"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... incorrigible. The sons-in-law muttered, and the brothers glanced at their wives with mocking smiles. From that moment every one ceased to take any interest in the haughty girl's prospects of marriage. Her old uncle was the only person who, as an old sailor, ventured to stand on her tack, and take her broadsides, without ever troubling himself to return ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... Pardiggle stage. I do not in my heart believe it. Mrs. Pardiggle seems to me to be not part of the cure of the disease, but rather one of the ugliest of its symptoms. I think that she is on the wrong tack altogether, and leading other people astray. I do know some would-be social reformers, whom I respect and commiserate with all my heart, who see what is amiss, and have no idea how to mend it, and who lose themselves, like Hamlet, in a sort of hopeless ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... eager to get after it in the boats; but Captain Rogers knew a better way than that to attack a lone whale. We reefed down again and left little canvas exposed while the Scarboro kept on her tack under the momentum she had already gathered. The captain went forward where the gun had been made ready. He swung it about on its pivot and got the ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... for 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
... not being even cast loose, she did not fire a single shot, while the Culloden passed triumphantly through. Scarcely had she broken the enemy's line, than the commander-in-chief signaled the order to tack in succession. Troubridge's manoeuvre was so dashingly performed, that the admiral could not restrain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... and which, previous to the war, were inhabited, and yielded vast quantities of grain. We usually landed to cook breakfast, and then went on quickly. The breadth of water between the islands was now quite sufficient for a sailing vessel to tack, and work her sails in; the prevailing winds would blow her up the stream; but I regretted that I had not come when the river was at its lowest rather than at its highest. The testimony, however, of Captain Parker and Lieutenant Hoskins, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... matter how dense the fog, these walrus herds on the ice, braying and roaring till the surf shook, acted as a fog-horn to Cook's ships, and kept them from being jammed in the ice-drift. Soon two-thirds of the furs got at Nootka had spoiled of rain-rot. The vessels were iced like ghost ships. Tack back and forward as they might, no passage opened through the ice. Suddenly Cook found himself in shoal water, on a lee shore, long and low and shelving, with the ice drifting on his ships. He called the place Icy Cape. It was their farthest point north; and the third week of August ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... of August, when in latitude 59 degrees 58 minutes North, longitude 59 degrees 53 minutes West, we first fell in with large icebergs; and in the evening were encompassed by several of considerable magnitude, which obliged us to tack the ship in order to prevent our getting entangled amongst them. The estimated distance from the nearest part of the Labrador coast was then eighty-eight miles; here we tried for soundings without gaining the bottom. ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... was a dreadful hour. A couple of humble-bees zoomed against the window pane, and the sound, with the ticking of the schoolroom clock, took possession of her brain. Z-zoom! Tick-tack, tick-tack! Would lesson-time never come to an end? She went about automatically correcting sums, copies, exercises, because the sight of the pencilled words or figures steadied her faculties, whereas she felt that if she called the children up in class her wits would wander ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... best endeavors for its success, and have a common right to the merits of its acquisition. So also in the civil revolution of 1801. Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that will require unremitting vigilance. Whether the surrender of our opponents, their reception into our camp, their assumption of our name, and apparent accession to our objects, may strengthen or weaken the genuine principles of republicanism, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... is "drawing the long bow"—that is, that he is putting the prices at which he buys full low enough! Do not dispute him. Never argue with him. Accept all he says as gospel. Very soon he will be on the other tack. You will be talking, and you can judge whether he has told the truth or not. Now you are both on excellent terms. He thinks you are a very ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... to the beach to be once more a mast, and in nervous haste, yet with skill and thoroughness, the tent was ripped up and remade into a sail, and even a rude centreboard was rigged in order that one might tack against unfavorable winds. ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... islands. Capt. Bruce says that a vessel should keep to the northward until she gets a start of wind before bearing for her destination. In his passage between them in November, 1837, he had no variables near the line in coming south, and never could make easting on either tack, though he endeavoured by every means to ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... that the sea should swallow up so many fine fellows as she does every year, and yet we couldn't very well do without her, so I suppose it's all right. Mind your head-sheets, Jerry, or she'll not come about in this bobble," he observed, as we were about to tack ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... sails are trimmed with the same regularity day after day, with never a tack nor sheet started, existence does not offer much of variety, so that, like Columbus' sailors, we were glad to welcome even a gale of wind. Now, a rolling and pitching ship is capital fun if you can manage to stay ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... below, it was not the treasure, since it was evident that the poor, dying Portuguese would not have had the time or the strength to cement it over. When she told the others so, however, Meyer, convinced that he was on the right tack, answered that doubtless it was done by the Makalanga after the Portuguese days, as it was well known that they retained a knowledge of the building arts of their forefathers until quite a recent period, when the Matabele began to kill ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... her. He contented himself with winking behind the old woman's back, and turning over on his other side—the only movement of which he was now capable. He called this exercise a "tack to the north" or a "tack to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... she unwittingly took the right tack. So earnest was she that her lips quivered a little, and her eyes showed a pleading, pathetic expression, as she said, "Please don't misunderstand me, Mrs. Greene. If you would enjoy it, I want you to come to ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... escape, when, looking over the ramparts, I beheld 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 fire and brimstone, as it did at Sodom ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... nothing to quench settled down on man and beast, and we all felt that unless Providence listened to the prayers and imprecations which the whole town set to work with frantic zeal to hurl at it, or that abominable comet in the sky sheered off on another tack with the least possible delay, we should all be reduced to cinders in a very brief space ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... later we were hove to on the port tack under upper-topsails and foresail. The wind had come out of the south-west, and our leeway was setting us down upon the land. Captain West gave orders to the mate to stand by to wear ship. Both watches had been taking in sail, so that both ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... as well as alarmed. Another bomb exploded close behind them, and started them off on a new tack. Run which way they might, it seemed as though that terrible enemy in the air kept hovering above them, sending a little black object shooting earthward every half dozen seconds, to be followed by a sudden crash, many times magnified ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... Bobolink, "seeing that you've made up your mind to reform after this, p'raps we might let you off easy, Bud. But the next time you get caught, oh! but you're going to get it. Better quit that crowd, and try another tack. Ted and Ward have all the fun, and you fellows take the drubbings. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... and tried a new tack. 'What will you take to hold your tongue? I'll make you a rich man if you'll come in with me.' And then he started with offers which showed that he had been making a good thing out ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... proud and subservient, I know you,' he retorted dryly. 'Proud and subservient, then subservient to the proud—I know you and your love. It is a tick-tack, tick-tack, a dance ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... hold, when in a bitter mood, is that inexorable circumstance only tries to prevent what intelligence attempts. Renounce a desire for a long-contested position, and go on another tack, and after a while the prize is thrown at you, seemingly in disappointment that ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... 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
... grasped the handle of the Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the carpet, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... aren't you?" inquired his grandfather. "A man that you've seen all the politicians catering to the last day or so, and small enough to bandy insults with a snippet of a girl! Well, bub, there's a lot of childishness in human nature. It breaks out once in a while. Cuss a tack, and grin and bear an amputation! We'll let the girl alone. I don't seem to get in right when she is mentioned. But I wanted to have you tell me that you don't intend to marry Dennis Kavanagh's daughter. You can't afford to do that, boy! Not with your prospects. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... girl, who was clearly his daughter. The two proceeded to an old stump concealed under some logs in a thicket, and out of the hollow, of the stump Gillsey fished a lump of salt pork, together with a big bundle of "hard-tack," and a parcel or two of some other ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to Juan Fernandez, we hauled up to the S.W. having very little wind till the 12th, at three a.m. when a gale sprung up at W.S.W. which obliged us to tack and stand to the N.W. At day-break, we were agreeably surprised by the appearance of a sail on our weather-bow, between four and five leagues distant, on which we crowded all sail and stood towards her, soon perceiving she was a different vessel from that we had chased before. She at ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... yourself that 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
... happen to live in a house which has, like many old houses, a narrow side-light on either side of its front-door, and a row of panes across the top, can make a pretty effect by preparing a series of these transparencies to fit the door-glasses, and fastening them on by driving a stout tack into the sashes so as to support the four corners of each pane. The transparencies could be prepared secretly and put into place overnight, or on Christmas morning, before any one is up, so as to give mother a pleasant ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... hole in the roof to give egress to the stovepipe. From Madame Saugrain I got some strips of warm, bright carpet and some clean warm bedding, and I set Yorke to work, under my careful supervision, to make the two beds for mademoiselle and her maid, to tack down the strips of carpet, to put up some white ruffled curtains (also Madame Saugrain's gift) at the square bit of window, and to polish up the brass handles of the portable locker that was to hold mademoiselle's wardrobe. I thought, when all was ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... not support measures which he considered doubtful, he did, now and then, "tack a provision" on a bill to please a friend, as the following letter, ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... Boatswain, but we are not the very humblest. Sir Joseph has explained our true position to us. As he says, a British seaman is any man's equal excepting his, and if Sir Joseph says that, is it not our duty to believe him? ALL. Well spoke! well spoke! DICK. You're on a wrong tack, and so is he. He means well, but he don't know. When people have to obey other people's orders, equality's out of the question. ALL (recoiling). Horrible! horrible! BOAT. Dick Deadeye, if you go for to infuriate this here ship's company too far, I won't answer ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... answered Bulger. "I was a gallant clerk and hers the fairest fingers that ever caressed a typewriter—" The intent attitude of Norcross, the fact that he neither turned nor smiled, checked Bulger. With the instinct of the courtier, he perceived that the wind lay in another tack. He racked the unused half of his mind for ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... in getting to windward of the island, but the signal to the Discovery to tack having been omitted she stood on, and it was some days before she rejoined company. January 1779 was ushered in with heavy rain, but clearing away before noon they were able to approach to about five miles from the shore, where they lay ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... followed in the boats to the settlement at Woollya. We did not see many natives until we were near Ponsonby Sound, where we were followed by ten or twelve canoes. The natives did not at all understand the reason of our tacking, and, instead of meeting us at each tack, vainly strove to follow us in our zigzag course. I was amused at finding what a difference the circumstance of being quite superior in force made, in the interest of beholding these savages. While ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... of her had been lacking in chivalry. He hadn't shown himself altogether considerate or even kind. But she challenged him—perhaps unconsciously—and once or twice had come near making him feel small.—Oh! there were excuses for his behaviour! Now however he would sail on another tack. Would placate, discreetly cherish her until she couldn't but be softened and consent to make it up. After all maidens of her still tender age are not precisely adamant—such at least was his experience—where a personable youth is concerned. It only needed a trifle ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Elizabeth THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated THRIFTILY, carefully THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon TIGHTLY, promptly TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... ticking is a wonderful comfort. Tick-tack, tick-tack! and I think of you stretched asleep and happy and growing up to be a man, and the minutes running and trickling ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 remain ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... hand. The bronzed face, the hard agate blue of the eyes that met his own, the utter absence of visible agitation, took the wind out of Dennison's sails and left him all a-shiver, like a sloop coming about on a fresh tack. He had made his entrance stormily enough, but now the hot words stuffed his ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... said Gerald, with modest pride. "I can 'gleek upon occasion.' I can also sling a syllable with the next man. It is only at monosyllables that I draw the line. When I call him Ape, I have to tack an adjective to it, or things happen. Miss Montfort, you don't know how glad I was to come. It was awfully kind of Mr. Montfort to ask us. I've always wanted to come again, and I didn't know when I should have a chance. There—there isn't any other place like this ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... of late?" he asked, that being a natural question to follow her reference to her studio. He was, indeed, relieved that the conversation had got on so definite a tack and that she had not alluded to his avoidance of her family or reproached ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... 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 ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... and fruit are bulky and likely to spoil, on the long voyages of sailing vessels before steamships were invented bottles of the juice of limes (a small kind of lemon) were added, instead, to the hard-tack and "salt-horse" of the ship's stores. Because of this custom, the long-voyage merchantmen who carried cargoes round the Horn or the Cape were ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... instantly to the path they had quitted, saying aloud at the same time, "Why, Jack, what sends you on this tack?" ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... tobacco until they grow as large as conger eels. Heat is what the worms are fond of; but cold—cold will kill them. Now I'll cure you. Quarter-master, come here. Walk this boy up and down the weather-gangway, and every time you get forward abreast of the main-tack block, put his mouth to windward, squeeze him sharp by the nape of the neck until he opens his mouth wide, and there keep him and let the cold air blow down his throat, while you count ten; then walk him aft, and when you are forward ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... white-tailed mules, good enough for Pindar, whom Colvocoressis has just brought in from the monastery. 'Transportation for one!' Is there anything to be brought back? Nitre, powder, lead, junk, hard-tack, mules, horses, pigs, polenta, or olla podrida, or other of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... soon as he was sure it was no go, put an end to his own existence. I said that would be wrong, and besides, he couldn't do it. He said, oh yes, he could—he could inject air into a vein, and lots of things. He went on a physiological tack, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... that the 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 an ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... a joke. The head of each hammer so used is a magnet, and is used to pick the tacks from the mouth of the banner man. The tack sticks to the head of the hammer and is thus ready to be driven. An expert banner man will drive tacks almost as rapidly as you could fire a ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... him was nothing flash nor green— A Seneschal confessed; Most people deemed his reverend mien Some family bequest. And yet but three short, happy years Had seen him on our tack, And made us verge on VERE DE VERES— ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... padre, but look here, I'm not a Christian, and I take a common-sense view of these things, but I'm bound to say I think you're on the wrong tack, too. Didn't Christ have compassion on people like that? Didn't He eat and drink with ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... staying away from school was the first tug that he gave the line that caught him. Mr. Bright let him run. He ran for three days, and then gave up on that tack. The fisher reeled in the line and watched for ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... full, my hearty. We must take in our light sails and go on the other tack soon. If we don't catch it before daylight, I'll miss my calculation. She's an unlucky old craft as ever I sailed in, and if the skipper a'n't mighty careful, he'll never get her across. I've sworn against sailing in her several times, but if I get across ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... young man. Don't you git into the way of doin' that, else you'll be for ever sailin' on the wrong tack. Take my advice, an' never look as if you thought a man gave you more than he could afford. Nobody ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... a powerful one, of the semi-rotary type, and they had nearly two miles of smoother water before they stretched out of the bay upon the other tack. When they did so, Carroll, glancing down again through the scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced the water. It was comforting, however, to see that it had not increased, though he did not expect that state of affairs ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... fellows, we are not making much on this tack," Howe began, as he joined the group at the door of the mess-room. "We are going to have a meeting abaft the foremast, to decide what shall be done next. ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... th' way, my Lady Plyant's coming, and I shall never succeed while thou art in sight. Though she begins to tack about; but I made love a great ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... 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 weather gage ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... flow of the Caribbean Sea, that one of those noblest results of man's handiwork, a fine ship, might have been seen gracefully ploughing her course through the sky-blue waters of the Atlantic. She was close-hauled on the larboard tack, steering east-southeast, and to a sailor's eye presented a certain indescribable something that gave her taut rig and saucy air a dash of mystery, which would have set him to speculating at once as to her character ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... gladly enough have stood across the Rose's bows, but knowing the English readiness dare not for fear of being raked; so her only plan, if she did not intend to shoot past her foe down to leeward, was to put her head close to the wind, and wait for her on the same tack. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared, But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard; So's we saw cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high, 15 And the coast-guard in his garden, with his ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... now desperate,' said the Representative, as he chewed a tack awhile, thinking it was a clove. 'I want to find a boarding house where the proprietress was an orphan found in a livery stable, whose father was a dago from East Austin, and whose grandfather was never placed on the map. I want a scrubby, ornery, low-down, snuff-dipping, back-woodsy, piebald ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... doubting but I should persuade them better when I should come to talk with them. So the next morning I weighed and stood towards the fort. The winds were somewhat against us so that we could not go very fast, being obliged to tack 2 or 3 times: and, coming near the farther end of the passage between Timor and Anabao, we saw many houses on each side not far from the sea, and several boats lying by the shore. The land on both sides was pretty high, appearing very dry and of a reddish colour, but highest on the Timor ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... caught herself quickly. It came to her suddenly that she must not let these men see that she was apprehensive. Her voice was a trifle shrill and her eyes glistened with a strange new light as she went on, changing her tack completely: "How romantic! I've often wanted ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and stir of "coming about" again claimed their attention, and in a minute more they were stretching away on a new tack, with another set of constellations opposite to them in the sky. The breeze was fresh, though as mild as May; the boat made good speed; and in spite of beating down the river the mouth of the Mong was neared ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... by night, he had traversed one hundred miles with a rope round his neck, and without the prospect of special reward. For he was but a private, and received but a private's pay—thirteen dollars a month, a shoddy uniform, and hard-tack, when he could ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... as an oak knot, and you are, too; no, we can't make them think we are in need of a month in Wyoming. We shall have to try another tack. Now, there is no doubt that if we spend the month of September putting in extra work on our studies, we can stand the following month in laying off. We shall come back with new vigor and appetite, and soon catch up with ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... the maneuver, Saxon obeyed, and found herself sitting beside him on the opposite side of the boat, while the boat itself, on the other tack, was heading toward Long Wharf where the coal bunkers were. She was aglow with admiration, the more so because the mechanics of boat-sailing was to her a complex ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... do!" Ransom went on, laughing. "You are on the wrong tack altogether. Do you really take the ground that your sex has been without influence? Influence? Why, you have led us all by the nose to where we are now! Wherever we are, it's all you. You are at the bottom ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... 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 by blaming it. ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... slack each reef an' tack, Gae her sail, boys, while it may sit; She has roar'd through a heavier sea afore, An' she'll roar through a heavier yet. When landsmen sleep, or wake an' creep, In the tempest's angry moan, We dash through the drift, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... had finished the coffin one of the fossicker's wives said it looked too bare, and she ripped up her black riding-skirt, and made Bob tack the ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... strange to the American. One needed a good appetite to enjoy it. Great twenty-five pound white fish were produced from skin bags and sliced off to be eaten raw. Reindeer meat was stewed in copper kettles. Hard tack was soaked in water and mixed with reindeer suet. Tea from the ever present Russian tea kettle and seal oil from a sewed up seal skin took the place of drink and relish. The tea was good, the seal oil unspeakable, a liquid not even ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... disgraced himself—some infernal cruelty which has forced the poor thing out on the world as a governess. Well, turning it over in my mind, it struck me that the major might be able to put me on the right tack. It is quite possible that he might have been informed of Miss Gwilt's family circumstances before he ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... thing I think my self assured and therefor I Dar[e] not 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
... eyes till the detective explained with that display of friendliness which all policemen show to suspected persons whom they do not at heart suspect, it was not an uncommon process for criminals to tack the proceeds of bank-note robberies to the underside ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... Varney, whose present tack was diplomacy, "that I have some loose money which I want to stow away in ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... tack: Admitting that neither side could rub me out without losing, why in heck didn't they just collect me and put me in a cage? Dammit, if I had an organization as well oiled as either of them, I could collect the President right out of the New White House and put him ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... never hungry til we waz free an' de Yankees fed us. We didn' have nothin to eat 'cept hard tack an' middlin' meat. I never saw such meat. It was thin an' tough wid a thick skin. You could boil it allday an' all night an' it wouldn' cook dome, I wouldn' eat it. I thought 'twuz mule meat; mules dat done been shot on de battle field den dried. I ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... DIBDIN in our day. Oh, I know that arter dinner your M.P.'s can up and quote Tasty tit-bits from old CHARLEY, which they all reel off by rote; But if there is a cherub up aloft to watch poor JACK, That there cherub ain't a poet,—bards are on another tack. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... hated him, discussing him floridly once with Querida at the Thumb-tack Club in the presence of a dozen others, characterised him as "one of those passively selfish snobs whose virtues are all negative and whose modesty is the mental complacency of ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... do me such great injustice. You lawyers always have to be doing something, even if it is only holding down a chair so that it won't blow out of your office window. If you haven't any justice to mete out, you take another tack and dispense injustice with lavish hand. However, I'll forgive you if you'll tell me one thing. ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... 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, her eye, Where, within call, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... disappeared into the hood of the companion like a rabbit's tail into its burrow. There was a great volley of cracks from the loose sails, and the ship came to. At the same time the schooner, now on our beam and stripped of her light kites, put in stays and remained on the other tack, with her ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... you are on the wrong tack. You see economic science in your day was a science of things; in our day it is a science of human beings. We have nothing at all answering to your rent, interest, profits, or other financial devices, and the terms expressing them have no meaning now except to students. If you wish Edith and her ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... LE GEOGRAPHE was passing, so as to keep our broadside to her, lest the flag of truce should be a deception, and having come to the wind on the other tack, a boat was hoisted out, and I went on board the French ship, which ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... such as it stands engraved, was to be in action from the beginning to the end, and in a continued subject, which in my opinion, afforded very agreeable representations. But when I proposed this idea at the opera-house, nobody would so much as hearken to me, and I was obliged to tack together music and dances in the usual manner: on this account the divertissement, although full of charming ideas which do not diminish the beauty of scenes, succeeded but very middlingly. I suppressed the recitative of Jelyotte, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... pretty good, I think; for he would often tell stories to his little friends by the hour, about what happened to him when he was a boy. Some of these stories were funny enough; but the old gentleman usually managed to tack on some good moral to the end of them. By your leave, boys and girls, I will serve up two or three of these stories for an evening's entertainment. They will bear telling the second time, I guess, and I will repeat ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... 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
... more respectable name, as being a synonym for the Kapu cultivating caste. Chetti really means a trader, and is, Mr. Francis says, [442] "One of those occupational or titular terms, which are largely employed as caste names. The weavers, oil-pressers and others use it as a title, and many more tack it on to their names to denote that trade is their occupation." Marriage is regulated by exogamous groups, the names of which are said to be derived from those of villages. Girls are generally married ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... . . If I didn't know you, Jukes, I would think you were in liquor. Steer four points off. . . . And what afterwards? Steer four points over the other way, I suppose, to make the course good. What put it into your head that I would start to tack a steamer as if ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... of a kind of pleased curiosity. He considered their bargain a thing to be carried out to the letter so long as she held him to it, like a debt of honour, not legally binding but morally, and he was prepared, with gentlemanly tack, to keep faith without further discussion of the subject. The arrangement did not trouble him at all. It was original, and therefore somewhat piquant, and so ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Hippy, and don't fall off the ladder, please," cautioned Grace, as she assisted Hippy Wingate to tack up an evergreen garland ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... to perceive that he was on the wrong tack. The gentleman who addressed him was a regular and profitable customer, and he did not like to incur his ill will, ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... which they went in pursuit was far away over near the other shore, taking long tacks across the bay. Buttons headed his boat so as to meet the other on its return tack. ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... boat breasted the 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 launching a boat, he proceeded ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... said he, 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
... 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! ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Evangeline," said he, wrapping a lady's shawl about him and sitting on the arm of a chair in a collapsed attitude. "No, on second thought, I want to be Basil the blacksmith." He made imitations of tremendous muscular power with a tack-hammer that happened in his way for a sledge. Everybody on such occasions has his own notions of the picturesque. A deal of talking was required in arranging the various scenes. Evangeline must manifest a "celestial brightness," according to the lines. "I don't think you do it quite ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... all hands on deck, eagerly, anxiously scanning the sea ahead. And presently an object loomed into view, which soon defined itself for a great ship on fire. As the Arabella with the Elizabeth following closely raced nearer on their north-westerly tack, the outlines of the blazing vessel grew clearer. Presently her masts stood out sharp and black above the smoke and flames, and through his telescope Blood made out plainly the pennon of St. George fluttering ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... reef'd—the tack held freely in my hand— With ballast snug—I put about, and scudded for the land. Loud hiss'd the sea beneath her lee—my little boat flew fast, But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... thing dat you'll hatter gi' 'im credit fer, an' dat wuz keepin' his face an' han's clean, an' in takin' keer er his cloze. Nobody, not even his mammy, had ter patch his britches er tack buttons on his coat. See 'im whar you may an' when you mought, he wuz allers lookin' spick an' span des like he done come right out'n a ban'-box. You know what de riddle say 'bout 'im: when he stan' up ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the Clyde—a sair wark we had had—gaun north wi' seeds an' braws an' things for the Macleod. We had got in ower near under the Cutchull'ns, an' had just gane about by Soa, an' were off on a long tack, we thocht would maybe hauld as far's Copnahow. I mind the nicht weel; a mune smoored wi' mist; a fine-gaun breeze upon the water, but no steedy; an'—what nane o' us likit to hear—anither wund gurlin' ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and 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 the uppers, pull it smoothly and evenly into place, and drive ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... 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
... you hate, Jenny. Now tack this strip in place, child, and then paste on the muslin. We must finish this before night, and there is more than a day's work ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... use for bran," murmured Sin Sin Wa. "Gotchee no use for tin-tack. Gotchee no use ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... 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
... overtake his 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 ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Sunday before until again they sat by the rushing water. Dave had again been filled with a sense of Reenie Hardy, and his conversation was disjointed and uninteresting. She tried unsuccessfully to draw him out with questions about himself; then took the more astute tack of speaking of her own past life. It had begun in an eastern city, ever so ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... being 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
... warlike genius of the first order Cochrane added a certain weird and impish ingenuity which his enemies found simply resistless. Was there ever a cruise in naval history like that of Cochrane in his brig misnamed the Speedy, a mere coasting tub that would neither steer nor tack, and whose entire broadside Cochrane himself could carry in his pockets! But in this wretched little brig, with its four-pounders, Cochrane captured in one brief year more than 50 vessels carrying an aggregate of 122 guns, took 500 prisoners, kept the whole Spanish coast, off which he ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... be to play billy with the labels!" chuckled Mr. Wickham. "By George, here's a tack-hammer! We might send all these things skipping about the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... way of getting away from the idea of its being a joke. Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right arm and tested his muscle. "Not very much," he said, "but enough to drive a tack or two." That brought applause and they drew closer together, and the atmosphere warmed perceptibly. "I've fought for the State in more ways than one,"—Senator Arnold was a distinguished veteran of the Civil War—"and if I can serve her now by tacking down carpets, then it's tacking down ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... judgment; we went to bed very early and made a good start just at daylight. It's been a lovely mornin' on the water. William thought he'd better fetch across beyond Bird Rocks, rowin' the greater part o' the way; then we sailed from there right over to the landin', makin' only one tack. William'll be in again for me to-morrow, so I can come back here an' rest me over night, an' go to meetin' to-morrow, and have a nice, ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... hours of sunlight in the day; and the wind was very powerful, so that the sea was very fearful to see, without ever being smooth either by day or night, but they always met with storms, so that the crews suffered much hardship. After a month that they had run on this tack, they stood into shore and went as long as they could, all praying to the Lord that they might have doubled beyond the land; but when they again saw it they were very sad, though they found themselves much advanced by the signs of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... until it reached 29.32—at 6 A.M. its lowest point. The wind has hauled to the south. We are evidently in a cyclone, having taken it in its northern quarter, the gale travelling north. On the starboard tack, its centre has passed to the west of us. Ordered the donkey engine to be got ready for use last night, in case the ship should make more water than the small bilge pumps could throw out. Carried away ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... by the Rev. S. Hall Young, of Fort Wrangell, visited it in 1879. They were the first white men to explore this region, and they went thither by canoe. Muir, with blankets strapped to his back and his pockets stuffed with hard-tack, spent days in rapturous speculation. Of all glacial theorists he is doubtless the most self-sacrificing and enthusiastic. I believe, as yet, no one has timed this glacier. It is dissolving away more rapidly than it travels; so that although ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... country.—[Aside.] The devil's in 't, if I han't said enough to encourage him to declare! But I'm afraid he's not right; I must tack ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar |
