitants in a certain ceremony of spreading a table for three, whether for protection to the house at night, or to bring good luck ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... my friend," said he, pleasantly, and he pushed by O'Toole to the lock of the door. O'Toole put out a hand, caught him by the shoulder, and sent him spinning into the road. The man came back, however, and though out of breath, spoke ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... than any I have seen in Europe. Besides this, our women of distinction wear golden ornaments; which they dispose with some profusion on their arms and legs. When our women are not employed with the men in tillage, their usual occupation is spinning and weaving cotton, which they afterwards dye, and make it into garments. They also manufacture earthen vessels, of which we have many kinds. Among the rest tobacco pipes, made after the same fashion, and used in the same manner, as ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano |
