"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on back to her, and—if you want good advice—when you get indoors, stay in." With a kindly tolerance the policeman assisted the pedestrian across the street and watched him tack along until he ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... was far from being as shrewd as the father, or he would have instantly chosen the proper tack; but he was like a vessel caught in stays, and experienced considerable internal pitching and jostling. In one sense it was a relief that the old man supposed him to be worth much more than was actually the case, but long experience hinted that a favorable assumption of this kind often led to ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... how would it do to try the other tack and practice a careful but significant restraint?" ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... an excellent method of bending small pipes. Fig. 42 will almost describe itself. A is a brass or gun metal ball having a copper or wire rope running through it, and pulled through the flattened part of the pipe as shown. It will be quite as well to tack the bend down to the bench, as at B, when pulling the ball through; well dress the lead from front to back to thicken the back. I have seen some plumbers put an extra thickness of lead on the back before beginning to bend. Notice: nearly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... box carefully using marking ink or a regulation tag. If a tag, tack with small tacks on the top of the box. Write your own name and address on the tag distinctly as the sender. Be as careful of the tacks as you were of the nails. Always get a receipt from your express agent if shipping by express as this will be necessary in case of non-receipt ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... could accomplish, he could only commit to a merciful Providence the lives of his gallant crew, all now depending upon one of the many accidents to the masts and rigging which there was so much reason to apprehend. Happily, the sails stood well; the Indefatigable continued to gain by every tack; and at eleven o'clock, with six feet water in her hold, she passed about three-quarters of a mile to windward of the Penmarcks; enabling her officers and men, after a day and night of incessant exertion, at length to rest from their toil, and to ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... and portions measured out, while the diners distributed themselves on odd boxes lying about on the ice. Many who were accustomed to restaurants built tables of kerosene cases and dined al fresco. After the limited stew, the company fared on cocoa, biscuits—"hard tack"—and jam, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Apply Drag Ropes to the Wagons and Aid the Mules in Pulling Them up the Mountain. Lieutenant Bradley and His Scouts Scale the Divide by Night and Locate the Indian Camp. The March Down Trail Creek. Soldiers' Fare. Hard Tack and Raw Pork. A Brief Sleep Without Blankets. Perils of the Situation. Less Than 200 Soldiers and Citizens to Attack 400 Trained Indian Warriors. Implicit Confidence of Officers and Men in One Another Nerves Them to the ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... we were hugging the land as near as we could, first on one tack, then on the other, hoping that the weather would moderate, but hoping in vain, for the sky was now a dull leaden hue, and the sea was so bad, even in our somewhat sheltered situation, that we were all more or less sea-sick. I got my chart and studied the thing out. Sixty miles due south of us ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... of time Jim Ferrers, with such help as Alf was able to give, had supper ready to serve. It was a rough meal, of hard tack, pilot bread, potatoes, canned meats and vegetables, but outdoor life had given all a good appetite and the meal did not long ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... of her good name!" he said hotly. "It seems to me that's about the first thing to be considerate of, in being considerate of a person! And look here: it strikes me you're taking a pretty different tack from what ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... activity but at a reduced level or in spare time, in contrast to mainstream 'back burner' (which connotes benign neglect until some future resumption of activity). Some people prefer to use the term for processing that they have queued up for their unconscious minds (a tack that one can often fruitfully take upon encountering an obstacle in creative ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... It is a mere hovel, but it has a wooden floor, and there are signs of personal dignity—what is known in England as 'respectability'—struggling with poverty. Perhaps the ancient clock, whose worm-eaten case reaches from the floor to the ceiling, and whose muffled but cheery tick-tack is like the voice of an old friend, impressed me in favour of this poor home ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... of Wapping, observing that most part of his audience were in the seafaring way, very naturally embellished his discourse with several nautical tropes and figures. Amongst other things, he advised them "to be ever on the watch, so that on whatsoever tack the evil one should bear down on them, he might be crippled in action." "Ay, master," said a son of Neptune, "but let me tell you, that will depend upon your having ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... what the North-countrymen call bairns o' mine: I've none o' my own. My wife was a barren woman. I've none but my old mother at home. Have your sulks out, lads; you'll come round like the Priscilla on a tack, and discover you've made way ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you what, gentlemen,' replied Brass, in a very grave manner, 'he'll not serve his case this way, and really, if you feel any interest in him, you had better advise him to go upon some other tack. Did I, sir? ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... admiration, or whether some true instinct had told him that a woman's love may be gained in many ways sooner than by mere learning, he was only angry with himself for his past folly in making himself her school—nay, her taskmaster. To-night, though, he would start off on a new tack. He would not even upbraid her for her conduct the night before; he had shown her his displeasure at the time; but she should see how tender and forgiving he could be. He would lure her to him rather than find ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... filled on the starboard tack, and the West Wind went off to the south-east as Christy put up the helm. The fog lifted just enough to enable the officer at the stern of the steamer to see the West Wind as she went off on her new course. No one on the former could have suspected that the latter ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... while the reefs were taken in. It was blowing considerably more than half a gale of wind, and the sea was very heavy. Soon, however, the effect of the sails made itself felt; the yacht was a good sea-boat, and when she fairly heeled over on the port-tack and began to cut the waves again, the ladies downstairs agreed that sailing was much pleasanter and steadier than steam, and that the next time they crossed in a yacht they would like to sail all the way. But in spite of their courage, and notwithstanding that ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... contradictory to the meaning of the act. Others opposed it, because the lords had already resolved by a vote, that they would never pass any bill sent up from the commons, to which a clause foreign to the bill should be tacked; and this clause they affirmed to be a tack, as an incapacity to hold employments was a circumstance altogether distinct from a settlement in money. The queen expressed uncommon eagerness in behalf of this bill; and the court influence was managed so successfully that it passed through both houses, though not without an obstinate opposition, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... have to put you upon allowance.' And then Taylor—he was an old man-o'-warsman, you see, and he couldn't get along without his grog—he jest ups and says—'that's enough, capt'n. You may haul aft the sheet, tack ship, and go home. I shall tell you nothing more. As soon as the money is safe—I see how 'tis—old Taylor'll have to go overboard.' And he stuck to what he said, though he went ashore with them, just to show them that he knew every point of the compass—for ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... sea. It was within three miles of the light, though hardly visible in the gloom to the watchful eye of the light-keeper on his gallery, when Butler attempted to go upon another tack. Twice he tried, twice he failed, when, making a third attempt, the boom of the sail jibed, and instantly the boat capsized. The disappearance of the sail from his horizon told the man upon the gallery of the peril of his friends, and quickly ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... be disappointed in that respect, although I have been out and home without having had to lift tack or sheet for weeks together," observed ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... the disagreeable habit of introducing certain words or meaningless syllables into their speech, where these do not at all belong; or they tack on diminutive endings to their words. The syllables are often mere sounds, like eh, uh; in many cases they sound ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... wedding-silver for Mrs. Dubbadoe and her pretty daughter, when they drive in from Milton to see you,—of the ice-cream you ate last night at the summer party which the Bellinghams gave the Pinckneys,—of the hard-tack and boiled dog which dear John is now digesting in front of Petersburg,—the real business, I say, is to supply the human frame with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen in organized forms. It must be in organized matter. You might pound your wedding-diamonds for carbon, you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... anywhere else for the future. All this must have taken up the most of twenty minutes, yet after getting as far as Mr. Shylock's I remembered that I required what one's hatter (and no one else) calls a "boater," and back I went to order one in addition to the cap. And as the next tack fetches the buoy, so my next perambulation (in which, however, I was thinking seriously of a new bowler) brought me face to face with ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... workers were ready to return to the room, the men had finished the arrangements at which they had been at work before lunch, and were beginning to tack festoons of evergreens along the walls, the dull paper of which had been covered with fluting of soft pink muslin. The effect was heavy and clumsy in the extreme, and Rosalind stamped her foot with ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... Operation, that Member of the Circle towards whom he is so rude as to turn his Back first, runs his Sword directly into that Part of the Patient wherein School-boys are punished; and, as it is very natural to imagine this will soon make him tack about to some other Point, every Gentleman does himself the same Justice as often as he receives the Affront. After this Jig has gone two or three times round, and the Patient is thought to have sweat sufficiently, he is very handsomly rubb'd down by some ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... every tack, just as it's wanted. But there was Moffat, yesterday, in a room behind the milliner's shop near Cuthbert's Gate; I was with him. The woman's husband is one of the choristers and an elector, you know, and Moffat went to look for his vote. Now, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... yer can't always read them," said Journeyman; "an accident will send you off on the wrong tack, so it all comes to the same thing, ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... altered the course sufficiently to keep the plane in view on the new tack, but not to bring them so close to it as to arouse suspicion. In a few moments, all could see the tiny speck coasting down on a long slant and Bob, watching through the glasses, ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... had something else then? what've you been doing with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,—'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,—'n' gobble up that coffee, double-quick, mind; and don't you open your heads to talk till the grub's gone, slick and clean. Ugh!" he said to the Captain,—"sight o' them fellows just took my appetite away; ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... are, my lads; and Bosun Jones has sent you up some hot slops and soft tack. There you are. Find your own tablecloth and ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... considerations did intervene. A Duke, and a young Duke, is an important personage; but he must still be introduced. Even our hero might make a bad tack on his first cruise. Almost as important personages have committed the same blunder. Talk of Catholic emancipation! O! thou Imperial Parliament, emancipate the forlorn wretches who have got into a bad set! Even thy ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... the aristocracy of birth going to do about it? Struggle desperately? It took that tack at first. Bismarck ranged himself in its support for some time. He was himself an agrarian. But he was not long in installing paper mills on his estates at Varzin. It is said that the Emperor himself possesses porcelain factories. A part of the nobility for a long time tried to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... towards the east before a steady breeze. Often for days together not a sheet nor tack was started; the crew had seldom to go aloft, except to serve some of the rigging, or to keep ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... were now made to raise the poor animal from his perilous position, which great work, to the no small joy of the major, was effected by putting the "Two Marys" on the other tack. Old Battle now shook the water from his mane, and as if to thank his deliverers, gave out a loud neigh. And so suddenly did this bring the major to his feet, in the full possession of his senses, that he set about thanking heaven for its kind ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... under our stern, and avoiding our broad-side. As this would never do, and the wind freshened so as to give us four or five knot way, a most fortunate circumstance for us, the captain determined to tack while he had room. The John behaved beautifully, and came round like a top. The proas saw there was no time to lose, and attempted to close before we could fill again; and this they would have done with ninety-nine ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... impression. At first, indeed, I felt that not one of my words went into the man's brain—that, though silent, he was not listening. It seemed almost hopeless to present my views in such a light that he could grasp them. I felt as if I were expounding and arguing at a rock. But when I got on to the tack of his duty towards his wife and himself, and appealed to his moral and religious notions, I felt that ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... only my own wishes, I should not have allowed this hasty at tack on Dr. Todd to have made its appearance in this Collection; being now fully convinced that the charge brought against that reverend gentleman of intending to pass off as genuine his famous mock Papal ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... operation of fixing on the book is begun, it will always be found best to mount the embroidered work on a backing of strong fine linen. The stage at which it is best to add the linen will vary according to the kind of work it is to strengthen. In the case of canvas it will only be necessary to tack it on quite at the last; with velvet a backing from the first may be used with advantage, all the stitches being taken through both materials. As to satin, it will be best to do all the very fine work, if any, in coloured silks first, and when the stronger work in cord or braid ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... market-place, and advanced in an irregular zig-zag fashion towards the Palace, wildly tacking from side to side, like a sailing vessel making way against an unfavourable wind so that the head of the procession was often further from us at the end of one tack than it had been at the end of ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... forget his name, or to misapprehend you in some respect or other; and this merely to have an opportunity of slily gratifying their malice by mentioning some unhappy defect or personal infirmity he labours under; and not contented "to tack his every error to his name," they will, by way of farther explanation, have recourse to the faults of his father, or the misfortunes of his family; and this with all the seeming simplicity and candor in the world, merely ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... brown sails of Tregenza's lugger flapped in the bay among a crowd of others, and every man was in a hurry to be off again at the earliest opportunity. Already the first boats home were putting to sea once more, making a wide tack across the mouth of the bay until nearly abreast of St. Michael's Mount, then tearing away like race horses with foam flying as they sailed before the eastern wind for the ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... hand, in haste to rhyme, Should tack an empty couplet at a time, Great names who do the same I might adduce; Nay, some who keep such hirelings for their use. Need blooming Phyllis be described in prose By any lover who has seen a rose? Who can forget heaven's masterpiece, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... the right, in order to avoid the shoals of the east bank, and so sailed to the Hoofden. We had a good flood tide, and four to five fathoms of water at the shoalest part; but the wind shifted again to the north, and we were compelled to tack, which rendered our progress slow, for it was quite calm. Coming to the Hoofden, and between them, you have 10, 11, and 12 fathoms of water. As soon as you begin to approach the land, you see not only woods, hills, dales, green fields and plantations, but also the ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... inner soles and counters have been made ready and brought to the lasting-room. The toe stiffeners and also the counters are now cemented into their places. The inner sole is tacked to the last, and the uppers are put in place and held there by a tack at the heel. This is done by machines; but their working is simple compared with that of the machine which now takes charge of the half-made shoe. This machine puts out sturdy little pincers which seize the edge of ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... you are!" he said again; but she did not mind it in the least. With a sweep of her bare arm she had put the tiller hard aport, intending to tack back to Peel, but the wind had freshened and the sea was rising, and by the swift leap of the boat the boom was snapped, and the helpless sail came napping down upon the mast. Then they tumbled into the trough, and Glory had not strength to pull them out of ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... war I felt that I owed a grudge to the medical faculty. Having a romantic temperament and a taste for heroics, I had wished to fight and eat hard tack for my country. But whenever I presented the feeble frame in which I then dwelt, the medical man stood in my path with the remonstrance, "Why should you fill another cot in a hospital and another strip in ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... facts, of which the great men were to make use. And even as to the value of his collections he seems to have had much doubt, for he wrote to Henslow in 1834:—"I really began to think that my collections were so poor that you were puzzled what to say; the case is now quite on the opposite tack, for you are guilty of exciting all my vain feelings to a most comfortable pitch; if hard work will atone for these thoughts, I vow it ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... have the wind on their quarter, as the sun shone full in their faces, which they considered might be of disadvantage to them, and stretched out a little, so that at last they got the wind as they wished. The Normans, who saw them tack, could not help wondering why they did so, and said they took good care to turn about, for they were afraid of meddling with them. They perceived, however, by his banner, that the King was on board, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... presence. Whereupon the man conceives a new idea of his own perspicacity in detecting a thing at once so agreeable and so little advertised. He may, with a woman of this kind, go long upon the third 'tack'—may, indeed, never know it was she who gently 'shunted' him, still unenlightened, and left him side-tracked, but cherishing to the end of time the soothing conviction that he 'might an' if he would.' To the more robust ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... sir—so long as you treat him well, and he gets treated right enough with soft tack and mutton. He comes to see our other two ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... till we had to tack about in order to enter Laurvig, where we arrived towards three o'clock in the afternoon. It is a clean, pleasant town, with a considerable iron-work, which ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... the wind blew have mark'd; nor loos'd my sails, "Him flying, to pursue, and the wide main "In all directions plough: now bellies out "My canvas; not a single course explor'd. "Hence am I borne against the rocks; hence 'whelm'd "In the wide depth of ocean; nor my sails "Know I to tack returning. Did not heaven "Check the indulgence of my love, by marks "Obvious to all? when from my hand down dropp'd "The tablet, which the boy was bade to bear. "Mark'd that my falling hopes not? More deferr'd "Thy wishes, or the day should sure have been; "Surely the day. For heaven itself ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... well inclined to do the bidding of the democratic leaders. The one accusation has been as unfair as the other. In this letter he reminds Lentulus that a captain in making a port cannot always sail thither in a straight line, but must tack and haul and use a slant of wind as he can get it. Cicero was always struggling to make way against a head-wind, and was running hither and thither in his attempt, in a manner most perplexing to those who were looking on without knowing the nature of the winds; but his port was always there, ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... should form the basis of infantile discipline. He was in a tremendous hurry to push on my spiritual growth, and he fed me with theological meat which it was impossible for me to digest. Some glimmer of a suspicion that he was sailing on the wrong tack must, I should suppose, have broken in upon him when we had reached the eighth and ninth chapters of Hebrews, where, addressing readers who had been brought up under the Jewish dispensation, and had the formalities of the Law of Moses ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... easily as a pair of cheap boots. There is nothing left, not a scrap. It's as though I hadn't been suffering then, but had been dancing a mazurka. Everything in the world is transitory, and that transitoriness is absurd! A wide field for humorists! Tack on ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Wittgenstein occupied a height which entirely commanded that miry country; that it would be necessary for us to tack about, within his sight and within his reach, by following the windings and turnings of the road, in order to ascend to the Russian camp; that thus our column of attack would be long exposed to their fire, first its left and then its right flank; that this ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... and this only made her the more intense a second later, on a different tack. Now she ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... of warnings was due to the fact that Aunt Lizzie already had fallen fourteen times in transit, a tack-head seeming sufficient to trip her up, and now, quite as though they had shouted the reverse, Aunt Lizzie stumbled and dropped the onyx apple upon old ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... a game of seven-up going on in the cabin, and the sun striking down the companionway was bothering Andie Howe. He began to complain. "Hi, up there to the wheel! Hi, Eddie—can't you put her on the other tack?—the sun's in my eyes. How can a man see the cards with ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... conceall it. To witt that neyther Doht our soueraine so greatlie fear her owen estate by reasson of that book, neyther yet Doth she so vnfeanedlie fauour the tranquilitie of your maiesties reing and realme that she wo[u]lde tack so great and earnest paines onles that her crafty counsall in so Doing ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... the author of this book encountered the Pompadour, and Lady Castlemaine, and some other executive heads of that kind; these were found so difficult to work into the scheme, that it was judged better to take the other tack in this book (which must be issued this fall), and then go into training and settle the question in another book. It is, of course, a thing which ought to be settled, and I am not going to have anything particular to do next ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... now on the dealing tack, commenced in the poverty-stricken strain adapted to the occasion. Having deposited his hat on the floor, taken his left leg up to nurse, and given his hair a backward rub with his right ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... or south-west, it would be better if bound to Boston Bay, to beat up between Boston Island and the promontory of Cape Donnington. The shores are steep on both sides, so that a vessel may stand close in on either tack. Should the wind be so strong as to prevent a vessel beating in, she may run up under easy sail to a bay on the north-east end of Boston Island, and bring up in seven fathoms opposite a white sandy beach, three-quarters of a mile off shore. There is also excellent ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... not expected her to take this tack. He scowled and looked disconcerted, shifting uneasily in his big chair, but when Juli did not continue, obviously awaiting his answer, he said, "Juli, he left me no choice. I never knew how his mind worked. That final deal he engineered—have ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... that I had only to wait for Claire to tell me the rest of the story. But her mind went off on another tack. "Sylvia's going to have a baby," she ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... called Peachy for short. Oh, yes, I knew all about you beforehand, although you happen to be the newest girl. Dad wrote me a whole page—wonderful for him!—and said he'd stayed at your house in London, and I was to tack myself on to you and show you round, and see you didn't fret and all the rest of it. Are you wanting a crony, temporary or otherwise? Then here I am at your service. Link an arm and we'll parade the place. I guess by the time ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... breeze; —— en popa before the wind, with a wind from astern. vigor m. vigor, strength, force. vil adj. vile, base, despicable, mean, paltry. villano m. low-born one, rustic, villain. vino m. wine. violento, -a violent, impetuous, furious. virar tack, put about. virgen adj. virgin, chaste. virgen f. virgin. virginal adj. virginal. virtud f. power, virtue. visin f. vision, sight, apparition, phantom. vislumbrar descry, glimpse. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... seems that, while I was helping Timmy Finbrink out of his difficulties, and afterwards tried to fool you with the fake window-breaking, some of the Central fellows had been down at Ritchie's playing tick-tack on one of his front windows. Tick-tack is a stupid game, and it got me into ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... is done, do not finish it with a flat iron. That finishes it in more senses than one. But suppose it is puckered? In that case, stretch it and damp it. To do this, first tack on to it (as explained on page 251) a frame of strong tape. Then, on a drawing-board or other even wooden surface, lay a piece of clean calico, and on that, face downwards, the embroidery, and, slightly stretching it, nail it down by the tape with tin-tacks rather close together. ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... adventure in her first voyage; but she was well built, a fair ship, of a good burden, and had mounted in her forty pieces of brass cannon, two of them demy cannon, and she was well manned and of good force and strength for war; she was a good sailer, and would turn and tack about well; she held a hundred persons of Whitelocke's followers and most of his baggage, besides her own mariners, about two hundred. The cabins wherein Whitelocke was were of a handsome make; the breadth of the ship was the length of his bed-cabin, and it was ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman; tricks which they will have less need to practise in Louisiana bayous. When compelled to rise they would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a considerable height, from which ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... as Mr. Walters did, get a cup of coffee and a hard-tack; that'll go way ahead of nothin' ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... how about this brutal policeman?" began Kelly, on a new tack. "Assaulting a peaceful citizen is a serious matter, and I am ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... it was to come from. But they ought to ha' known where it always come from. If their hearts had been full of the dinner He gave the five thousand hungry men and women and children, they wouldn't have been uncomfortable about not having a loaf. And so they wouldn't have been set upon the wrong tack when He spoke about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees; and they would have known in a moment what He meant. And if I hadn't been too much of the same sort, I wouldn't have started saying it was but reasonable to be in ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... know what you'd call too horrible; I kinda think it wouldn't be what I'd tack those words to. Anyway—what is it?" He went close, and ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... eight o'clock; then lashed the wheel and let her take care of herself while I got steam up in the donkey and hauled in my spanker and mainsail; then I slacked off my foreyard and topsail yards, hove her to on the port tack, hung three red lights on the forestay to show she wasn't under command, set my alarm clock and turned in. I have to smile at the ease with which one man—provided he is a sizable man and able to stand strain—can sail a barkentine before the wind in fair weather. I am not worried. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... adventure during this summer, it was nothing for her to unmoor a boat, enter it, and lift the oars, not pausing to observe that it was the Arrow. Just then, however, a little wind ruffled down and shook the sail, a wind not quite favorable, but in which she could tack across and back; she drew in the oars, put to the proof all her new boat-craft, and recklessly dashed through the dark element that curled and seethed about her. She had to make but two tacks in that hour's ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... to him? If I know him, it is only because I have seen him, from afar off, walk the quarter-deck with the other officers, a cigar in his mouth, after a good meal, while we in the forecastle had our salt fish, and broke our teeth with worm-eaten hard-tack." ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... filling his pipe. 'Davy will have to take the helm himself, if he would keep you on the right tack. Clear the decks now, and be off to your bed. If the gale lulls, I shall ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... some Bovril and biscuits, and Major Marshall, who also kept to his bunk on my advice, began feeding upon hard tack to get into trench practice. Bye-and-bye Perry came back and reported that Sergeant McMaster had fallen and broken his arm. Capt. MacLaren was up and he was a good surgeon and hastily set the injured limb. The sergeant had fallen and struck his elbow on ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... hard voice.] No. The Duchess and Mrs. Jack were coming to town shopping, and Lady Owbridge proposed that she and I should tack ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... Saxish ambassador, is here seeking to tack us to the Schmalkaldner heresies. Yesterday he was with Privy Seal, who loveth the Lutheran alliance. So Privy Seal takes him to his house, and shows him his marvellous armoury, which is such that no prince nor emperor hath ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... squadron before night, ordered his prizes to continue their course without regard to any lights or apparent signals from the "Alfred." When darkness fell upon the sea, the Yankees were scudding along on the starboard tack, with the Englishman coming bravely up astern. From the tops of the "Alfred" swung two burning lanterns, which the enemy doubtless pronounced a bit of beastly stupidity on the part of the Yankee, affording, as it did, an excellent ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... said the sailing-master. "I'm afraid we shan't get round the point this tide, unless we lay her off on the other tack." ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... of Hamlet's is one of the few points in which Shakespeare has kept close to the old story on which he founded his play; and as he never decided without deliberation, so he never acted without unerring judgment, Hamlet drifts through the whole tragedy. He never keeps on one tack long enough to get steerage-way, even if, in a nature like his, with those electric streamers of whim and fancy forever wavering across the vault of his brain, the needle of judgment would point in one direction long enough to strike a course by. The scheme ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... examined the room once more; but as it was far neater than her own, she could not reasonably find any fault there, so started on a new tack. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... till midnight, after which it veered to N.W. Being at this time in the latitude of 56 deg. 4' S., longitude 53 deg. 36' W., we sounded, but found no bottom with a line of one hundred and thirty fathoms. I still kept the wind on the larboard-tack, having a gentle breeze and pleasant weather. On the 8th, at noon, a bed of sea-weed passed the ship. In the afternoon, in latitude 55 deg. 4', longitude 51 deg. 43' W., the variation was 20 deg. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... parlor, and I would like to sit in it a while and think of the days when I used to swab the deck. There's nothin' more elevatin', to my mind, than just that sort of thing. I do it sometime when I am eatin' my meals at the hotel, and the better I can bring to mind the bad coffee and hard tack, the better I like what's set ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... afternoon watch. Because of the light and shifting airs the Seamew, in spite of her wonderful sailing qualities, had only then raised the northern extremity of the Cape and, turning on her heel, was now running out to sea again on the long leg of a tack into ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... as the hour of its convalescence. In consequence, every speech, even those from dry and desiccated lips, was coloured with the melody of hope. Even hoary jokes and ancestral stories, kept for tea-meetings as hard tack is kept for the army and navy, were disinfected by the kindly flavour which brooded like an ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... days than bright ones, and more contrary winds than fair breezes. We left Hebron on Tuesday, September 25th, and on the following Sunday found ourselves among Greenland icebergs and fogs. So we had to turn southwards and run on that tack for two days. Then a moderate side wind followed the strong contrary gale, and we made good steady progress eastward. This was undoubtedly pleasant after the heavy rolling and pitching of the previous days. For ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... the feeder and keep the bees in, and at the same time allow the bee-keeper to see when they have consumed all their food. The feeder is now complete, with one important exception; it has, as yet no way of admitting the bees. On the outside corners of one of the ends, glue or tack two strips, inch and a half wide, extending down to the bottom of the box, and half an inch from the top; fasten over them a piece of thin board, (paste-board will answer.) You have now a shallow ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... Billy. Terry can't drive a carpet tack, nor draw a straight line with a ruler." Ted was always in a bantering mood and eager for a laugh at anybody. "I'll bet Cora's radio will radiate royally and right. You going to ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... statement in the Moniteur to the effect that, although public opinion had been agitated by alarming rumours, there was nothing in the foreign relations of France to justify the fears these rumours tended to create. He continued on this tack, with more or less consistency, to the very verge of the outbreak of hostilities. 'The Empire was peace,' as it was always announced to be in the intervals when it was not war; there was no more harmless dove in Europe than the person enthroned in the Tuileries. These assurances were given more credence ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... or four leagues. The wind was now at E., and blew a fresh gale. With it I stood to the S., till half an hour past six o'clock the next morning, when a sudden squall, from the same direction, took our ship aback; and, before the sails could be trimmed on the other tack, the main-sail and the top-gallant ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... indissolubly bound up with my dreams of Elizabeth that were now gone to smash. Therefore I hated them. And straightway, remembering that the day was her birthday, and accepting the fact as a good omen, I rebuilt my air-castles and resolved to try on a new tack. So irrational is human nature at twenty-one, when in love. And isn't it ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... use. To make the seat, first fit boards in the bottom and nail them to the side rails as shown. Fill the space with hair or elastic cotton felt to about 3 in. above the edge of the rails. Bind this down tightly with a piece of burlap and tack the edges to the rails. Cut out the corners of the burlap so that it will fit about the posts. Put the leather on over this and tack the edges to the bottoms of the rails. Then finish with the ornamental ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 3 • H. H. Windsor
... point. Now and then, I think I see; but then I go off on a wrong tack: I get a silly fit, and a hopeless one, and lose my clue. And yet, after all, there is a highway; and wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein,' murmured Louis, as he gazed on the first star ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... author of the Ardintoul manuscript says, that the lands of Kenlochewe were held by Kenneth Mackenzie "and his predecessors by tack, but not as heritage, for they had no real or heritable right of them until Alexander of Kintail got heritable possession of them from John, Earl of Ross," at a much later date. Ellandonnan Castle, however, held out during ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... your last letter to me, telling me that it will soon disappear. I think, on the contrary, that it is, at most, only at its dawning. They are on a different tack from before, but nothing more. At the time of La Harpe, they were grammarians; at the time of Sainte-Beuve and of Taine, they are historians. When will they be artists, only artists, but really artists? Where do you know a criticism? ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... upon him eyes sharp enough to make a less acute person than the captain feel that honesty, rather than flattery, was the safest tack to go upon. ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... our Consolidator, and take a Journey to the Moon, and there, by the help of these Glasses, they would see the Allegorical, Symbollical, Hetrodoxicallity of all this Matter; it would make immediate Converts of them; they would see plainly, that to Tack and Consolidate, to make Exclusive Laws, to persecute for Conscience, disturb, and distress Parties; these are all Phanatick Plots, meer Combinations against the Church, to bring her into Contempt, ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... minutes. Then Phoebe ventured to repeat the words "out West," and her companion went off on a new tack. She had just been West herself. She had been on a visit to her husband's niece, who lived in Arizona. In Blazeton, Arizona. "It's the nicest town ever you see," she continued. "And the smartest, most up-to-date place. Talk about the West bein' oncivilized! My land! you ought to see that town! Electric ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... warning," he said quietly. "But I expect to come in occasionally, just the same. You've taken the wrong tack by trying to frighten me off. You see, Miss Platanova, I'm actually looking for something dangerous—if that's ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... they are again on the wrong tack. They cannot make out what the disease is. O Cytherea! how I wish they knew! This suspense is wearing me out. Could not Miss Aldclyffe spare you for a day? Do come to me. We will talk about the best course then. I am sorry to complain, but I ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... schooner was running with the wind on her starboard quarter when we boarded her. We are now close-hauled, and of course we can't make the shore on the other side while we are on this tack." ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... Jack, I think that Uncle Sam has a great deal to answer for on that tack; and I can say, too, that the love of rum that I acquired in the government service had pretty nearly fixed my flint, both for this world and the next. But still, Jack, it wont do for seamen to drink grog because the government supplies it, and think to excuse themselves ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... largest of the Spanish vessels would scarcely pass for third rates in the present navy of England; yet were they so ill framed or so ill governed, that they were quite unwieldy, and could not sail upon a wind, nor tack on occasion, nor be managed in stormy weather, by the seamen. Neither the mechanics of shipbuilding, nor the experience of mariners, had attained so great perfection as could serve for the security and government of such bulky vessels; and the English, who had already had experience ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... several minutes, but finally gave place to a smile, for a consideration of the present position had led him to a comfortable conclusion. The Runkle would be on a wrong tack this time! If he scented any attraction among the members of Mrs Hilliard's house-party, it would of a certainty be attributed to the pretty American heiress, Honor Ward. No one would suspect for a moment that the fastidious Stanor Vaughan had been laid captive by a ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... places Much skill in grimaces, And feels your pulse running tic tack—O! Would you know his chief skill? It is only to fill And smoke ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... other. "I was driving her to work off it with the sea getting up when the breeze burst on us. She put her rail right under, and we had to let go most everything before she'd pick it up. She's pointing somewhere north, jammed right up on the starboard tack just now, but ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... it, for the Laocoon's helm was put down, her great sails shivered and threshed, and she stood off on the other tack. As she stood away we saw an officer leap on to the taffrail, holding on by the mizen backstays. "Tar my wig," said Marah, "if he isn't bowing ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... One more tack through alder copse and juniper jungle—hard indeed, and terribly vexatious—and he saw with delight the great open slope, covered with an unbroken surface of glittering snow. The sun (which at midwinter is but a few hours above the horizon) had set; and the stars were flashing forth with ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the tack-hammer within an ace of my head. "By Jove!" he said, "I shall be able to come back to the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Mrs. Costello shone supreme. Her brisk, big figure, with skirts turned back, and a blue apron still further protecting them, was everywhere at once; laughter and encouragement marked her path. She wore a paper of pins on the breast of her silk dress, she had a tack hammer thrust in her belt. In her apron pockets were string, and wire, and tacks. A big pair of scissors hung at her side, and a pencil was thrust through her smooth black hair. She advised and consulted and directed; even with the priests it was to be observed that her mild, "Well, Father, ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... pulling certain cordages in cadence; those crying, swearing, whistling, and filling the air with barbarous and unknown sounds. The officer on duty, in his turn, roaring out these words, starboard! larboard! hoist! luff! tack! which the helmsman repeated in the same tone. All this hubbub, however, produced its effect: the yards were turned on their pivots, the sails set, the cordage tightened, and the unfortunate sea-boys having received ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... the enemy so close that I could see their teeth as they bit the cartridges, and General Pike, on the right wing, cheering them on—so gallant and bold. I was a-feared I would be nabbed as a prisoner, and sent to eat Uncle Sam's hard-tack in the hulks at Sackett's Harbour, when, all of a sudden, the ground trembled like the earthquakes I have felt in the West Indies; then a volcano of fire burst up to the sky, and, in a minute, the air seemed raining ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... and mouths open, as if spell-bound in listening to him, thus continues: "He describes a ship at sea, bound for the port of Heaven, when the man at the head sung out, 'Rocks ahead!' 'Port the helm,' cried the mate. 'Ay, ay, sir,' was the answer; the ship obeyed, and stood upon a tack. But in two minutes more, the lead indicated a shoal. The man on the out-look sung out, 'Sandbreaks and breakers ahead!' The captain was now called, and the mate gave his opinion; but sail where they could, the lead and the eye showed nothing but dangers all ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... an accident," shouted the other, suddenly off on another tack. "It was awful. Trina was in the swing there—that's my cousin Trina, you know who I mean—and she fell out. By damn! I thought she'd killed herself; struck her face on a rock and knocked out a front tooth. It's a wonder she didn't kill herself. It ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... Mulvaney changes his tune an' axes her solemn-like if she'd thought o' t' consequences o' gettin' two poor but honest soldiers sent t' Andamning Islands. Mrs. DeSussa began to cry, so Mulvaney turns round oppen t' other tack and smooths her down, allowin' 'at Rip ud be a vast better off in t' Hills than down i' Bengal, and 'twas a pity he shouldn't go wheer he was so well beliked. And soa he went on, backin' an' fillin' an' workin' up t'awd ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat: nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tack'd together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that's all one; they'll find linen ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... a long time," sneered Cliff. "The fact is, Kay, you're a little too elementary in your ideas to suit me. It's due to you that I kept hammering away on the wrong tack for years. The ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... West. There was, in reality, not enough to keep one man busy, and surely Old Mizzou considered himself quite competent to attend to that. Finally, he concluded that it must be to watch him—Old Mizzou. Acting on that supposition, he tried a new tack. ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White |
