"Thread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... other ages, and other lands. In the process of our investigation we must retrace our steps and turn back to the early traditions of our Aryan forefathers, and see whether we cannot, even in that remote antiquity, lay our hand upon a clue, which, like the fabled thread of Ariadne, shall serve as guide through the mazes of a varying, yet curiously ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... our picture. Her eyes are not large and expressive; her nose is not straight, delicate, Hellenic; her mouth has not that charm I thought it had, which I imagined could beguile me of sullenness in my worst moods. What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy, a ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... in the midst of purple tinged clouds, leaving along the horizon at first a fringe of gold, then a simple thread, and finally nothing but the reflection of his rays, sent to the earth by the layers of atmosphere,[B] like the adieu we receive at the turning of a road from a ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... a bearing in heraldry made in the form of a spindle, with its yarn or thread wound about it. Fusils are longer than lozenges, and taper or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... we had spoken little since we had begun that ride whose end we sensed close. In the unfolding of enigmatic happening after happening the mind had deserted speech and crouched listening at every door of sight and hearing to gather some clue to causes, some thread of understanding. ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... o'clock when we emerged upon an open plateau, and a glimmer of stars overhead revealed to me afar off the silver thread of the great river. Even in that dim light I could trace its winding course along the valley, and the view by daylight from this point must have been a delight to the eye. Pete stopped the straining mule, a feat ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... superior to human weakness, and that the old adage, which declares that one volunteer is better than three pressed men, is not yet out of date. Nor is it an unfair inference that the armies of the Confederacy, allied by the "crimson thread of kinship" to those of Wellington, of Raglan, and of Clyde, owed much of their enduring fortitude to "the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... LYKKE. I understand; you have given most care to the trade of arms. (Sits down by the table on the right, and runs through the papers.) Aha! Here is light enough and to spare on what is brewing. This small letter tied with a silken thread—— (Examines the address.) This too for Olaf Skaktavl. (Opens the letter, and glances through its contents.) From Peter Kanzler. I thought as much. (Reads under his breath.) "I am hard bested, for——; ay, sure enough; here it stands,—"Young Count ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... as a "Calling" or a "Profession" my real interest has been to unravel the nature of man, grasp the problem of human life, and to apprehend the nature, laws, and destiny of the human soul. My library covers a rather continuous thread from 1543, and the time of Paracelsus, to Profs. James, Ladd, Lombroso, Sir Oliver Lodge, ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... six inches in length, which formed the soul of my invention. I took it in my hand and gazed upon it. Through its thin, flexible, and almost transparent outer envelope I could see, as I held it to the light, its framework, fine as the thread-like bones of a fish, its elastic chords, its quivering diaphragms, and all the delicate organs of its inner life. It seemed as if I could feel the palpitations of its heart as I breathed upon it. For how many days and months had I been working on this subtle ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... the obvious intention of obeying her, but no words came. He seemed to have lost the thread of his argument. He felt a perfect fool, stuck up there with his elbow on a cushion, just as if he were addressing a public meeting. He looked at his elbow as if he expected to find a glass of water ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... must feed sometimes As other folks accustomed are to do; I'm not of those who fatten on their rhymes, My reader kind, between myself and you; So this abruptly-ended interview With circumstances such you will forgive, The thread of my narration I'll renew To-morrow or the next day if I live, That is of course if ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... explanation of something that was stated in Deuteronomy. She did not learn all this, either, at this one time; but she got a vivid hint of it, strong enough to keep her hunting and pulling at the lovely golden thread of the Bible for ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... Sinclair say that Esther Coombe was losing all her good looks. 'Thin as a rail, and peeked as a pin' were the words she used. To me she has never been so lovely. She is thinner; there are hollows in her cheeks; her lips are no longer a thread of scarlet. The transparent lids of her deep, wonderful eyes droop often and her hair seems to have lost its life and hangs soft and very close to her face. I love her. I love her as a man loves a woman, as a knight loves his lady, as a Catholic loves the Madonna! This terrible strain ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... several is granted considerable space, especially to the years 871, 878, and 885. The whole has gained a certain roundness and fulness, because the events—nearly all of them episodes in the ever-recurring conflict with the Danes—are taken in their connection, and the thread dropped in one year is resumed in the next. Not only is the style in itself concise; it has a sort of nervous severity and pithy rigor. The construction is often antiquated, and suggests at times the freedom of poetry; though this purely historical prose is far removed ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... excited that I could only say, "Don't mind us! We are safe. But fight, George! Fight for us!" The repetition was ludicrous. I meant so much, too! I only wanted him to understand he could best defend us there. Ah! Mr. Yankee! if you had but your brothers in this world, and their lives hanging by a thread, you too might write wild letters! And if you want to know what an excited girl can do, just call and let me show you the use of a small seven-shooter and a large carving-knife which vibrate between my belt and my pocket, always ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... the three Stalos came down and carried her and the reindeer off to their own cottage. The country was very lonely, and perhaps no one would have known in which direction she had gone had not the girl managed to tie a ball of thread to the handle of a door at the back of the cottage and let it trail behind her. Of course the ball was not long enough to go all the way, but it lay on the edge of a snowy track which led straight to ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... no arms or legs, but fins from the shoulders. He could draw, write, thread needles, and play the hautboy. Fac-similes of his writing are preserved among the Harleian MSS. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... these together, and, taking off his coat—a stout cotton summer one—began to sew the loop inside, under the left arm. His hands shook violently, but he accomplished his task satisfactorily, and when he again put on his coat nothing was visible. Needle and thread had been procured long ago, and lay on the table in a piece of paper. The loop was provided for a hatchet. It would never have done to have appeared in the streets carrying a hatchet, and if he placed it under the coat, it would ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... the earthquake was a long crack made in the north bank of the Caledonian Canal near Dochgarroch Lochs. It occurred in the middle of the towing-path, and could be traced at intervals for a distance of 200 yards to the east of the Lochs, and 400 yards to the west, being often a mere thread, and in no place more than half-an-inch wide. Soon after its formation, however, the fissure was obliterated by heavy ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... the edges of the wound together, and gave the ends of the bands to two men to hold, while first in one place he cleverly thrust a pin through the skin of one side of the wound and out at the other, then holding the lips of the gash together he quickly twisted a fine thread of silk over the pin-head on one side, over the point on the other, and so on, to and fro, till ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... visibly annoyed, and for the moment a trifle flustered; but, concluding his remarks had been too deep for the rough creature, he gathered up the thread of ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... communications cable using a thread of optical glass fibers as a transmission medium in which the signal (voice, video, etc.) is in the form of a coded pulse ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... who art thou," the teacher said, "My science brave to learn so fain? Which many kings who wear the thread Have asked to learn of me in vain." "My name is Buttoo," said the youth, "A hunter's son, I know not Fear;" The teacher answered, smiling smooth, "Then know him from ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... not only believe in a life after death; they are even of opinion that they would never die at all if it were not for the maleficent arts of sorcerers who cut the vital thread prematurely short. In other words, they disbelieve in what we call a natural death; they think that all men are naturally immortal in this life, and that every death which takes place is in fact a violent death inflicted by the hand of a ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... delighted. The hair, which had excited the admiration of the travellers, was made up in the shape of a hussar's helmet, and very ingeniously traced on the top. Irregular figures were likewise braided on each side of the head, and a band of worked thread, dyed in indigo, encircled it below the natural hair, which seemed, by its tightness and closeness, to have been glued fast to the skin. This young Jenna woman was by far the most interesting, both in face and form, of any they had seen since their landing; ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... philosophy is back towards the position of the old Ionian philosophers, but strengthened and clarified by sound scientific ideas. If I publish my criticism on Comte, I should have to re-write it as a summary of philosophical ideas from the earliest times. The thread of philosophical development is not on the lines usually laid down for it. It goes from Democritus and the rest to the Epicureans, and then the Stoics, who tried to reconcile it with popular theological ideas, just as was done by the Christian Fathers. In the Middle Ages it was entirely lost ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... appropriately. Romeo's rope-ladder is 'the high top-gallant of his joy;' King John, dying of poison, declares 'the tackle of his heart is cracked,' and 'all the shrouds wherewith his life should sail' wasted 'to a thread.' Polonius tells Laertes, 'the wind sits in the shoulder of your sail'—a technical expression, the singular propriety of which a naval critic has recently established; whilst some of the commentators on the passage in King Lear, descriptive of the prospect ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... the place where Lewti lies, 65 When silent night has closed her eyes: It is a breezy jasmine-bower, The nightingale sings o'er her head: Voice of the Night! had I the power That leafy labyrinth to thread, 70 And creep, like thee, with soundless tread, I then might view her bosom white Heaving lovely to my sight, As these two swans together heave On ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... whole thing!" sighed Greg, rising. He had drawn off one of his white lisle-thread gloves, but now he was engaged in ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... uneasiness of a heart that has lost its owner, and seeks and seeks again, turning for comfort like a poor lost dog to every face which may prove friendly. Just now things seem to be in such a dreadful tangle that I can not even find a thread of it ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... thread, and on the whole, the couple were angry enough with Gerald, his refined appearance and air of careless prosperity, to be willing that he should have a fall, and Lance thus extracted that the "he" who had been cruel was a Neapolitan impresario in a small ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were tried by putting microscopical atoms on the gland itself of single hairs; and it is perfectly evident that an atom of human hair, 1/76000 of a grain (as ascertained by weighing a length of hair) in weight, causes conspicuous movement. I do not believe (for atoms of cotton thread acted) it is the chemical nature; and some reasons make me doubt whether it is actual weight; it is not the shadow; and I am at present, after many experiments, confounded to know what the cause is. That these atoms did really act and alter the state of the contents of all the cells in the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... entered the room and picked up a big handful of nuts, and returned to the loft, where the Black Rogue was still sleeping. At first the Shifty Lad shut his eyes too, but very soon he sat up, and, taking a big needle and thread from his pocket, he sewed the hem of the Black Gallows Bird's coat to a heavy piece of bullock's hide that was hanging at ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... not wonder if the rotten one gives way. If you will not lean on the strong Stay, complain not when the weak one crumbles to dust beneath your weight. And if you choose to swing over the profound depth at the end of a piece of pack-thread, instead of holding on by an adamantine chain wrapped round God's throne, you must be prepared for its breaking and your being ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... they do," he replied, "but the more he says it the less I believe him. Miss Flora, the fate of all my uncle holds dear is hanging by a thread, a spider's web, a young girl's freak! If ever she gives him a certain turn of the hand, the right glance of her eye, he'll be at her feet and every hope ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... into them. These holes receive one end of a warp stick, the other end, being supported in a corresponding hole of the heavy, movable stone seat. The other warp stick is supported in a similar manner, while the thread is passed around both in a horizontal direction preparatory to placing and stretching it in a vertical position for the final working of the blanket. A number of these cup-shaped pits are formed along the side of the stone bench, to provide for various lengths of warp that may be required. ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... justified his conduct. When he was about to depart for the first Continental Congress, a number of friends contributed funds to furnish him forthwith presentable apparel: a suit of clothes, new wig, new hat, "six pair of the best silk hose, six pair of fine thread ditto,....six pair of shoes"; and, it being "modestly inquired of him whether his finances were not rather low than otherwise, he replied it was true that was the case, but HE WAS VERY INDIFFERENT ABOUT THESE MATTERS, ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... rights" has from the very commencement of this Government been the rock on which the ship of the nation has many times nearly foundered, and from which it is to-day in great danger. The one question of the hour is, Is the United States a Nation with full and complete National powers, or is it a mere thread upon which States are strung as are the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... from the top to the bottom with wild-flowers and plants of every description. The traveller's joy had even gained a footing on the bridge itself. To add to the beauty, a tiny rivulet, which seemed to take its rise from some invisible source, flowed through the flowery ravine like a silver thread. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... but I have not received that from Mr. Harte to which you refer, and which you say contained your reasons for leaving Verona, and returning to Venice; so that I am entirely ignorant of them. Indeed the irregularity and negligence of the post provoke me, as they break the thread of the accounts I want to receive from you, and of the instructions and orders which I send you, almost every post. Of these ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... always read and dream; in a short time came the reality of school-days and boyish struggles. But though he was called away from the chivalric companionship of the knights of old, the impression made upon his mind by their courage and fortitude and devotion to duty ever after ran, like a thread of gold, through the warp and ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... and beauty of the great deep, every branch and species of sea creature from the coral and the sponge to the highest form of marine life. The most wonderful thing of all, we thought, and certainly the most novel to us, was a kind of animated purple thread, which spun itself out to such an extent that there was only a long cobweb left perceptible; this, floating about, after a time showed extraordinary muscular strength and energy, gathering itself together ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... far as I was able I had arranged during the last few days the affairs which had been confidingly placed in my care, and desired to leave books and papers in such a condition that a successor could at once take up the thread ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... urged me, from my husband, to come on immediately. In eight hours from the time I received that letter, I was in New York. Alas! it was too late; the disease had returned with double violence, and snapped the feeble thread of life. I never saw my husband's ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... the kettles, the sky was blue and dreamy; the river was winding like a thread of silver through the quiet valley. The long table of rough boards, with the row of tin cups and great stacks of bread, was an inviting spectacle. The farmers stood around in groups, discussing political questions and cropping prospects until "Turkle" ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... the heart of the enthusiastic Grantham, as, unconsciously touching the hilt of his sword, he replied: "If your hope of avoidance rest on this, sir, it will be found to hang upon a very thread indeed." ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... But look you," pointing to a white foamy thread that descended the opposite steeps, "yonder beck dashes through the castle court, and it never dries; and see you the ledge the castle stands on? It winds on out of your sight, and forms a path which leads to the village of Adlerstein, out on ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... neck firmly shut. Take the stopper out and rinse the flask several times with running water. Any zinc that is left should be rinsed thoroughly, dried, and set aside so that it may be used again. Now tie one end of a long thread firmly around the mouth of the balloon and let the balloon go. Does it rise? If it does not, the reason is that you did not get it full enough. In that case make more hydrogen and fill it ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... There was the mosquito-netting, sold for a song, that the cleverest Fitu-Ivan net-weaver could not duplicate in a thousand years. He enlarged on the incomparable virtues of rifles, axes, and steel fishhooks, down through needles, thread and cotton fish-lines to white flour ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... got her finger mashed open, she turned pretty pale with the pain, but she never said a word. I took her in my lap, and the surgeon sponged off the blood and took a needle and thread and began to sew it up; it had to have a lot of stitches, and each one made her scrunch a little, but she never let go a sound. At last the surgeon was so full of admiration that he said, 'Well, you ARE a brave little thing!' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... so many tons of brass rods, as the Western Electric. Of platinum, too, which is more expensive than gold, it uses one thousand pounds a year in the making of telephone transmitters. This is imported from the Ural Mountains. The silk thread comes from Italy and Japan; the iron for magnets, from Norway; the paper tape, from Manila; the mahogany, from South America; and the rubber, from Brazil and the valley of the Congo. At least seven countries must cooperate to ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... the thread of their conversation—and it was the unexpected which intervened. Drexley relaxed still further; there was a quiet humour in everything he said; he took upon his shoulders the whole entertainment of the little party. The ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... know," the poet returned, clinging to the thread of thought on which he had cast himself loose. "But I believe a great deal more could be said for age by the poets if they really tried. I am not satisfied of Mr. Gilbert's earnestness in the passage you quote from the 'Mikado,' and I prefer Shakespeare's 'bare, ruined choirs.' I don't know ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... have been to Beaumanoir, and is bringing the young seigneur back to town," remarked Jean, puffing out a long thread of smoke ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... wife is represented in her boat, "making her toilet at dawn using the water as a mirror." While we are assured also that the woman sitting upon her veranda "finds it very difficult to thread her needle by the pale light of the moon," which fact, few, I ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... then taking the fish by the tail you can easily remove the backbone drawing it towards the head. The smaller bones will melt in the vinegar; remove the heads and roll each fish up, tail end inside, and wind a thread round each roll, lay them in the vessel they are to remain in till used, a stone earthernware crock is best. Make scalding hot with spices as much vinegar as will cover them, pour it over the fish and keep them hot about the stove for about ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various
... abstraction of soul and sense, that he would often leave you abruptly in the middle of a sentence; and if you chanced to meet him some weeks after, he would resume the conversation with the very word at which he had cut short the thread of your discourse. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... portages, or shoal and dry places, over which it was necessary to carry their boats by main force. In this kind of country the Indians had the manifest advantage, being acquainted with sinuous pathways, which, it is said, enabled them to thread all the intricacies of the hamac almost without wetting the moccason. The party of Col. Harney, however, were picked men, inured to all the hardships of Indian warfare, and after several days of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... not lose the significance of a word. At first the mystery remained as impenetrable as ever, but after a while a thread of suspicion wove itself into his brain. He tried to brush it away, however, by rubbing his hand violently over his brow and eyes. It was too painful. It was too ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... no objection," returned the philosopher; "only remember to exhibit few guards, for these Franks are like a fiery horse; when in temper he may be ridden with a silk thread, but when he has taken umbrage or suspicion, as they would likely do if they saw many armed men, a steel bridle ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... feel that the existence of this species hangs on a very slender thread. This is due to its alarmingly small range, the insignificant number of individuals now living, the openness of the species to attack, and the danger of its extinction by poison. Originally this remarkable bird,—the largest North American ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... foot on your neck. But if you think I make any terms with 'en, you're mistaken. He've a-driven my Tom from home an' employ; he've a-cast a good son out o' my sight and knowledge, and fo'ced 'en, for all I know, into wicked courses—for Tom's like his father before 'en; you can lead 'en by a thread, but against ill-usage he'll turn mad. Will I forgive Rosewarne for this? He may put out the fire in my grate and fling my bed into the street, and I'll laugh and call it a little thing; but for what he've a-done to the son ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on its side, seized it by the bottom, and jerked forth the contents. A large package was disclosed, carefully wrapped up in impervious tarpaulin, also well tied. He was on the point of pulling open the folds at one end, when a light coloured thread of something, hanging on the outside, arrested his eye. He put his hand upon it; it felt stringy, and adhered to his fingers. 'Hold ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... on one side, and on the other hanging over the beautiful valley of Campan. Beneath me lay the town of Bagneres, and, far as the eye could reach, extended the plain of Bigorre, with the clear waters of the Adour marking their track like a silver thread. On the slope of a neighbouring mountain the wild-pigeon hunters were spreading their nets; for the Chasse aux Palombes is nowhere so successfully followed as in this part of the Pyrenees. It is a simple sport; but highly productive to those ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... in the habit of sewing nasty bits of red thread, impossible to extricate, into conspicuous parts of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... thread at the point of his own indiscreet excursion into young-manthropology—his own word when he apologized for it. "Anyhow," said he, "it struck me that our friend upstairs was very hard hit. He made such a parade of his complete independence. Of course, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... river beds. The root of the golden tree seems always to reach down towards the centre of the earth, growing always larger; for the deeper one digs in the bowels of the mountain the larger are the grains of gold unearthed. The branches of the golden tree are in some places as slender as a thread, while others are as thick as a finger, according to the dimensions of the crevices. It sometimes happens that pockets full of gold are found; these being the crevices through which the branches of the golden tree pass. When these pockets are filled with the output from the trunk, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... tortuous, and in some places it is very narrow; and the road runs along through it like a white thread, suspended, as it were, half way between the lofty summits of the mountains and the roaring torrent of the Rhone in the deep ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... the modern napery, so exquisitely embroidered in gold thread, which affords an opportunity to show the family coat of arms, or the heraldic animals—the lion and the two-headed eagle and the griffin—intertwined in graceful shapes around the whole edge of the table and ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... which Industrial Education may form an important item. (Hear, hear.) But we must not do injustice to the wilder tribes. Their case is totally different from that of your Indians. The buffalo was everything to the nomad. It gave him house, fuel, clothes, and thread. The disappearance of this animal left him starving. Here, on the contrary, the advent of the white men has never diminished the food supply of the native. He has game in abundance, for the deer are as numerous now as they ever have been. He has ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... to recover her thimble she dropped her spool of thread, which rolled under the sofa on which Jane was sitting, and while she waited for Gabriella to find it, she gazed pensively into the almost deserted street where the slender shadows of poplar trees slanted ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... this scanty costume, the color flushing her cheeks in her indignation at her father's sometimes coarse remarks. She did not dare answer him, however, but bit off her thread in silent rage. After breakfast she went down to the courtyard. The house was wrapped in Sunday quiet; the workshops on the lower floor were closed. Through some of the open windows the tables were seen laid for dinners, the families being on the ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... towering maze tottered, seeming to wave towards every quarter of the heavens; and then, yielding to the movements of the hull, the whole fell, with a heavy crash, into the sea. Cord, lanyard, and stay snapped like thread, as each received in succession the strain of the ship, leaving the naked and despoiled hull of the Caroline to drive before the tempest, as if nothing had occurred to impede ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... only the sixteenth of a hint to rush armed with full fervour into the mysteries of his system. Mrs. Gunilla took up a packet of old gold thread, which she set herself to unravel, whilst the ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... bay, by father's quay, there was a deep, shelving bank, where, at the end of the summer, came shoals of young cod-fish and other small fry; and there we boys carried on our fishing, each with his linen thread and bent pin. We cut the fish open, and hung them over the drying poles standing in the field over by our own warehouse for the preparation of dried fish, and we let the liver stand in small tubs to rot until it became train-oil. Both ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... of my first afternoon session there was not an instant's harmony between what I did and what I intended to do. I sewed frantically into the middle of shirts. I watched my needle, impotent as it flew up and down, and when by chance I made a straight seam I brought it to so sudden a stop that the thread raveled back before my weary eyes. When my back and fingers ached so that I could no longer bend over the work, I watched my comrades with amazement. The machine was not a wild animal in their hands, but an instrument ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... in the snow, like knots upon a little thread, beginning at the convent door and winding away down the descent in broken lengths which were not yet pieced together, showed where the Brethren were at work in several places clearing the track. Already the snow had begun to be foot-thawed again ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... great addition, Godfrey. Well, we will set about making the sheaths at once. I have got a store of needles and stout thread." ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... lime-kiln door, and crossed with her a grassy avenue to find among birches the ravelled ends of a path called the White Islander's Trail. You may know it first by a triangle of roots at the foot of an oak. Thence a thread, barely visible to expert eyes, winds to some mossy dead pines and crosses a rotten log. There it becomes a trail cleaving the heights, and plunging boldly up and down evergreen glooms to a road parallel with the cliff. Once, when the island was freshly ...
— The Indian On The Trail - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... is said, or rather fabled, to have been a retreat built at Woodstock by Henry II. for the safe residence of his mistress, Rosamond Clifford; the approaches of which were so intricate, that it could not be entered without the guidance of a thread, which the King always kept in his own possession. His Queen, Eleanor, having, however, gained possession of the thread, obtained access to, and speedily destroyed ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... thread which held the colonies to Britain was the king and to cut that thread Jefferson and the Congress charged him with all the acts of parliament and the ministries. As ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... still a beautiful woman, though well past fifty. Her splendid, dark hair had hardly a thread of gray in it, and grew luxuriantly, but she insisted upon wearing it simply parted in the middle and coiled in a mass of plaits behind, while one braid stood up coronet fashion well at the back of her head. She was addicted to rich satins and velvets, and had a general air of Victorian repose and ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... one, or almost new, and for the present would seem to float in the void, like Mahomet's coffin. Wherefore, being one who (in my Lord Chief Justice Crewe's phrase) would 'take hold of a twig or twine-thread to uphold it'; being also prone (with Bacon) to believe that 'the counsels to which Time hath not been called, Time will not ratify'; I do assure you that, had any legacy of guidance been discovered among the papers left by my predecessor, it would have been eagerly welcomed ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... trace the thread of what we at present consider abnormal, through the whole skein of a single life, hoping thereby to encourage others ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... just after this meal that she brought me a roll of grass sinnate (of the kind which sailors sew into the frame of their tarpaulins), and then, handing me needle and thread, bade me begin at once, and make myself the hat which I so much needed. An accomplished hand at the business, I finished it that day—merely stitching the braid together; and Arfretee, by way of rewarding my industry, with her own olive hands ornamented the crown with ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... come to warn thee that great, very great and imminent danger is hanging, impended but by a thread, over thy head." ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... poor scene of triumph!—a poor-clad, pale-faced man, mounted upon the back of a shuffling, unwilling little grey donkey, passing slowly through the byways of a city, busy upon other things. Beside him, a little band of worn, anxious men, clad in thread-bare garments—fishermen, petty clerks, and the like; and, following, a noisy rabble, shouting, as crowds in all lands and in all times shout, and as dogs bark, they know not why—because others are shouting, or barking. ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... said the heedless Bluebell. "That will be so much pleasanter, and we need not thread those horrid ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... establishes himself in his new lodging, where the two eyes in the shutters stare at him in his sleep, as if they were full of wonder. On the following day Mr. Weevle, who is a handy good-for-nothing kind of young fellow, borrows a needle and thread of Miss Flite and a hammer of his landlord and goes to work devising apologies for window-curtains, and knocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging up his two teacups, milkpot, and crockery sundries on a pennyworth of little hooks, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... an excellent auxiliary, and would devote many an hour to the cheering of the poor shattered mind. His entrance seldom failed to break the thread of melancholy murmurs, and he had exactly the gentle, bright attentive manner best fitted to rouse and enliven. Nothing could be more irreproachable, than his conduct, and his consideration and gentleness ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to look at a spider's web that the silver light had just touched, making it shine out from its background of dark leaves and verandah post; and there was danger of rupture to the delicate thread of the topic that was weaving so charming a conversation. Wherefore the young lady hastened to inquire what had become ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... himself under the protection of the navy of Great Britain. The vacant throne was given by Napoleon to his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte. Ferdinand, with the help of the English fleet, maintained himself in Sicily. A thread of sea two miles broad was sufficient barrier against the Power which had subdued half the Continent; and no attempt was made either by Napoleon or his brother to gain a footing beyond the Straits of Messina. In Southern Italy the same ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... running up the farther side, the grey mud parapet heaped out, like the earth of one long, continuous grave, on both sides of the trench. Behind that trench, along its whole length, as far as we could see, ran a sinuous thread of light-coloured soil. It was the beaten track by which the Germans had moved up and down their trench. They could not move in the trench, so when they wanted to move they had to hop up and move outside ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... nectared bowl, Let us raise the song of soul To him, the god who loves so well The nectared bowl, the choral swell; The god who taught the sons of earth To thread the tangled dance of mirth; Him, who was nurst with infant Love, And cradled in the Paphian grove; Him, that the Snowy Queen of Charms So oft has fondled in her arms. Oh 'tis from him the transport flows, Which sweet intoxication knows; With him, the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... different light. He could not understand how he had got mixed up in it. He went back over every incident of the day from the moment when he had left the house with Olivier: he saw the two of them walking through Paris until the moment when he had been caught up by the whirlwind. There he lost the thread: the chain of his thoughts was snapped: how could he have shouted and struck out and moved with those men with whose beliefs he disagreed? It was not he, it was not he!... It was a total eclipse ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... palace roofs opposite, flooded the room with light. It made Aurora's red dress brilliant, and played and sparkled on the gold she wore. Twenty little golden chains of Venice hung around her neck, slender thread after thread from throat to girdle, invisible now with fineness, and now showing a misty flash in the sun. There was a gold filigree rose in her hair, which at certain movements changed to a red rose, and then to a pallid flame, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... Mafia, the small inshore islets like Mombasa and Lamu, and the whole outer rim of the coast from the equator southward to the Rovuma River.[437] The Sultan of Zanzibar, heir to this coastal strip, had not expanded it a decade ago, when he had to relinquish the long thread of his ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... He therefore spent several days in covertly watching the habits of his adversary. From the knowledge thus gained he was able one morning suddenly to turn a street corner and confront Number One. Without the least suspicion that Allison was in the country, the man, knowing that his life hung by a thread, jerked his pistol and fired on the instant. As Allison had shrewdly calculated, his enemy was so nervous that his shot flew wild. Number One did not get a second shot. At the inquest several witnesses of the affray swore that Allison did not even draw until after ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... the Assiniboine had loosed its locks of ice and rolled and gurgled, full to its low banks, as if the late summer would not see it shrunk to a lazy thread, refusing sometimes even the shallow canoes and barely licking the ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... never be mortall sir Cutt: if I rid not after him, till my horse sweat, so that he had nere a dry thread on him, and hollod, and hollod to him to stay him, till I had thought my fingers ends wood have gon off with hollowings; Ile be sworne to yee, & yet he ran his way like a Diogenes, and ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various |
