"Brick in" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mind. We'll readily admit what you've probably concluded; that you as a carrier have become the one basic factor that we have been seeking for some twenty years and more. You are the dirigible force, the last brick in the building, the final answer. Or, and I hate to say ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... feat of Sarah's battle with the world was the deal she made with Schulenberg's Home Restaurant. The restaurant was next door to the old red brick in which she ball-roomed. One evening after dining at Schulenberg's 40-cent, five-course table d'hote (served as fast as you throw the five baseballs at the coloured gentleman's head) Sarah took away with her the bill of fare. It was written in an almost unreadable script neither English ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... order to make room for Mr. Smithson. Here the Parvenu had bought a home mellowed by the slow growth of years, touched into poetic beauty by the chastening fingers of time. His artist friends told him that every brick in the red walls was 'precious,' a mystery of colour which only a painter could fitly understand and value. Here he had bought associations, he had bought history. He had bought the dust of Elizabeth's senators, the bones of her court beauties. The coffins in the Mausoleum yonder in the ferny depths ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... knight, besides having a heart of steel and nerves of iron, has been lately in the habit of carrying a brick in his eye.] ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... to the knowledge of her Saviour. A mass of her correspondence now lies before the writer, which he has read with much interest; but to quote from it would only be, reproducing scenes already portrayed. It is not necessary to describe the laying of each course of brick in the walls of ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... me!" ejaculated Somerset. "That brick in your bag must be instantly disposed of. But how? If we could ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fire cried "Shame" to Caleb's when it issued languidly from his kitchen chimney an hour later. Amanda's smoke was like herself, and betokened the brisk fire she would be likely to build; Caleb's showed wet wood, poor draught, a fallen brick in the chimney. ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... carrying a brick in each pocket," grumbled the long-nosed man. And halting his operations, despite the other man's resistance he roughly felt of the coat corners. But when he would have thrust in his hand, to investigate further, the other clutched the pockets so tightly and moaned "No! ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... Nature is a chaos of unconscious forces, a city is a chaos of conscious ones. The crest of the flower or the pattern of the lichen may or may not be significant symbols. But there is no stone in the street and no brick in the wall that is not actually a deliberate symbol—a message from some man, as much as if it were a telegram or a post-card. The narrowest street possesses, in every crook and twist of its intention, the soul of the man who ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... and the houses. Badly wounded men were dragged down into the cellars, and lay there in the filth of Friday's fighting. The headquarters of one of the London brigades had put up in a roofless barn, but were shelled out, and settled down on some heaps of brick in the open. It was as cold as death in the night, and no fire could be lighted, and iron rations were the only food, until two chaplains, "R. C." and Church of England (no difference of dogma then), came up as volunteers in a perilous ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... existence, and with much hesitation and penny-wise economy inaugurated drainage works. Rates became a common topic, a fact of accumulating importance. Several chapels of zinc and iron appeared, and also a white new church in commercial Gothic upon the common, and another of red brick in the residential district out beyond the brickfields ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... out of brick in some part of the chimney so that outer air is admitted. The remedy is to ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Ayscough, dropping into a chair. "We've been pretty busy, me and Mr. Rubinstein there—we've had what you might call a pretty full evening's work of it. Yes—it's true enough, gentlemen—another step in the ladder—another brick in the building! We're getting on, Mr. Purdie, we're getting on! So you've been round to our place?—they ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... under way, battered, blowing, snubbed, sawed, boosy, bruised, screwed, soaked, comfortable, stimulated, jug-steamed, tangle-legged, fogmatic, blue-eyed, a passenger in the Cape Ann stage, striped, faint, shot in the neck, bamboozled, weak-jointed, got a brick in his hat, got a turkey on ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... Professor exactly what he had sought in it; a comfortable lining to life. The impossibility of rising to sentimental crises had made him scrupulously careful not to shirk the practical obligations of the bond. He took as it were a sociological view of his case, and modestly regarded himself as a brick in that foundation on which the state is supposed to rest. Perhaps if Mrs. Linyard had cared about entomology, or had taken sides in the war over the transmission of acquired characteristics, he might have had a less impersonal notion of marriage; but he was unconscious of any ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... step of your charger on the turf. It will put bounding manliness into your sluggish civilian blood. Read each page, each chapter for itself; or regard it as one handsome marble square in the tesselated pavement of a haughty palace, not as a useful brick in the domestic sidewalk, which is to carry you straight to a homely destination. Observe the description of scenes, how powerful! the delineation of character, how fascinating! and be pleased with the luxuriance of the style and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the private yachts and big excursion-boats that passed, banging out popular airs and alive with bunting, made Hefty feel very bitter. He determined that when he got back he would go look up the policeman who had assaulted him and break his head with a brick in a stocking. This plan cheered him somewhat, until he thought again of Mary Casey at the dance that night with Patsy Moffat, and this excited him so that he determined madly to break away and escape. His first impulse was to drop his crowbar and jump into the ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... down to us of one of these workmen who fell ill, and when he found that he could not complete his work, begged that he might lay one more brick before he was taken away, and was lifted up by his comrades that he might set the brick in its place. ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... temper with me fellow-men. I'll not let anger or jealousy get th' betther iv me,' I says. 'I'll lave off all me old feuds; an' if I meet me inimy goin' down th' sthreet, I'll go up an' shake him be th' hand, if I'm sure he hasn't a brick in th' other hand.' Oh, I was mighty compliminthry to mesilf. I set be th' stove dhrinkin' hot wans, an' ivry wan I dhrunk made me more iv a pote. 'Tis th' way with th' stuff. Whin I'm in dhrink, I have manny a fine thought; an', if I wasn't too comfortable ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... a large brick in the middle bed of geraniums, evidently come from next door. Pattles and Pattles can't find ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... intended to kill the bird, and when rightly constructed will capture it alive. Care is necessary in setting the topmost brick in such a position that it will fall aright, and completely cover the open space. This is a very simple and effectual little contrivance, and can be made with a box instead of bricks, if desired. A piece of board may also be substituted for the top brick, and the ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... his apprentices stood round and stared while the demolition of the wall proceeded. Before long he recognised Wio-wani with his flowing white beard; it was his handiwork, this pulling down of the wall! He still had a brick in his hand when he stepped through the opening that he had made, and close after him ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... so near, so very near the place in the wall hidden in the shadow of the talik palms and in which was the secret door which opened on the pressing of a certain brick in the third row from the top. And once in the house, with a veil across her face, a whip or dagger in her hand, she would show them who was master, cripple or no cripple, fool that she had been to have submitted to the black Qatim, but thrice fool he, who knew nothing of that other ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... the air helps to crumble the stone and brick in old buildings. It does the same with soil if permitted to circulate freely through it. The agent of the air that chiefly performs this work is called carbonic acid gas, and this gas is one of the greatest helpers the ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... constituents. Yet he noticed that Carnac was still glib with his tongue and freer with his hands. Carnac seemed everywhere, on every corner, in every street, at every polling booth; he laid his trowel against every brick in the wall. Carnac was not as confident as he seemed, but he was nearing the end of the trail; and his feet were free and his head clear. One good thing had happened. The girl who could do him great harm was not in evidence, and it was too late to spoil his chances now, even if she came. What gave ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to country towns. What's the good of them? Nests of gossip, places where people waste their time, and don't even amuse themselves. Give me green fields and London, that is my sort. I don't care if there was not another blessed brick in the country. There is always something that will grow in a field, corn or fat beasts—not that we couldn't get all that cheaper from over the water if it was managed as it ought to be. But a place like this, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... solution of American potash (which can be bought at any colour-shop, and resembles burnt brick in appearance); mix this with sawdust into a kind of paste, and spread it all over the paint, which will become softened in a few hours, and is then easily removed by washing with cold water. If, after ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
... warm, red brick in Fisherton Street, set well back so that you can see it as a whole, behind its cedar and beech-trees—how familiar it is to the villagers! In numberless humble homes, in hundreds of villages of the Plain, and all over the surrounding country, the "Infirmary" is a name of the ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... Syrian hut, and no chimneys. When I used to read that they let a bed-ridden man down through the roof of a house in Capernaum to get him into the presence of the Saviour, I generally had a three-story brick in my mind, and marveled that they did not break his neck with the strange experiment. I perceive now, however, that they might have taken him by the heels and thrown him clear over the house without discommoding him very much. Palestine is not changed any since those ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... point, there is a wage that can be paid and a wage that can not. And everybody, or nearly everybody, bases on these obvious facts a series of entirely erroneous conclusions. Because we cannot change the part we are apt to think we cannot change the whole. Because one brick in the wall is immovable, we forget that the wall ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... were chiefly composed of frame houses, put up in the most unartistic and irregular fashion, their gable ends or fronts turned to the street, as it suited the whim or convenience of the owner, without the least regard to taste or neatness. At that period there were only two stone houses and two of brick in the place. One of these wonders of the village was the court-house and gaol; the other three were stores. The dwellings of the wealthier portion of the community were distinguished by a coat of white or yellow paint, with green or brown ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Prussia and of the German Empire, the residence of the German Emperor, is situated in the midst of a vast plain; 'an oasis of stone and brick in a Sahara of sand.' It is about the size of New York, and it greatly resembles an American city, for the reason that ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... ceded to other companies and that some of them demanded, earthquake affidavits with every claim; that while I regretted to put him to any inconvenience, it would be necessary for him to produce this testimony. He looked me squarely in the eye and said, "I'll sign it and swear to it. Not a brick in the whole building was disturbed." He attached his signature to the affidavit. I showed him the photograph and then stated that we should be compelled to penalize him to the extent of thirty-five cents on the dollar. As a matter of equity, there was little, if any, liability under ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... himself to affirm that his main thesis was now and for ever established on the most irrefragable evidence, and that no assailant could by any possibility dislodge by so much as a hair's breadth the least fragment of a single brick in the impregnable structure of proof raised by the argument to which ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... it," answered Philip, gravely. "A minister must be made of cast-iron and fire-brick in order to stand the wear and tear of these times in which we live. I'd like a week to trade ideas with you and talk over the ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... took it up myself. Again, the same night, we saw a little Indian basket, that was in the loft before, come down the chimney again. And I took the same basket, and put a piece of brick into it, and the basket with the brick was gone, and came down again the third time with the brick in it, and went up again the fourth time, and came down again without the brick; and the brick came down again a ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... so that their outlook upon life is largely different from that of an island people protected by the sea. They know that they have been born of women for one primary object—to fight when the time comes in, defence of the Fatherland, to make one more human brick in the great wall of blood and spirit dividing their country and race from some other country and race. At least that is the lesson taught them from first to last in the schools and in the national assemblies, and there are only a few minds which are able to see another ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... among other things that were of little value, this packet of papers. He concealed them at his lodgings in Kentish Town, and he chose a curious and ingenious hiding-place—a recess behind a loose brick in the wall of the house, just below his window. Shortly afterward the rascal—his name was Noah Hawker—was caught at another crime, and sent to penal servitude for a term of years. On his release last spring, on ticket-of-leave, he went abroad, ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon |
