"Sweepings" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 64; cf. p. 74, where there are two maidens, one of whom had saved the toad when the other desired to kill it. They stand sponsors for the fairy child, and are rewarded with sweepings which turn to gold; also Bartsch, vol. i. p. 50, where ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... meanwhile turning his endeavors to the thousand-fold immeasurable interests of men and gods,—dismissing the one extremely contemptible interest of scoundrels; sweeping that into the cesspool, tumbling that over London Bridge, in a very brief manner, if needful! Who are you, ye thriftless sweepings of Creation, that we should forever be pestered with you? Have we no work to do but drilling Devil's regiments of ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... Duke of Mercoeur and other heroes of the League, having effected their reconciliation with the Bearnese, and for a handsome price paid down on the nail having acknowledged him to be their legitimate and Catholic sovereign, now turned their temporary attention to the Turk. The sweepings of the League—Frenchmen, Walloons, Germans, Italians, Spaniards—were tossed into Hungary, because for a season the war had become languid in Flanders. And the warriors grown grey in the religious wars of France astonished the pagans ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a four-page paper; and as it is set in long primer leaded and has a page of advertisements, there is no room for the crimes, disasters, and general sweepings of the outside world—thanks be! Today I find only a single importation of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Master Fabrice forthwith proceeded to about a hundred eating-houses of the same kind, with all of whom he made similar bargains. Upon this he established a bakery, extending his operations till there was scarcely a restaurant in Paris of which the sweepings did not find their way to the oven of Pere Fabrice. Hence it is that the fourpenny restaurants are supplied; hence it is that the itinerant venders of gingerbread find their first material. Let any man who eats bread at any ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... "Oh! but," they say, "a judge may take an affidavit in his chamber privately; and he may take an affidavit, though not exactly in the place of his jurisdiction, to authenticate a bond, or the like."—We are not to be cheated by words. It is not dirty shreds of worn-out parchments, the sweepings of Westminster Hall, that shall serve us in place of that justice upon, which the world stands. Affidavits! We know that in the language of our courts affidavits do not signify a body of evidence to sustain ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... done all she could and that poor Lord Dorimont, who had really been worried to death, was extremely sorry. I couldn't have the matter out with Mrs. Wimbush, for I didn't want to be taunted by her with desiring to aggrandise myself by a public connexion with Mr. Paraday's sweepings. She had signified her willingness to meet the expense of all advertising, as indeed she was always ready to do. The last night of the horrible series, the night before he died, I put my ear closer to ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... another,' that before one of the messengers had unladed all his budget, another's arrival has antiquated and put aside his store? True, we are often brought very low; there may not be much in the barn but sweepings, and a few stray grains scattered over the floor. We may have but a handful of meal in the barrel, and be ready to dress it 'that we may eat it, and die.' But it never really comes to that. The new ever comes before the old is all eaten ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... defences. Only the leaders seemed to be denied the ease of body their night's effort demanded. Picks and shovels were the order of the day, and all the shortcomings of the defences, discovered during battle, were made good. The golden "pay dirt" which had drawn the sweepings of Leaping Horse into the service of John Kars was the precious material ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... this scenery and the nature of these people, by virtue of his Norwegian birth and his gift of entering into other people's thought; Bjoernson had given unforgettable expression to the feeling of imprisoned longing. But for the man who had been breathing street dust and street sweepings for four months, it was good to breathe the strong, pure air, and at last see once more the clouds floating about and beating against the mountain sides, leaning, exhausted, against a declivity and resting on their journey. Little children of eight or ten ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... trees and apple trees, 3 to 6 years old, that are very thrifty but grow only wood. The soil was poor when planting, and I have put on plenty of sweepings from the chicken-yards. I suppose that is ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... with the exception of one or two organized emigrations of poor, but honest, girls, were the sweepings of the streets of Paris and London. They were sometimes deported with as little ceremony as the engages, and sometimes collected by the Government, especially of France, for the deliberate purpose of meeting the not over nice demands of the adventurers; for it was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the soil to the right and left to form sloping sides until there is a perpendicular depth of twenty-seven inches from the top of the ridge. About one foot of prepared soil should be placed in the bottom of the trench. This may be composed of such material as the trimmings of hedges, sweepings of shrubberies, twigs from a faggot pile, wood ashes and leaf-mould. The constituents must to some extent depend on the materials at command. What is wanted is a light compost, consisting almost wholly of vegetable matter in a more ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... staggers nor seems in danger of being rolled away. On the contrary, such a surplus of surety of balance has he that time and again he lent his surplus to me. I begin to have more respect, not for the sea, but for the men of the sea, and not for the sweepings of seamen that are as slaves on our decks, but for the real seamen who are their masters—for Captain West, for Mr. Pike, yes, and for Mr. Mellaire, ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... hundred children—boys and girls—in bright, light, smart dresses, who clustered on the orchestra and around the great organ, like flowers in June. Looking at their clean, wholesome faces, neat attire, and orderly demeanour, I thought, "Is it possible that these are the sweepings of the streets?" The question was tellingly answered later on; but here it may be stated that this beautiful band of 1300 was only a slice—a sample—of the Doctor's large family, which at present numbers nearly 3500. (It now, in ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... solitary voice upraised in oaths and curses. Barnabas sprang to his feet, and hurrying out into the yard, beheld a powerful black horse that reared and plunged in the grip of two struggling grooms; in an adjacent corner was the late rider, who sat upon a pile of stable-sweepings and swore, while, near by, perched precariously upon an upturned bucket, his slim legs stretched out before him, was a young exquisite—a Corinthian from top to toe—who rocked with laughter, yet was careful ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... sixty persons concerned in the tumult, but as these consisted mainly of "vagrants, gipsies, parish charges, maimed, halt and idiots," the magisterial resentment caused greater rejoicings at Lynn than it did at Spithead, where the sweepings of the borough were eventually deposited. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 920 —Admiral Sir ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... at him. America, I said quietly, just like that. What is it? The sweepings of every country including our own. Isn't that ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... it is true, without much or any cultivation raise several useful trees and plants; but they are in very small quantities, and immediately about their villages, where the ground is fertilised in spite of their indolence by the common sweepings of their houses and streets and the mere vicinity of their buildings. I have often had occasion to observe in young plantations that those few trees which surrounded the house of the owner or the ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... attend to yon scum," he told his squire. "The camp marshal will have fruit for his gallows. The sweepings of all Europe have drifted with us to England, and it is our business to make bonfire of them before they breed a plague.... See to the wounded man, likewise. He may be one of the stout house-carles who fought with Harold at Stamford, and to meet us raced like a gale through the length of ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... bins—a necessary accompaniment of the water-carriage system of disposing of sewage—are theoretically supposed to be receptacles mainly for organic refuse, such as coal-ashes, broken crockery, and at worst the sweepings from the floors. In sober fact they are largely mixed with the rinds, shells, etc., of fruits and vegetables, the bones and heads of fish, egg-shells, the sweepings out of dog-kennels and henhouses, forming thus, in short, a mixture ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... certain canton which, three years later, furnishes in one day from fifty to one hundred volunteers, the young men cut off their thumbs to escape the draft.[5406] To this scum of society is added the sweepings of the depots and of the jails. Among the vagabonds that fill these, after winnowing out those able to make their families known or to obtain sponsors, "there are none left," says an intendant, "but those who are entirely unknown or dangerous, out of which those regarded as the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of some 600 souls, mostly fishermen. Not a tree grows on the island; but at the south end, where a low village crouches down against the continual sweepings of the stormy winds, are a few fields, fragrant with clover, and gleaming with buttercups; and, in one of these fields, scarce a stone's throw from the beating surf, stand the ruins of Lindisfarn Abbey, one of the earliest seats of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... suddenly there came the report of a rifle followed by a fusillade, and bullets flew all over the place. We at first thought the Germans were upon us, but the scattering of the fire brands all over the room told us that some "blighter" had left some clips of live cartridges in the sweepings of the fire place. The stampede which had followed the first burst of fire died away in roars of laughter. No one was hurt although pieces of cartridge cases ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... This is to-morrow morning, and we are at Walter's Ferry. It seems a week since we left Bisuka. We started yesterday on the flank of a dust-storm, and soon were with the main column, the wind pursuing us and hurling the sweepings of the road into the backs of our necks. The double-sides raised us out of the worst of the dust, else I think we should have been smothered. It was a test of our young lady's traveling manners. She ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... after watching him go off down the street, he unbuttoned every button of his jacket, put his cap on the back of his head, and in crossing the street-car track deliberately walked his shiny squeaking shoes into a pile of street-sweepings; he then felt better, and went on towards the Old ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... produces an edible seed and also a fine fibre, are sown in exact oblongs or squares resembling the plots in allotment-grounds in England. Near the villages are large heaps of manure, collected from the cattle zareebas. These are mixed with the sweepings of the stations, and the ashes from the cattle-fires, and are divided when required among the proprietors ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... long series of desolating civil wars, the free middle classes of Italy had almost wholly disappeared. Above the position which they had occupied, an oligarchy of wealth had reared itself: beneath that position a degraded mass of poverty and misery was fermenting. Slaves, the chance sweepings of every conquered country, shoals of Africans, Sardinians, Asiatics, Illyrians, and others, made up the bulk of the population of the Italian peninsula. The foulest profligacy of manners was general in all ranks. In universal weariness of revolution and civil war, and in consciousness ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... chances which still remain to the devourer of books, if, after having consumed all the solid volumes within his reach, he should be reduced to shreds and patches of literature,—like a ship's crew having resort to shoe-leather and the sweepings of the locker. ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never grew upon his head; but now, should this, our broomstick, pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, though the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges that we are of our own excellencies, and other ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... and daughters of keelmen, who sweep and clean the keels, having the sweepings of small ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Hogg, whose infirmities impede those exertions which we are inclined to believe she is willing to make: and Mr. Simpson, who, in some characters, is not a bad performer, is often supplanted by the very sweepings of the green-room. How often do we see that second Proteus, the little prompter with his parenthetical legs, rolled on in five or six different parts on the same evening. Gentleman, jailor, footman, king, and beggar are to him equally indifferent; and next to Mr. Hallam we conceive him to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... analysed a sample of 'Scarifico' sent me, and I find it a hap-hazard compound, in which suspended fats, brick-dust, fuller's earth, road-sweepings, and the bi-phosphates of soda are indiscriminately mixed. I cannot say whether it would be found a 'comfortable and cleansing preparation for the infant's skin,' as claimed by the proprietors, but should be more inclined to recommend it as an 'efficient mud-remover from cart-wheels ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... Tea Company's selected growth of Early Green Leaf Spring Pickings;" i.e., "A damaged cargo and last year's rotten sweepings, mingled with chipped broom, dried cabbage, and other equally suitable and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... his having seen a MS. copy of this play, found by Lord Bolingbroke among the sweepings of Pope's study, in which there occur several indecent passages, not to be found in the printed copy. These, doubtless, constituted the castrations, which, in obedience to the public voice, our author expunged from his play, after its condemnation. It is difficult to guess what could be the nature ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Nitre. l. 143. Nitre is found in Bengal naturally crystallized, and is swept by brooms from earths and stones, and thence called sweepings of nitre. It has lately been found in large quantities in a natural bason of calcareous earth at Molfetta in Italy, both in thin strata between the calcareous beds, and in efflorescences of various beautiful leafy and hairy forms. An account of this nitre-bed is given by Mr. Zimmerman and abridged ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... their fingers; in making a soft bed with few materials besides boards; in mixing the various compounds of burgoo, lobscouse, and dough, (which he affectedly pronounced duff); in fattening pigs on beef-bones, and ducks on the sweepings of the deck; in looking at molasses without licking his lips; and in various other similar accomplishments, which he maintained were as familiar to the children of Stunin'tun, as their singing-books and the ten commandments. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... at once, and no rotted sod is to be had, use good garden loam, preferably from some spot which was under clover-sod the year before. If it is difficult to obtain well-rotted manure, street sweepings may be used as a substitute, and old chip-dirt from under the wood pile, or the bottom of the woodshed if it has a dirt floor, will do in place of leaf-mould. Peat, or thoroughly dried and sweetened muck are also good substitutes for ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... contains many curiosities to reward the dust-sifting historian. And were it not our object to hasten on and sketch the ministerial model to which our last number alluded, we could cheerfully halt for half an hour, and entertain our readers and ourselves with the sweepings ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... strewn with rubbish, for no one had the will or wish to keep it neat. Anna Andreevna rummaged by the stove of Sergius Andreevich, Lina's husband, looking among the papers and sweepings. She peered into the stove and discovered that Leontyevna, the maid—a one-eyed Cyclop—had filled it with birch-wood, whereas it had been agreed that the rotting timber from the summer-house should be used as ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... south of Port Gower, the lower slopes of the hills are covered by a labyrinth of stone fences, minute patches of corn, and endless cottages. It would seem as if for twenty miles the long withdrawing valley had been swept of its inhabitants, and the accumulated sweepings left at its mouth, just as we see the sweepings of a room sometimes left at the door. And such generally is the present state of Sutherland. The interior is a solitude occupied by a few sheep-farmers and their hinds; ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... daughter of old Louhi had laid a wager with the Sun, that she would rise before him the next morning. And so she did, and had time to shear six lambs before the Sun had left his couch beneath the ocean. And after this she swept up the floor of the stable with a birch broom, and collecting the sweepings on a copper shovel, she carried them to the meadow near the seashore. There she heard the sound of some one weeping, and hastening back she told ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... of large cities is in the main composed of animal and vegetable offal of the kitchens; of the sweepings of warehouses, manufactories, saloons, groceries, public and private houses; of straw, sawdust, old bedding, tobacco stems, ashes, old boots, shoes, tin cans, bottles, rags, and feathers; dead cats, dogs, and other small animals; of the dust and sweepings of the streets, the condemned ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... clear, benign, but heatless shining: a ghostly, remote, yet quite limpid light, which seemed designed for the lighting of other planets and systems, and to strike here by happy chance. A great wind from the S.W., meantime, sent thin snow-sweepings flying ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... bandyings from hand to hand, and strivings to and fro, and sweepings here and there, which—saving that he looked more jolly and more radiant after every struggle—troubled his peace of mind no more than if he had been a straw upon the water's surface, he never once released his firm grasp of an arm, drawn tight through ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... he threw his subtle imagination and vital poetry into pounds, shillings, and pence with such force that he worked the base element into spiritual splendours. Oh! to think of our having missed seeing that man. It is painful. A little book is published of his 'thoughts and maxims,' the sweepings of his desk I suppose; broken notes, probably, which would have been wrought up into some noble works, if he had lived. Some ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Crambo this evening, Kate. After these dishes are washed, I mean to try my hand at it. They were laughing about one Mrs. Scherman made last time; they couldn't quite remember it. I've got it. I picked it up among the sweepings. I shall take it in to her by ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... plate of poached eggs cooked in a pan not over clean; saintliness in the enforced attention which she gave to Keziah's rambling stories of her pigs and her chickens, her mother's ailments, Jenny's shortcomings in the matter of sweepings and savings, Tim's wastefulness in the garden over the kailrunts, and the hardships of life on a lone woman left with only a huzzy to look after her; saintliness in the repression of that proud, fastidious self to which Keziah's familiarity and snuff, Jenny's familiarity and disorder, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... the sleeping closet adjoining the living room, each dwelling affords three good sleeping apartments. The meat safe preserves provisions. The dust flue is so arranged that all the sweepings of the house, and all the refuse of the cookery, have only to be thrown down to disappear forever; while the sink is supplied to an unlimited extent with hot and cold water. These galleries, into which every tenement ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the child holding in her hand a gold ornament set with garnets that she had just picked up from a heap of rubbish which appeared to be sweepings from ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... sugar sweepings shall be subject to duty either as molasses or sugar, as the case may be, according to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... The sweepings of the mill-floor did not last them long, and by the time they saw rising before them the spires and chimneys of the small county town to which the road had been leading them, they were very hungry indeed—as hungry as they well could be without having begun ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... as if endowing Princeton, and the Quartet representing the Flower of America's Young Womanhood was once more out in the Ozone, marching abreast with shining Faces and pushing white-haired Business Men off into the Sweepings. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... from Sumatra, men with high-sounding titles and vain boasts, wherewith to carry off their squalid, dirty poverty; Perak men from the fair Kinta valley, prospecting for tin, or trading skilfully; fugitives from Pahang, long settled in the district; and the sweepings of Sumatra, Java, and the Peninsula. It was in this place that I heard the following story of a Were-Tiger, from Penghulu Mat Saleh, who was, and perhaps is still, the Headman of ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... to abuse us to the people, bidding them look upon us for English dogs, Lutherans, enemies of God, sweepings of the English sink of iniquity, for whom neither rack, thumb-screw, nor stake was sufficient reward. Me he denounced to the people as a runaway criminal, describing me in such terms as made my blood boil within me, and my hands itch to take ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... the natives was extreme. Bishop Dordillon might entreat; Temoana himself command and threaten; at the note of the drum wild instincts triumphed. And now it might beat upon these ruins, and who should assemble? The houses are down, the people dead, their lineage extinct; and the sweepings and fugitives of distant bays and islands encamp upon their graves. The decline of the dance Stanislao especially laments. 'Chaque pays a ses coutumes,' said he; but in the report of any gendarme, perhaps corruptly eager to increase the number ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... allowed to stay there. The children took a stick and dug up the earth round about, so it looked like a plowed field. Then they threw the shoe and the sweepings a little way off, because they thought to make the place ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... use of, in the nature and quality of which we fancied ourselves mistaken; but a little farther enquiry let us into the real occasion of it, which was no other than this: the biscuit-dust was the sweepings of the bread-room, but the bag in which they were put had been a tobacco-bag, the contents of which not being entirely taken out, what remained mixed with the biscuit- dust, and proved a ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... had been duly cautioned, and on repeating his offense his little folder of ideas was suppressed, and the precious fonts and presses thrown into the sea with the street-sweepings ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... horse that will lead one to suspect the presence of gastric calculi, and possibly none by which we can unmistakably assert their presence. They have been found most frequently in millers' horses fed sweepings from the mills. A depraved and capricious appetite is common in horses that have a stone forming in the stomachs. There is a disposition to eat the woodwork of the stable, earth, and, in fact, almost any substance within their reach. This symptom must not, however, be ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... (euphemistically). I remember an Italian lady being much hurt when a Maltese said to her "Mia moglie con rispetto parlando" (my wife, saving your presence). "What," she cried, "he speaks of his wife as he would of the sweepings!" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... and pasturing on strange food. I have seen, once or twice, a donkey coming into one of these streets with panniers full of vegetables, and departing with a return cargo of what looked like rubbish and street-sweepings. No other commerce seemed to exist, except, possibly, a girl might offer you a pair of stockings or a worked collar, or a man whisper something mysterious about wonderfully cheap cigars. And yet I remember seeing female hucksters in those regions, with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "It makes me sick," he said, "to think how I've been fooled with. My old schoolmaster ought to have a juiced HIDING. He's a thief. He pretended to undertake to make a man of me, and be's stole twenty-three years of my life, filled me up with scraps and sweepings. Here I am! I don't KNOW anything, and I can't DO anything, and all the ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... was keenly alive and deeply interested in all that was passing around her. She noted that the hours of study were very much shortened now, and that the girls were continually together in the house, and from their bedroom sweepings and stray threads clinging to their dresses, and the snipping sound of scissors, she judged that they were busy with their preparations. Fan had gone back to her ancient but happily not lost art of dressmaking, and was making Constance a dress ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... George rode over with two pairs of boxing-gloves dangling from his saddle. After lessons he and Taffy had a try with them, in a clearing behind the shrubberies where the gardener had heaped his sweepings of dry leaves ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and poison in your breast; and, though I would by no means lesson or disparage your genuine stock of either, yet I doubt you are somewhat obliged, for an increase of both, to a little foreign assistance. Your inherent portion of dirt does not fall of acquisitions, by sweepings exhaled from below; and one insect furnishes you with a share of poison to destroy another. So that, in short, the question comes all to this: whether is the nobler being of the two, that which, by a lazy contemplation of four inches round, by an overweening pride, ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... Noll. There's about two hundred town-sweepings, not worth powder and shot, who want tying on their horses, and hardly know butt from bayonet, and there's another two hundred better men, got together coming along, or in the country around Lichfield. Sneyd, a rattling good fellow, and I have ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... about it. These were very jocosely received in general; but everybody knew where it was, and gave the right direction to it. The prevailing idea among the loungers (the greater part of them the very sweepings of the streets and station houses) seemed to be, that the teachers were quixotic, and the school upon the whole "a lark". But there was certainly a kind of rough respect for the intention, and (as I have said) nobody denied the school or its ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... officers, Inspectors Scarth and Harper. And not any too soon were these precautions taken, for Constantine lets light in on the kind of people who began to head for the diggings when he says in his graphic way, "A considerable number of people coming in from the Sound cities appear to be the sweepings of the slums and the result of a general jail delivery. Heretofore goods could be cached on the side of the trails and they would be perfectly safe, now a man has to sit on his cache with a shotgun ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... weaving, Hence to make the softest raiment, Ere the morning dawn had broken, Ere the sleeping Sun had risen. When this task the maid had ended, Then she scrubbed the birchen tables, Sweeps the ground-floor of the stable, With a broom of leaves and branches From the birches of the Northland, Scrapes the sweepings well together On a shovel made of copper, Carries them beyond the stable, From the doorway to the meadow, To the meadow's distant border, Near the surges of the great-sea, Listens there and looks about her, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... removed it was found that the whole contents were covered with a thin layer of sweepings. The Khansama (the servant who serves at the table) looked at Mr. Anderson and Mr. Anderson at the Khansama "with a wild surmise"; the cover was replaced and the dish taken away. Nothing was ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... from the bowels of the earth; and a score of miscellaneous rabble—flunkies long out of place, and unable to live on their liveries—felons acquitted, or that have dreed their punishment—picked men from the shilling galleries of playhouses—and the elite of the refuse and sweepings of the jails. Look how all the rogues and reprobates march like one man! Alas! was it of such materials that our conquering army was made?—were such the heroes of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... among the sweepings in a corner, something round and white that looked very much like a hen's egg. In a jiffy he pounced upon ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... son-in-law, and grandchild were carefully observed, also the anniversaries of birth and marriage, Easter, Christmas, New Year's day, and Epiphany. These festivals were preceded by great domestic sweepings and a universal clearing up of the house, which added an element of usefulness to the ceremonies. When the festival day came, the presents were offered with much pomp and an accompaniment of flowers,—silk stockings or a fur cap for old Saillard; gold earrings and articles of plate for Elisabeth ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... slattern, I assert, 150 Is she and if unsewn her skirt Not a stitch will it get from her, And though she covered be with dirt Yet will she never comb her hair, And at the merest word will she 155 Be vanquished of laughter utterly. She sweeps and lets the sweepings lie, She eats and will never wash the dishes, Her uncle beats her hourly, So laxly doth she flout his wishes. 160 Madanela's the apple of my eye. And there is no more to be said But tell Meigengra presently ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... chose the general "moving-day" for my visit to Ole, for on that day it is anything but agreeable down in the streets in the town; for they are full of sweepings, shreds, and remnants of all sorts, to say nothing of the cast-off bed straw in which one has to wade about. But this time I happened to see two children playing in this wilderness of sweepings. They were playing ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... at least paid their passages; no felons were ever shipped thither; and though it be true that many deboshed younger brothers of what are called good families may have sought refuge in Virginia, it is equally certain that a great part of the early deportations thither were the sweepings of the London streets and the leavings of the London stews. On what the heralds call the spindle side, some, at least, of the oldest Virginian families are descended from matrons who were exported and sold for so many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... our attention to the curious false floor, made of iron in a honey-comb pattern, and divided into small sections so that it can be readily taken up to save the dust. He tells us that the sweepings of these rooms have sometimes proved to be worth fifty thousand dollars in a single year. The particles which adhere to the workmen's clothing are also carefully saved, and there is an arrangement in the chimney for arresting any light-minded atoms ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... to the boxes; each box being connected by lead pipes well secured from frost, so that, if desired, each animal can be watered without leaving the stall, or water can be kept constantly before it. A scuttle, through which sweepings and refuse may be put into the cellar, is seen at f. g is a bin receiving cut hay from the third story, or hay-room, h h h h h h, bins for grain-feed. i is a tunnel to conduct manure or muck from the hay-floor to the cellar. j j, sliding-doors ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... this and then proceeded. "I am an American and I am proud of it. Not because of the great power and wealth of my country, nor of its hundred and odd millions of people made up of the nations of the earth, the sweepings of Europe, the overflow of Asia, and the bag of the slave-hunter of Africa, which centuries will amalgamate into a cafe au lait conglomerate, but because I am proud of that small group of Anglo-Saxons who, under the influence of the free air of our great country, have developed such ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... road is swept. Though the return takes place, nevertheless, along the original track, this may be due to the uneven work of the broom, which has left certain particles of the scented dust in position. The Ants who went round the cleared portion may have been guided by the sweepings removed to either side. Before, therefore, pronouncing judgment for or against the sense of smell, it were well to renew the experiment under better conditions and to remove everything ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... or something big and booming, of popular indignation; everybody will unanimously elect the right men, who will justly earn the enormous salaries that are at present being paid to inadequate aliens for road sweepings, and all will be well. At the same time the lawlessness ingrained by governors among the governed during the last thirty, forty, or it may be fifty years; the brutal levity of the public conscience in regard to public duty; the ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... porch. C. Wadl-leek, passage. D. Haddnoeweek, for the reception of the sweepings of the house. E. G. Tokheuook, antechamber, or passage. F. Annarroeartoweek. H. Eegah, cooking-house. I. Eegah-natkah, passage. K. Keidgewack, for piling wood upon. L. Keek kloweyt, cooking side. M. Keek loot, fireplace built of stone. ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... some way he patiently studied the laws relating to rentals and party-walls; he fathomed the jurisprudence which regulates the dwellings of Paris in an infinite number of petty questions as to tenants, abutters, liabilities, taxes, repairs, sweepings, decorations for the Fete-Dieu, waste-pipes, lighting, projections over the public way, and the neighborhood of unhealthy buildings. His means, his strength, in fact his whole mind was spent in keeping his proprietary ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... a story "Compiled from the Memoirs of One Perkin Althorpe, Esq., Sometime Field-Coronet in His Majesty's Troop of Horse," and was sown thick with objurgation—"Ods-wounds!" "Body o' me!" "A murrain on thee!" "By my halidom!" and all the rest of the sweepings and tailings of Scott and the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... all parts of the houses, were emptied into the street before the front doors! The ashes were disposed of in a very peculiar manner. Each house had, on the edge of the parapet opposite, an old flour-barrel, or something of the sort, into which were thrown ashes, sweepings, fish-bones, dead rats, and all kinds of refuse. A dead rat very frequently garnished the top of the barrel. This was the order of things, not in small by-streets only, but also in the very best streets, and before the very best houses. The pavement too, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... passing stranger may watch him; his food will be handed to him in a tin pan with a tin knife and spoon; and he will be periodically called out of his cell and driven round the exercise yard with a mob composed, for the most part, of the sweepings of the London slums. If he is acquitted, he will be turned loose without a suggestion of compensation or apology for these indignities or the losses he may have ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... a large amount of waste products in human and social economy. The products of combustion, such as ashes, cinders, etc.; the products of street sweepings and waste from houses, as dust, rubbish, paper, etc.; the waste from various trades; the waste from kitchens, e. g., scraps of food, etc.; the waste water from the cleansing processes of individuals, domestic animals, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... the steps of an open porch. These steps were sagging and decayed, and the porch was swept by the gentle eddyings of leaves of past summers that had sought refuge there and had been undisturbed by the ruthless sweepings of winds or brooms. There was a haunting odour of pine and something else that was damp and old and weary and forgotten, and a shrivelled wisteria vine that clung with withered fingers to a trellis at the house corner began to whisper at their approach. A yellow bar of light shot for a moment ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... a great joy to her. Last of all, she begged a bit of frayed muslin from the sweepings for a night-dress. Then she could undress her baby ...
— The Potato Child and Others • Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
... what!—mixed dust of every unclean thing that can crumble in drought, and mildew of every unclean thing that can rot or rust in damp: ashes and rags, beer-bottles and old shoes, battered pans, smashed crockery, shreds of nameless clothes, door-sweepings, floor-sweepings, kitchen garbage, back-garden sewage, old iron, rotten timber jagged with out-torn nails, cigar-ends, pipe-bowls, cinders, bones, and ordure, indescribable; and, variously kneaded into, sticking to, or fluttering foully here and there over all these,—remnants broadcast, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... wealth into it, was the least that I could do. And we worked, my word, we did work—early and late we went at it—but never a bit of gold did we see; no, not even a nugget large enough to make a scarf-pin out of. The American gentleman had secured it all and left us the sweepings. ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... one-third interest in the fleet is confirmed. No excise duty is to be levied "for ten years, and until we order to the contrary." A hospital is provided for by one hundred thousand maravedis taken from fines. The hospital also is to receive the rights of escobilla [22] and the sweepings in the founding of metals. Lawyers and attorneys are prohibited from engaging in their callings in the lands and islands discovered. The royal officials appointed by the king are to be taken in the fleet, as well as ecclesiastics "for the instruction of the natives ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... pieces of charcoal. If the compost has a proper admixture of sharp sand or grit, free drainage will be insured, and yet the soil cannot be washed through the pot. Silver sand is often employed, and there is nothing better for the purpose. But the sweepings from gravel walks, finely sifted, may be substituted. Road grit is often infested ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... hold, rolled out of his bunk to find that, while he slept, clothing had been provided for him, rough but adequate; heavy woollen underwear and socks, a sweater, a dungaree coat, trousers of the same stuff, all vilely damp, and a friendless pair of oil-sodden shoes: the sweepings of a dozen lockers, ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... of them, in snowy white shirts and black velvet knee-breeches, strutted like pigeons in a knot, some with one woman on the arm, some with two. Bundles of variegated rags lay against the walls, as if they were sweepings. Well, they were the sweepings of Havana jail. The men in white and black were the great thieves... and there were children, too—the place was the city orphanage. For the fifth part of a second my advent made no difference. Then, at the far end, one of the men in black and white ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... add to all these inevitable confusions and misreckonings of time, shape, and distance, charges at every angle of squadrons through and across other squadrons; sudden shifts of the centres of the fights, and even swifter restorations; wheelings, sweepings, and regroupments such as accompany the passage across space of colliding universes. Then blanket the whole inferno with the darkness of night at full speed, and—see what you ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... deposed that he had lived servant with the defendant; he constantly roasted pease and beans, and ground them into powder. When so ground, the powder very much resembled coffee. Sometimes the sweepings of the coffee were thrown in among the pease and beans. Witness carried out this powder to several grocers in ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... to do it himself. Out there, on the edge of the pavement, his four little ones were sitting, in close proximity of the waste pipes. Their feet were in the dry gutter, and they were playing with orange peels which they had found in the sweepings of the road. The sight stabbed his heart, and he felt a lump rising in his throat. But poverty had so blunted his feelings that he remained standing at the window with ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... means, first and foremost, just the off-scourings of creation, the very dust and sweepings of the shop," answered Bludger, who had somehow regained his confidence. To have a fellow-sufferer, and to see the pallor which, doubtless, overspread my features, was a source of comfort to this hardened man. At the same time I confess that, if William Bludger alone ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... gutters in hard weather, where they pick up crumbs and other sweepings, and in mild weather they procure worms, which are stirring every month in the year, as any one may see that will only be at the trouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on any mild winter's night. Redbreasts and wrens in the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... "Ye street-sweepings!" exclaimed Adsalis passionately, "what evil spirit has entered into you that ye would thus compel the Sultana Asseki to give way ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... trips from California to the East and labored with Jones and Mackay all that winter and at intervals during the following year, through which that "cunning devil," the machine, consumed its monthly four thousand dollars—money that was the final gleanings and sweepings of every nook and corner of the strong-box and bank-account and savings of the Clemens family resources. With all of Mark Twain's fame and honors his life at this period was far from an enviable one. It was, in fact, a fevered delirium, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... brew—amber and nitre and wormwood—vinegar and quinces and myrrh—with wormwood, camphor, and the fresh flowers of the camomile. And musk—forget not musk—a strong thing against contagion. Let the vapor of it pass to and fro through the chamber, burn the herbs from the floor and all sweepings on this hearth; strew fresh herbs and flowers, and set all clean and in order, and give thanks that you are not setting all in order ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... request the box was brought up. It was a soap box almost full. "Are these only the sweepings of today?" I asked. The janitor spoke up. "I emptied all the others yesterday, sir," he declared. With this assurance, I plunged my hands into the pile and began a minute and careful search of it, dumping handful after handful on newspapers ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... her costume was ludicrously out of place, though at the time I thought it enviably grand. The way in which a rich skirt that would not wash, and would undoubtedly be worn again, trailed through dust and orange-peel, and greengrocers' refuse, and general shop-sweepings, was offensive to ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... when it reaches the desert, through which it flows as a lazy dragon, reddish-yellow, tawny, it is the dirtiest stream in the world. For not only does it carry the sand of its own grinding, as it passes through the hundred miles of canyon of its waterway, but it accepts the sweepings of vast areas made by its tributaries. Some of these extend through barren and desolate areas,—great stretches of the most forsaken desert lands, where the rains occasionally pour down with deluge-like ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... tragedy of life is to learn that it is not really tragic. To learn that the world is gross, that it lacks nobility, that to considerate persons it must be in effect quite unimportant,—here are commonplaces, sweepings from the tub of the immaturest cynic. But to learn that you yourself were thoughtfully constructed in harmony with the world you were to live in, that you yourself are incapable of any great passion—eh, this is an athletic ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... I observed, too, that his manner had altered. He who had consorted with the sweepings af the doss-houses now addressed me as a courteous gentleman addresses an inferior—not haughtily or patronizingly, but with a note of conscious superiority and self-respect wholly unfamiliar. Almost it threw me off ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... anchor and be off," answered Hartog. "But we have work to do ashore in attending to the ship's repairs before we may hope to leave this place where, I make no doubt, we shall be imposed upon and robbed by the sweepings of Europe who inhabit this island. It is fortunate we have the word of the Spanish captain that he himself will be responsible for all ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... and the youngsters laughing. An old Jew cobbler bleated out of the hollow of his stall, "Dake him to the shustish of the beace!" The lion himself; in his dark state, tried to roar as his hapless champion, after a desperate struggle, rolled on the ground among the spilt pence and the sweepings. ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... he grunted. "I know their kidney. They've done time, the three of them. They're just plain sweepings of hell—" ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... subways, there is no difficulty whatever in cleansing the streets, no more difficulty than is experienced in Paris. That disgrace to our modern civilisation, the mud cart, is not known, and even the necessity for Mr. E.H. Bayley's roadway moveable tanks for mud sweepings,—so much wanted in London and other towns similarly built,—does not exist. The accumulation of mud and dirt in the streets is washed away every day through side openings into the subways, and is conveyed, with the sewage, to a destination ...
— Hygeia, a City of Health • Benjamin Ward Richardson
... look after this! Her, that's kicked up her heels for a living! It's—no, she's no good. She's common. She's come, and she can go. I ain't having sweepings from the streets living here as ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... they were fired with triumph and happiness; they nudged each other violently and made brazen declarations which, faced by the girls, escaped in disconcerted laughter. Their language—and this, too, was a revolt—was like the sweepings of the cow barns. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... board a large investment of India goods, muslins, calicoes, chintzes, soap, sugar, spirits, and a variety of small articles, apparently the sweepings of a Bengal bazar; the sale of which investment he expected would produce ten ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... surrendered by Mr. Gardner. I have conversed with a gentleman who has seen the original receipt for the amount, with the different items of the deposit. The amount was by no means large, and affords evidence of no such mighty sweepings of the seas as have been told of in story and in song. Of gold, in coins, gold dust, and bars, there were seven hundred and fifty ounces. Of silver, five hundred and six ounces, and of precious ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... either side. "Boys must be boys" and "He's paid for lookin' arter things" were the arguments whereby the antagonists testified their mutual respect, in both of which the parents concurred; and his severity did not cost the old man a penny when he made his Easter rounds to collect the "sweepings." It may, perhaps, be well to explain that the "sweepings" consisted of an annual sum of threepence which every householder contributed towards the cleaning of the church, and which represented a large part ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... be prepared by thorough digging and mixing about an inch in depth of old manure; wood ashes and decayed sweepings having a quantity of goat or sheep dung in it is well suited for the seed-bed at this season. Cow dung is apt to have the larva of the dung beetle in it—a very large caterpillar which destroys young plants by eating through the stem under ground. The bed having been thoroughly watered, the seed ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... were heavy, frowsy creatures, slatternly and uncouth. They came generally from the dregs of frontier cities, or were the sweepings of the open country, gleaned in the debauched moments of the men who protected them. Nor, as his eyes wandered in their direction, was it possible to help a comparison between them and the burden of delicate womanhood he held in his arms, a comparison which found ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... house all day, with that ever-present sense of privacy and novelty which had thrilled me when I first shut the street door behind me. At evening I sallied out and bought a loaf of bread, half a pound of tea ("sweepings," they call it, and it cost eightpence), a tin kettle (fivepence), a pound of sugar, a tin of Swiss milk, and a tin of American potted meat. I had often heard my mother groan over the expenses of housekeeping, and now I began to understand what she meant. Two and ninepence went like ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... are outbuildings, slums, and alleys not visible from the front. These back on the Orient, and the rear view of the structure of European civilization, seen from the Orient, is not imposing at all. The sweepings and refuse of Western civilization and Western morality are dumped out upon the Orient, where ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... feed several of them. The glaciers themselves, even those continuous with the summit ice, really originate about four thousand feet below the top in cirques or pockets which are principally fed with the tremendous snows of winter, and the wind sweepings and avalanches from the summit. The Pacific winds are charged heavily with moisture which descends upon Rainier in snows of great depth. Even Paradise Park is snowed under from twelve to thirty feet. There is a photograph of a ranger cabin in ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... M'Crie. The original, in the handwriting of its author, has been deposited in the Advocate's Library. There is an hiatus, which contained the history of six years. This work excited inquiry after the rest of the MSS., which were found to be nothing more than the sweepings of an ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... us! Are we willing to give our Lord the best of what we have—to consecrate time, talents, strength, life, to His service? Not as many, to give Him the mere dregs and sweepings of existence—the wrecks of a "worn and withered love"—but, like Mary, anxious to take every opportunity and occasion of testifying the depth of obligation under which we are laid to Him? Let us not say—"My sphere is lowly, my means are limited, my best offerings would be inadequate." Such, ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff |
