"Stiletto" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... My teeth are not like yours when you are fasting—even cooked food must not be too tough for them to chew it, now-a-days. If you soak yourself in drink and fail in your blow, and I am not ready with the poisoned stiletto the thing won't come off neatly. But why did not the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thought likely to interest the Ancient Egyptians. Anthea brought dolls, puzzle blocks, a wooden tea-service, a green leather case with Necessaire written on it in gold letters. Aunt Emma had once given it to Anthea, and it had then contained scissors, penknife, bodkin, stiletto, thimble, corkscrew, and glove-buttoner. The scissors, knife, and thimble, and penknife were, of course, lost, but the other things were there and as good as new. Cyril contributed lead soldiers, a cannon, a catapult, a tin-opener, a tie-clip, and a tennis ball, and a padlock—no ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... bands play during the time of vespers their martial music jarring with the organ notes—the march drowning the miserere and the sullen crowd thickening round them—a crowd which if it had its will would stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards; and unregarded children—every heavy glance of their young eyes full of desperation ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... of the meadows; among others on the spurge, when its stems begin to shoot, and its sombre flowers open in the sunlight? "It is the work of an insect. It is the shelter in which the Cicadellina deposits her eggs. What a miraculous chemist! Her stiletto excels the finest craft of the botanical anatomist" by its sovereign art of separating the acrid poison which flows with the sap in the veins of the most venomous plants, and extracting therefrom only an inoffensive ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... being supposed to dine out, I could not of course remain at home. Where to go I knew not: I was like my first father—"the world was all before me." I flung my coat round me, and hurried forth with the feelings of a bandit longing for a stiletto. At the foot of the stairs, I staggered against two or three smiling rascals, priding themselves upon their punctuality. They had just arrived—to make the tour of Turkey. How I hated them!—As I rushed by the parlor, a single glance disclosed to me a blazing ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... pairs of boots, 2 muffetees, 1 pair of gaiters, 1 pair of boots, 8 copper pens, 1 pair of slippers, 1 black leather bag, 1 pair of new boots, 1 coat, 1 waistcoat, 5 pairs of gloves, 1 pair of braces, a necktie, a dressing box, 2 brushes, 3 razors, a stiletto, a pair of spectacles, and 2 pieces of teeth set in gold.—12 book covers, 7 small ditto, 1 small box, 4 ditto in one.—A large box of toys.—A collar.—A large tea chest, containing 160 articles ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... God mend me) t' have gone to the choir, When straight I perceived myself all on a fire; For the two forenamed things had so heated my blood, That a little phlebotomy would do me good: I sent for chirurgeon, who came in a trice, And swift to shed blood, needed not be called twice, But tilted stiletto quite thorough the vein, From whence issued out the ill humours amain; When having twelve ounces, he bound up my arm, And I gave him two Georges, which did him no harm: But after my bleeding, I soon understood It had cooled my devotion as well as my blood; For I had ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... another word—I snatched forth a stiletto, put by the sword which trembled in his hand, and buried my poniard in his bosom. He fell with the blow, but my rage was unsated. I sprang upon him with the blood-thirsty feeling of a tiger; redoubled my blows; ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... he, was wounded slightly, and, being either enraged or frightened, he stabbed with his keen-pointed stiletto, which all Mexicans then carried, the young man whom he had invited to become his guest, and the blade entered the ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... and kujur or kunjur are names for weapons of the lance or spear kind; the pedang, rudus, pamandap, and kalewang are of the sword kind, and slung at the side, the siwar is a small instrument of the nature of a stiletto, chiefly used for assassination; and the kris is a species of dagger of a particular construction, very generally worn, being stuck in front through the folds of a belt that goes ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... pledge to her father that she shall have a dowry of ten thousand lire when she marries. The father is pleased, the daughter is not. She sits and cries. She talks of herself getting at him with a stiletto." ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... prayed, he wept, he implored pity, he openly spoke of suicide, and he hinted at murder. But Maggie passed him, pushing him out of the way with the watering-pot, threatening to water him too, until one day he drew a revolver. She screamed, and the revolver was put away, but on the next occasion a stiletto that he had brought from Italy was produced, and with a great deal of earnestness life was declared to be a miserable thing. It was absurd, no doubt, but at the same time it was not a little pathetic; he was so good-looking, and so sincere. Maggie put down the watering-pot, and ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... moves quickly; that which is blunt is non-penetrating and of necessity moves slowly. The needle darts through the cloth more quickly than the bodkin. The greyhound is swifter than the bulldog. The stiletto does quicker work than the bludgeon. This, of course, is only a symbolism which may make vivid the truth that the convex man works more ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... themselves. Their personality is generous; like Murat's kingly garments, it attracts danger. But Conti's duplicity will be known only to the women who love him. In his art he has that deep Italian jealousy which led the Carlone to murder Piola, and stuck a stiletto into Paesiello. That terrible envy lurks beneath the warmest comradeship. Conti has not the courage of his vice; he smiles at Meyerbeer and flatters him, when he fain would tear him to bits. He knows his weakness, and ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... anxiety to ascertain whether the interview was preliminary or subsequent to the corpse's kiss was not acute enough to induce him to buy the book. There was another about a kiss, Bacio Infame, on which a lady with a stiletto was defending herself from a bad man. All these were enticing, but we hoped to do better, and I began to blush for the somewhat thin plot of Tristram Shandy and to be thankful that my copy was ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... At first she (like JANET) identifies sandwiches with biscuits. She then tries two assumptions (s 1, b 2/3, and s 1/2 b 5/6), and (naturally) ends in contradictions. Then she returns to the first assumption, and finds the 3 unknowns separately: quod est absurdum. STILETTO identifies sandwiches and biscuits, as "articles." Is the word ever used by confectioners? I fancied "What is the next article, Ma'am?" was limited to linendrapers. TWO SISTERS first assume that biscuits are 4 a ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... the servant who had sought to betray him, and rushing into the street he found himself face to face with the enemy whom he knew to have instigated the attempt. They crossed swords at once, but before Marco Manin could have a fair fight for his life he was stabbed in the back by a glass stiletto, the hilt of which was broken off ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... friend, could tell many things if he chose. Sebastiano had brilliant triumphs. Once he had even been in great danger because the woman who loved and sought him was of such rank that her relatives would have resorted to the stiletto rather than allow ...
— The Pretty Sister Of Jose - 1889 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... been esteemed so highly that artists came to study them all the way from Flanders. The altar is coloured, like most of the Spanish retablos. Cano was a pugnacious character, always getting into scrapes, using his stiletto, and being obliged to shift his residence on short notice. It is remarkable that his erratic life did not interfere with his work, which seems to have gone calmly on in spite of domestic and civic difficulties. Among his works at various places, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... doubted that it was murder. The confusion of the garage was proof of it; and the instrument, once I looked about me, was not far to seek. Divided between rage, horror, and pity, I saw a sort of sharp stiletto suitable for use as a penknife or letter opener, which, after doing its work, had ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... of the firebrands of the French Revolution; "rose into furor almost Pythic; highest where many were high," but veered round to royalism, which he at length intrigued on behalf of—to death by the stiletto (1765-1812). ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... and highly conductive though it was, it could not handle that frightfully concentrated load. In the same fleeting instant of time every molecule of substance in that beam's path flashed into tenuous vapor—no conceivable material could resist or impede that stabbing stiletto of energy—and the main control panel of the Vorkulian wall-screen system vanished. Time after time, as rapidly as he could sight his beam and operate his switches, Brandon drove his needle of annihilation through the fortress, destroying the ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... declaring firmly that she would not divulge anything, a struggle took place for a paper which she picked off a table; and before her attendants could come to her assistance she received a severe cut from a stiletto. The assassin was seized, condemned, and ordered for execution, without the last ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... romance. Romance is an atmosphere breathed by two, not an emotion felt by one. To be sure, he was the most appallingly in earnest lover woman ever had. He wept for a kiss with his fingers twiddling on the hilt of his stiletto. Dear heart, these Italians!" ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... supported the abolition, and regretted the disappointment as a blow to the good cause. I know this. Do not let your piety lead you into the weakness of respecting the bad, only because they hoist the flag of religion, while they carry a stiletto in the flagstaff. Did not they, previous to the 14th of July, endeavour to corrupt the guards? What would have ensued, had they succeeded, you ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... man," thought Jennings. "No woman would have such a weapon in her possession; and if she bought one to accomplish a crime, she would purchase a stiletto or a pistol. It would take a considerable exercise of muscle to drive this heavy ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... for general mobilisation. And on the sidewalk at the base of the wall lay a man, face downward, his dusty shoes crossed under the wide flaring trousers, the greasy casquet still crowding out his lop ears; his hand clenched beside a stiletto which lay on the stone flagging ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... December he writes; "Almighty love still reigns and revels in my bosom, and I am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow, who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African." For several months his visits to her house were frequent, his letters unremitting. The sentimental correspondence which they began, in which Burns addresses her as Clarinda, assuming to ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... whiskers; lips pale; broad back; swift of foot; and particularly animated in his action. He wore a jerkin lined with red, a dark yellow waistcoat, blue breeches, a breast-pouch with fifty cartridges, four pistols, and a small hanger by his side. In his breeches-pocket he kept a small stiletto. He also bore a long gun. On his head he wore continually a net, and upon that his hat. His wife followed him in all his excursions, and he greatly esteemed and loved her. He remained some time in the mountains near Rome, and with his associates laid in a store of whatever was necessary for their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... A stiletto—perhaps a kitchen knife. A long narrow blade. It gleamed. And his eyes gleamed. His white teeth, too. I could see them. He was very ferocious. I thought to myself: 'If I hit him he will kill me.' ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... brought from the ship on a subsequent visit were a stiletto that had originally been given to me by my mother. It was an old family relic with a black ebony handle and a finely tempered steel blade four or five inches in length. I also got a stone tomahawk—a mere curio, obtained from the Papuans; ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... wandered to such a distance from his asylum as to secure his protectors from any danger on his account. Through the long hours of the winter's night he continued his dreary walk, till the first gray of the morning appeared in the east. Drawing a long stiletto from the inside of his walking-stick, he placed the head of it against the trunk of a tree, and threw himself upon the sharp weapon. The point pierced his heart, and he fell lifeless upon the frozen ground. Some peasants passing by discovered his body. A piece ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... or a poet inexact in the details of business, and we excuse them heartily from blame. But show us a miserable, unbreeched, human entity, whose whole profession it is to take a tub for a fortified town and a shaving-brush for the deadly stiletto, and who passes three-fourths of his time in a dream and the rest in open self-deception, and we expect him to be as nice upon a matter of fact as a scientific expert bearing evidence. Upon my heart, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to sit on the rugs and make jokes too, but some sort of false shame, some sneaky shyness before the boys, hinders me. I am leaning my elbow on the soft fur of the rug, and my head on my hand, and am staring up at the stars, cool and throbbing, so like little stiletto-holes pricked in heaven's floor, as they steal out in systems ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... held out his stiletto. The stranger took it and tried to cut the skin above the lettering; but when he had removed a thin shaving of leather from them, the characters still appeared below, so clear and so exactly like the surface impression, that for a moment he was not sure that he had ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... you!" said Cassy, drawing a small, glittering stiletto, and flashing it before the eyes ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... first intelligence, and no other letter, at that period, found its way to me. She sent hers, I think, by some trusty returned prisoner. She little knew my then terrible situation ; hovering over my head was the stiletto of a surgeon for a menace of cancer yet, till that moment, hope of escape had always been held out to me by the Baron de Larrey— hope which, from the reading of that fatal letter, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... had made up his mind, that, come what might, enemy or no enemy, live or die, he would solve the mystery of Elsie Venner, sooner or later. He was not a man to be frightened out of his resolution by a scowl, or a stiletto, or any unknown means of mischief, of which a whole armory was hinted at in that passing look Dick Venner had given him. Indeed, like most adventurous young persons, he found a kind of charm in feeling that there might be some dangers ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... men hastily clicked something under the table, while Helen turned pale, but quickly drew a small stiletto from a fold of ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... large that the whole world stood on it, and which, in the day of the Messiah, the scholars would eat from the head and the ignorant from the tail, a smile appeared on Meir's thin lips. It was a smile similar to the stiletto. It pierced the one on whose lips it appeared, and it seemed as though it would like to pierce the one who caused it. Ber answered this smile by a sigh. But the four young men who sat opposite Meir ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... had a bum teacher. Don't yu know better'n to push it in? An' me a cowpuncher, too! I'm most grieved at yore conduct—it shows you don't appreciate cow-wrastlers. This is safer," he remarked, throwing the stiletto through the air and into a door, where it rang out angrily and quivered. "I don't know as I wants to ventilate yu; we mostly poisons coyotes up my way," he added. Then a thought struck him. "Yu must be that dear Manuel I've been hearin' ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... Swiss mountain villages. No doubt some of our readers have come across the old pin poppets which boys and girls carried with them to the village school half a century or more ago. The girls filled them with pins and needles, bodkin and stiletto, and the boys with pencils and pens. In Fig. 75 two curious old pin boxes are illustrated. The pins shown on the same page are, however, of much older date; they are, in fact, merely thorns; these interesting and authentic relics of the "common objects of the home," or perhaps more ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... was prone to be a scene of loud revel and sudden brawl. They were, withal, of great pride, yet it was not like our inflammable Spanish pride: they stood not much upon the pundonor, the high punctilio, and rarely drew the stiletto in their disputes; but their pride was silent and contumelious. Though from a remote and somewhat barbarous island, they believed themselves the most perfect men upon earth, and magnified their chieftain, the Lord Scales, beyond the greatest ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... however, two excellent knife-shops in the Boulevard du Palais, where every description of stiletto may be purchased, where, indeed, the enterprising may buy a knife which will not only go shrewdly into a foe, but come right out on the other side—in front, that is to say, for no true Corsican is so foolish as to stab anywhere but ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... Jeffrey, less formidable than his unprincipled Friends. When Greek and Trojan meet on the plain, there is an interest in the combat; but it is hateful and painful to think, that a hero should be wounded behind his back, and by a poisoned stiletto in the hand of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... I knew it. The accursed one! Oh that I had him here again! I would bury my stiletto in his heart! Over the white hilt I would bury it! I would wash my hands in his blood, and think them blessed ever afterwards! Stay till daylight, Roberto. I have ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... act of 1804, which, while it conceded a legislative council, made its members and all officers appointive, and divided the province. A delegation of Creoles went to Washington to protest against this inconsiderate treatment. They bore a petition which contained many stiletto-like thrusts at the President. What about those elemental rights of representation and election which had figured in the glorious contest for freedom? "Do political axioms on the Atlantic become problems when transferred to the shores of the Mississippi?" To such arguments Congress ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... exultantly, "Martin Dobree pledges himself to cure me.—Carry, you are the witness of it. If I die, he has been my assassin as surely as if he had plunged a stiletto ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... rank was found murdered, with a stiletto, known to be mine, buried in his bosom, and it was with difficulty that I ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... his lodging, the Englishman was set upon by the Italian, and pricked with his stiletto, narrowly escaping with his life. He gave him what he called "a good English black-eye," and bawled loudly for justice. The Italian ran off, and was no more seen; and the Englishman, whose ugly name was Hogg, talked big about applying ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... "Stiletto, eh? Made in Firenze—that's Florence. Shorty, have you any friends from abroad that are in the habit of ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... rifle on his knees looking into the darkness and not far from him lay the Mexican a mere dark lump on the ground, apparently asleep, but keeping a wary eye on all around. Imperceptibly he crept nearer to where Jo was sitting, but he did not have the weapon he would have preferred in his hand, the stiletto, which was as natural to him as ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... the Contessa behaved, when she found I had escaped from her amorous pursuit. She began to make me uneasy; and I almost thought it was as necessary for me to have a taster as any tyrant in Christendom. Poison and the stiletto disturbed my dreams; for there were not only she, but two or three more, who seemed determined to take no denial. I congratulated myself, as I was rolling down mount Cenis, to think that I was at length actually safe, and that the damned black-looking, hook-nosed, scowling fellow ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... was taken from the aura of a rough and partially intoxicated man in the East End of London, as he struck down a woman; the flash darted out at her the moment before he raised his hand to strike, and caused a shuddering feeling of horror, as though it might slay. The keen-pointed stiletto-like dart (Fig. 23) was a thought of steady anger, intense and desiring vengeance, of the quality of murder, sustained through years, and directed against a person who had inflicted a deep injury on the one ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... whereas simulation is put on, in order to look into other people's. Lord Bolingbroke, in his "Idea of a Patriot King," which he has lately published, and which I will send you by the first opportunity, says very justly that simulation is a STILETTO,—not only an unjust but an unlawful weapon, and the use of it very rarely to be excused, never justified. Whereas dissimulation is a shield, as secrecy is armor; and it is no more possible to preserve secrecy in ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... in life was there—calm, composed, serene. The inanimate clay was clothed in the simple black of a citizen of the Republic; the only mark of office being the red silken sash that covered the spot in the breast where the stiletto-stroke of hate ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... and shout and mingle almost inextricably, and if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not noticed in the din, and when they part, if one should stagger and fall bleeding to the ground, who can tell who has given the blow? There is naught but an unknown stiletto on the ground, the crowd has dispersed, and masks tell no tales anyway. There is murder, but by whom? for what? ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... fine, Like to the bristles of some angry swine; And some to set their love's desire on edge, Are cut and prun'd like a quickset hedge; Some like a spade, some like a fork, some square, Some round, some mow'd like stubble, some stark bare; Some sharp, stiletto fashion, dagger-like, That may with whisp'ring, a man's eyes outpike; Some with the hammer cut, or roman T, Their Beards extravagant, reform'd must be; Some with the quadrate, some triangle fashion, Some circular, some oval in translation; Some perpendicular in longitude; Some like ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... spot near a brook Darragh lighted his pipe and sat him down to examine the booty in detail. Two pistols, a stiletto, and a blackjack composed the arsenal of Mr. Sard. A large wallet disclosed more than four thousand dollars in Treasury notes — something to reimburse Ricca when ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... eyes. And without slacking the speed of her entrance she leaped forward with a scream—leaped in time to catch and hang upon the arm of O'Sullivan that was suddenly uplifted, and to whisk from it the long, bright stiletto that he had drawn ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... while the old man staggered against the wall, still holding a bit of cloth from the gondolier's cloak in his closed hand, "I am vowed to my mission before this dawn! What I have spoken is for duty to thine house, and not in anger—though I could color my stiletto in good patrician blood and die for it gaily, if that ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... corresponding courage. Ben Jonson had many quarrels with him, both literary and personal, and mentions one occasion on which he beat him, and took away his pistol. His temper was Italian rather than English, and one would conceive of him as quicker with the stiletto than the fist. His connection with the stage ceased in 1613, after he had produced a number of dramas, of which nine have been preserved. He died about twenty years afterwards, in 1634, seemingly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... whiteness, loose white nankeen trousers confined at the waist by a crimson silk sash, and a pair of canvas slippers on his otherwise naked feet. He wore a pair of gold rings in his small well-shaped ears, and the gold- mounted horn handle of what was doubtless a stiletto peeped unobtrusively from among the folds of his sash. A crimson cap of knitted silk with a tassel of the same depending from its pointed crown lay on a chair near him, and completed a costume which, whilst it undoubtedly set off his ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... its centre the Austrian bands play during the time of vespers, their martial music jarring with the organ notes,—the march drowning the miserere, and the sullen crowd thickening round them,—a crowd, which, if it had its will, would stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards; and unregarded children,—every heavy glance of their young eyes full of desperation and stony depravity, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... him, and more than he ever will know again; a time when, no matter how kind his heart, he is incased in a mental haughtiness before which plain Wisdom is dumb. But a time will come when the keenness of some girl's stiletto of wit will prick the empty bubble of his flamboyant egoism, and he will, for the first time, learn that he is but ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... toilet-table a stiletto, with a pearl handle. It was a small thing, but the steel rather long, and very ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... a laugh, and caught the girl by the wrist. "I will make you pay for that." As he tried to draw her to him, she whipped from her dress a small stiletto which she wore as an ornament, and drew ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... next moment he had a stiletto jammed into him, which made him sink down bleeding, with a faint howl, to which Bob and I responded with a cry, as if we felt ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... him. The guard who brought in his food was a Sicilian, and was evidently of a talkative disposition, for he had several times entered into conversation with the captives. In addition to a long knife, he carried a small stiletto in his girdle, and Francis thought that, if he could obtain this, he might possibly free himself. Accordingly, at the hour when he expected his guard to enter, Francis placed himself at his window, with his face against the bars. When he heard ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... raised it, One impulse seemed to shoot forth the jealous Greek and his watcher, and before Demetri Agryopoulo could form the faintest notion as to how the thing had happened, a sudden thunderbolt seemed launched against him, and he was lying all abroad with a sprained wrist. The stiletto flew clean over the wall, so swift and dexterous was the twist which Barndale gave the ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... purpose. I gathered a stock of them, laid them to dry in the sun, pulled apart the reticulated layers, and of these had soon begun to fashion two loose garments, one to hang from her waist, the other from her shoulders. With the stiletto-point of an aloe-leaf and various filaments, I sewed together three thicknesses of ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... point, what has already been said about Machiavelli is enough.[3] Loyalty was a virtue but little esteemed in Italy: engagements seemed made to be broken; even the crime of violence was aggravated by the crime of perfidy, a bravo's stiletto or a slow poison being reckoned among the legitimate means for ridding men of rivals or for revenging a slight. Yet it must not be forgotten that the commercial integrity of the Italians ranked high. In all countries of Europe they carried on the banking ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... first on one side and then on the other. The borders of embroidered muslin collars, &c., are usually finished with buttonhole stitch, worked either the width of an ordinary buttonhole, or in long stitches, and raised like satin stitch. Eyelet holes are made by piercing round holes with a stiletto, and sewing them round. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Touched thus gently and carefully, the immense vitality of the swarm remained dormant; but a rough, sudden movement would have transformed it instantly into a vengeful cloud of insects, each animated by the one impulse to use its stiletto. Corning down from the ladder he turned the pan toward Amy, and with her glass she saw that it was nearly half full of a crawling, seething mass that fairly made her shudder. But much experience rendered the old gentleman confident, and he only smiled as he carried ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... Sanchia's side at the top of the stair, chatting pleasantly about every new-comer, when he suddenly stopped. "Hulloa," he said, "here's Morosine, as smooth as a glass stiletto. He'll ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... was speaking, she put her hand in her pocket and drew forth, after a few moments' consideration, a stiletto six inches long, which ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... it was too late. The herald had raised his arm, turned round his head, and plunged the sharp stiletto into his mother's breast.' ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... steward's pantry in the deckhouse amidships, without being seen and secured some polenta and a baraca of water; when, as I was creeping aft again and close to the poop, that villain of a mate caught hold of my arm, pointing a stiletto in my face at the same time, and threatening to stab me if I uttered a cry. But, before I could open my mouth, he shoved a gag in it and then proceeded to drag me to the side of the ship, lashing me to the spot whence your ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... gentleman's word was better than an enforced oath—and that if persecution and confiscation are to follow, instead of organized armies we shall have bands of assassins everywhere in the field, and the stiletto and the torch will take the place of the sword and the musket—and there can be no solid reconstruction, etc. He says he told the Confederate States authorities months ago that the cause had failed, but they ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... a fellow now on my hands who is threatenin' suicide. I wish to Gog and Magog that he would take to the reef or find a stick of dynamite. Monsieur Lontane, that busy French gendarme, found him tryin' to borrow a revolver or a stiletto, and thought he was going to kill a Frenchman. He put him in the calaboose and brought his effects to me. They consisted of a book of poems and a letter, but not ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... two ladies, so far from being accommodating, were murderous. That is, they would have been so had it happened to be the Middle Ages, just then. But it wasn't. Tempers had ceased to find expression in the stiletto and the poison-cup, and had been curbed and stunted down to taking the other party up short, showing a proper spirit, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... scratched their heads in unison while Oliver turned the little viper's head over, opened its mouth, and made it gape widely by placing a little bone stiletto which he used in skinning the smaller birds within, and then with the point of a penknife he raised two tiny fangs which were laid back on the roof of the reptile's mouth, and which, when erect, looked like ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... leads out the swarm, and her successor is liberated by her keepers, who, in her time, abdicates in favor of the next younger. When the bees have decided that no more swarms can issue, the reigning queen is allowed to use her stiletto upon her unhatched sisters. Cases have been known where two queens issued at the same time, when a mortal combat ensued, encouraged by the workers, who formed a ring about them, but showed no preference, and recognized the victor as the lawful sovereign. For these ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... perforator, piercer, borer, auger, chisel, gimlet, stylet^, drill, wimble^, awl, bradawl, scoop, terrier, corkscrew, dibble, trocar [Med.], trepan, probe, bodkin, needle, stiletto, rimer, warder, lancet; punch, puncheon; spikebit^, gouge; spear &c (weapon) 727; puncher; punching ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... observed her to take something bright from her girdle, which apprehension converted into a stiletto or dirk, and such is the force of self-preservation, that I was on the point of tripping her up and throwing her on her back. But thrusting the supposed dirk against the wall—presto—open sesame—the wall gave way, and she drew me through ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... the parasites, the last and lowest group of insects, the stiletto-sheath is reduced to the size of a kind of little tube-shaped beak, which, when not in use, folds down like ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... spirits, could prolong so exhausting a struggle. It was not doubtful now which of the two would come off victorious. During the whole course of the fight Gascoyne had acted entirely on the defensive. A small knife or stiletto hung at his left side, but he never attempted to use it, and he never once tried to throw his adversary. In fact, it now became evident, even to the widow's perceptions, that the captain was actually playing ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... Oriental workmanship that any museum might have valued; the haft was of silver, exquisitely chased, the blade was straight and slender, narrowing to a needlelike point, so that it belonged rather to the stiletto type than the dagger. An inscription ran lengthwise down the steel, which was of a distinct bluish tinge where it was not darkly stained. About an inch from the tip a tiny triangular nick had been made in one of the sharp edges, the only flaw in the weapon's ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... Take that!" he shouted, wildly,—and, brandishing aloft a glittering stiletto, he aimed it straight at the ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... kind of embroidery is used only in round or long patterns. Trace first the outline of the hole, cut away a small round piece of material, not too close to the outlines (when the button-hole is very small merely insert the point of the scissors or a stiletto into the material), fold the edge of the material back with the needle, and work the hole in overcast stitch, inserting the needle into the empty place in the centre and drawing it out under the outline. Some button-holes are worked separately; sometimes they are in a row; if so, take ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... feet or more, the temperature of the night is even more cruel than that of the day. Immediately after sunset a sharp chill becomes perceptible. At first it is a welcome relief from the intolerable heat. By nine o'clock it begins to cut like a stiletto, and at midnight the water suspended in shallow dishes clinks into ice. The drivers burrow deep into the sand and wrap woollen baracans about them; the camels shiver and even ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... and turned its face, and put it in the best light the room afforded, and coiled himself again on his chest, with his eye, and stiletto, glittering. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... him. On the night of the murder—it was after the opera—he was heard to threaten her. She defied him, and one of the women in the company testified that he sought to intimidate Malban by placing the point of his stiletto against her white neck. But, in spite of all this, he was acquitted. I was in New York when the trial ended, but I read of the verdict in the press dispatches. Some one killed her, that is certain, ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... thrust it gently within the breast of his waistcoat. There, guided by him, her fingers closed on the handle of a tiny stiletto. ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was incredulous, but they showed cuts and bruises and demanded their money, saying that a joke had been played on them. When Owen refused one of them drew a stiletto and the ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... believe that joy overcame me?" cried Barbarina, in wild frenzy, "They shall not believe it; it shall not be!" She sprang like an enraged lioness and grasped a little stiletto which lay upon her toilet-table, and which she had brought as a relic from her beautiful fatherland. "I will not be mocked at and despised," cried she, proudly, dashing off her gold-embroidered white satin ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... about them, as the Italian and Spanish ladies conceal the stiletto in their garters. It does not come within my province to describe the Tibboos, but I may say briefly of the social condition of those tribes, in that country it is "Man and his Mistress," and not "Woman and her ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... no external marks of violence, but a commandeered physician pronounced him dead and, on examination, further pronounced that death was due to internal hemorrhage, superinduced by heart-puncture, which itself had been caused by some instrument, presumably a stiletto. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... the resources of Spanish science, Escovedo persisted in living, and Perez determined that he must be shot or stabbed. Enriquez went off to his own country to find a friend who was an assassin, and to get 'a stiletto with a very fine blade, much better than a pistol to kill a man with.' Enriquez, keeping a good thing in the family, enlisted his brother: and Martinez, from Aragon, brought 'two proper kind of men,' Juan de Nera and Insausti, who, with the King's scullion, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... tells me nothing; but I saw them talking together to-night, and he was very angry. I overheard some words. I heard him say he would see your father to-night and make him sorry he had not done as he agreed, and he showed Tony a little stiletto which he carries with him, and then ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... She drew a little stiletto from the folds of her dress, placed its point upon her heart and said: "It is not necessary that a gypsy should live; but it is necessary ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... worse than look at you, if you come any nearer me," she threatened. "Do you think I ride all over the desert where I've a mind to without protection? I guess not." She lifted her skirt with a quick movement and drew a long knife, keen as a stiletto, from her boot. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... were now face to face in the coach. Carlos had a stiletto under his hand. The coach-driver was a man he could trust, quite capable of allowing Carlos to get out without seeing him, or being surprised, on arriving at his journey's end, to find a dead body in his cab. No ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... had seen that her own face, above a delicate shroudy scarf with long flying ends, rose like some tired hothouse orchid, beautiful still, but fading, paling, passing; and she hated Gay's youth and freshness with a poignant hatred that was like the piercing of a stiletto. She wondered why she had been such a fool as to wear that gown of purplish amethystine tulle tonight. It was a colour that made her face look hard and artificially tinted. True, her bare neck and shoulders, which were of a perfection rarely seen outside ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... they wholly without weapons. They had been accustomed to make toothpicks and other trifling articles for sale out of broken sword-blades and other refuse bits of steel. There was not a man among them who had not thus provided himself with a secret stiletto. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to be met with in superstitious countries, these mydratic alkaloids are among the worst. They offer a chance for crimes of the most fiendish nature—worse than with the gun or the stiletto. They are worse because there is so little fear of detection. That crime is ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... the religion under which they lived tended to mitigate. Their hatred was especially directed against the Neapolitan revolutionists; and the fishermen, in concert among themselves, chose each his own victim, whom he would stiletto when the day of vengeance should arrive. The head of one was sent off one morning to Troubridge, with his basket of grapes for breakfast; and a note from the Italian who had, what he called, the glory of presenting it, saying, he had killed the man as he was running away, and ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... presently danced singing down to breakfast, she found by her plate another present—a pretty scarlet housewife from Cousin Charlotte, containing a little pair of scissors, a silver thimble, a case of needles, a stiletto, a bodkin, and two of the tiniest reels of silk she had ever seen. When the case was closed it looked like a dear ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... concealed under his little linger, there shot out as if released by a magic spring a thin keen little blade of the brightest and toughest steel. He was holding, instead of a meaningless contrivance of four rings, a most dangerous kind of stiletto or dagger upraised. He lifted his thumb and the blade sprang back into its sheath like an extinguished spark ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... Elliott Street, Atlanta, Georgia, by a cowardly stroke from a stiletto. The assassin escaped. Strange what a humming there was in the belfry of St. Michael's Church that night! Had the murderer taken refuge there? Was it a knell for his lost soul, chasing him through the empty streets and beginning already an eternal punishment of terror? Perhaps the guilty one ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... way of doing things in New Orleans, where the Legislature met. Gentlemen were not willing to wear a black eye, or bruised face, from the hands or cudgels of ruffians. They had a short way of terminating difficulties with them. A stiletto or Derringer returned the blow, and the Charity Hospital or potter's field had a new patient or victim. These were places for which Larry had no special penchant, and in the city he was careful to avoid rows or personal conflicts. He knew he was protected by the Constitution from arrest, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... which they were to guard. The habit of wearing arms in private life exercised a kindred influence. So long as this habit continued, society was darkened by personal combat, street-fight, duel, and assassination. The Standing Army is to the nation what the sword was to the modern gentleman, the stiletto to the Italian, the knife to the Spaniard, the pistol to our slave-master,—furnishing, like these, the means of death; and its possessor is not slow to use it. In stating the operation of this system we are not left to inference. As France, according ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... are like that, Biff," she said, her first impulse, as always, to see justice done; "but singers are a different breed. I don't think he's bluffing, altogether. If he got a real good chance some place in the dark, and was sure that he wouldn't be caught, he might use a stiletto ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... be tried as secret agents of the enemy. But resistance is rare, for an escort of guards pours out from the doorways and calles, if a stiletto but gleam in the sunlight; and no secret agent may cope with Venice in promptness of ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... P., shows your kind and artless nature; but don't you see it is of no use? People who are bent upon assassinating you in the manner mentioned will write "No thorn" upon their envelopes too; and you open the case, and presently out flies a poisoned stiletto, which springs into a man's bosom, and makes the wretch howl with anguish. When the bailiffs are after a man, they adopt all sorts of disguises, pop out on him from all conceivable corners, and tap his miserable shoulders. His wife is taken ill; his sweetheart, who remarked his brilliant, too ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dragged her to an adjoining room, whither Bonaparte, near fainting from the sudden alarm his friend's interference had occasioned, followed him, trembling. In the right sleeve of Madame Encore's gown was found a stiletto, the point of which was poisoned. She was the same day transported to this capital, under the inspection of Duroc, and imprisoned in the Temple. In her examination she denied having accomplices, and she expired on the rack without telling ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... Musketeers are arrested by the Guards of the cardinal, are they?" continued M. de Treville, as furious at heart as his soldiers, but emphasizing his words and plunging them, one by one, so to say, like so many blows of a stiletto, into the bosoms of his auditors. "What! Six of his Eminence's Guards arrest six of his Majesty's Musketeers! MORBLEU! My part is taken! I will go straight to the louvre; I will give in my resignation ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... him in his knowledge of the Italian tongue. He thought that in the books of the Sieur Macchiavelli upon armies and the bearing of arms there were unfolded many secret passes with the rapier and the stiletto. But Udal laughed good-humouredly. He had, he said, little skill in the Italian tongue, for it was but a bastard of classical begettings. And for instruction in the books of the Sieur Macchiavelli, let young Poins go to a man ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... a serious quarrel they are prone to decide it with the stiletto, or, if they belong to the class which subscribes to the code, they meet on the field of honor with rapiers or pistols; Anglo-Saxons are accustomed to settle their disputes in a court of law or with their fists; but when Dyaks become involved in a controversy ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... America, uttering execrations against all monarchs in general, and his own in particular, and, when you shake your head at his oft-told tale of fictitious patriotism, as he replaces his stereotyped memorial in his pocket, exhibits the handle of a stiletto, with a savage ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... with certain types of women; even in her own house she was often aware of being furtively watched by hostile eyes; or she found herself suddenly the goal of some sharp little pleasantry that pricked like a stiletto. She supposed that she was often forgetful and indiscreet. Perhaps the large court she held so easily on these occasions beneath the trees or in the great drawing-rooms of the old house had more to do with the matter. If so, she never guessed the riddle. In society she was conscious of one ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is a simple over and over stitch forming a smooth, round edge. Like satin stitch, all outlines are run with an even darning stitch, except the very small eyelet holes, made with a stiletto. Long or oval openings must be cut ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled out — There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale! Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time the bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville |
