"Button" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good thick cloak. Our man was therefore well bedight With double mantle, strong and tight. 'This fellow,' said the wind, 'has meant To guard from every ill event; But little does he wot that I Can blow him such a blast That, not a button fast, His cloak shall cleave the sky. Come, here's a pleasant game, Sir Sun! Wilt play?' Said Phoebus, 'Done! We'll bet between us here Which first will take the gear From off this cavalier. Begin, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... unfastened the button, and produced from inside her crimson robe, a crystal-like locket, set with pearls and gems, and with a brilliant golden fringe. Pao-yue promptly received it from her, and upon minute examination, found that there were in fact four ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... a locality unsavory beyond credence! ... As they emerged on the street level and turned west on Bermondsey Wall, Kirkwood was fain to tug his top-coat over his chest and button it tight, to hide his linen. In a guarded tone he counseled his companion to do likewise; and Calendar, after a moment's blank, uncomprehending stare, acknowledged the wisdom of the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... this excellent family vegetate under the shade of a mighty button-wood tree, which by little and little grew so great as entirely to overshadow their palace. The city gradually spread its suburbs round their domain. Houses sprung up to interrupt their prospects. The rural lanes in the vicinity began to grow into the bustle and ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... had fallen on to the hearth; but looking nearer I saw a blob or button of lead upon the bar of the grate. There was no resisting the conviction which forced itself upon me: my ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... behind her hurried footsteps on the gravel, such as she was not generally accustomed to hear in the cemetery. Almost shocked, she turned round. Klingemann was standing before her, in an attitude of greeting, holding in his hand his straw hat, which was fixed by a ribbon to his coat button. He bowed deeply ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... hurrying to his work, encountered Coleridge and was drawn aside to a quiet garden. There the poet took Lamb by a button of his coat, closed his eyes, and began to discourse, his right hand waving to the rhythm of the flowing words. No sooner was Coleridge well started than Lamb slyly took out his penknife, cut off the button, and escaped unobserved. Some hours later, as he passed the garden on his return, Lamb heard ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... Our famous look of mild surprise (Which competition still defies) - Our celebrated "Sir!!!" Then all the crowd take down our looks In pocket memorandum books. To diagnose, Our modest pose The kodaks do their best: If evidence you would possess Of what is maiden bashfulness, You only need a button press - And WE ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... affording a charming view from its battlements. In the squares and streets, as well as in the market-place, women sit each morning weaving fresh-cut flowers of rose-buds, mignonette, pansies, violets, and geraniums into pretty little clusters, of which they sell many as button-hole bouquets. One may be sure there is always a refined element in the locality, whether otherwise visible or not, where such an appreciation is manifested. The bull-fight may thrive, the populace may be riotous, education at a very low ebb, and art almost entirely neglected; but when a ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... Skirts button from point of basque to feet just before we see them, in the seventeenth century, parting down the front and separating to show a petticoat. In Queen Elizabeth's time the acme of this style was reached ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... cats, I can tell you. O, he's the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song—keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first house,—of the first and second cause: ah, the immortal passado! the punto ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Avenel and his nephew were invited. Colonel Pompley, who kept his head clear in the midst of the greatest excitement, had a desire to get from the Corporation a lease of a piece of ground adjoining his garden, and he no sooner saw Richard Avenel enter, than he caught him by the button, and drew him into a quiet corner in order to secure his interest. Leonard, meanwhile, was borne on by the stream, till his progress was arrested by a sofa table at which sat Mrs. M'Catchley herself, with Mrs. Pompley by her side. For on this great occasion ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... fulfilment must be certain. The break-up of the government, which deprives me of my salary as a private secretary, deprives me of luxuries which I can do without—a horse, a brougham, a stall at the play, a flower in my button-hole—but my clerkship is my freehold. As long as I possess it, I can study, I can work, I can watch and comprehend all the machinery of government. I can move in society, without which a public man, whatever his talents or acquirements, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... by Silver that Bonetti took it upon himself "to hit anie Englishman with a thrust upon anie button." It is no wonder that Shakespeare ridiculed him in Romeo and Juliet as "the very butcher of a silk button," and laughed at his school and his ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... white studs, and the boys in great triumph brought in the first blue thrush's eggs. Nature would go on though under the thumb of the north wind. Poor folk came out of the towns to gather ivy leaves for sale in the streets to make button-holes. Many people think the ivy leaf has a pleasant shape; it was used of old time among the Greeks and Romans to decorate the person at joyous festivals. The ivy is frequently mentioned in the classic poets. Not so with the countrywomen in ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... which survive the winter and hatch in the spring, as soon as the food supply of gnats, flies, and mosquitoes appear. The different forms of spiders' nests are very interesting objects of study. Some are those close-spun, flat, button-shaped objects, about half an inch in diameter, which are so common in winter on the under side of bark, chunks and flat rocks. Others are balloon-shaped and attached to weeds. Within the latter the young spiders ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... are you going to wear, Beauty? That soft white cashmere? Oh, you look sweet in that, but I bet you a button that I'll cut ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... looking through the immense goggles which Jimmie wore, that the lad was almost bursting with laughter, but he knew that this effect would soon pass away. He pushed a button, and signaled to Frank to ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... "Here, kid, button your blouse up again," ordered Private Hyman. "You ain't called upon to fight that bully. Hooper, if you're spoiling for fight I'll do my best ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... live coals, as had lain intrenched in the deep fireplace; and the tender joints of the enormous boeuf roti were ready to bear their share in the festivities almost as soon as the invited company. Separated with great cleavers, and laid into white button-wood trays hollowed out for the purpose, they were borne rapidly to the shady nook selected for the dining-place, followed by vast supplies of sweet potatoes, roasted in the ashes, and of rich, golden maize bread. A barrel of rare cider was broached; while good old-fashioned puddings, and the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... haven't touched my Latin or French!" sighed Fil dismally. "I wish I could go to a school where there isn't any homework, and that somebody would invent a typewriter that would just spell the words ready-made when you press a button." ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... leader who rode almost by his side. Jackson had put on his own cavalry cloak, but it was fastened by a single button at the top and it had blown open. He did not seem to notice the fact. Apparently he was oblivious of heat and cold alike, and rode on, bent a little forward in the saddle, his face the usual impenetrable mask. But Harry knew that ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... successful experiment had, as it chanced, been conducted under Mr. Gray's personal and ardent supervision. He had overseen the flying of the kites, the impudent invasion of the upper depths when a button was touched, and then he had seen the white cumulus clouds gather and become nimbus, followed by a brief rainfall upon a hot and yellow land. He had felt as Moses may have felt when he smote the rock, as De Lesseps may have felt when he brought the seas together. He thought ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... principles of secret associations among the lower Irish Catholics, organised in opposition to Orangeism, the name being derived from a green ribbon worn as a badge in a button-hole by the members; they were most active between ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... "Button the flaps tighter over the pistol-holsters! The portmanteau behind the young master's saddle isn't exactly even. There! Did the cook fill ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... way. Ye see it's most in general all ways at once with him. Up and down, day and night, all over Sussex, these weeks past. No stoppin him; no coppin him; no nothin him. Always the same chap—gentleman, mighty gay, bit o red riband in his button-hole, and blood chestnut with a white blaze between his knees. Always the same tale—gave em the go-by somehow. No sayin where or when—only just when you're least expectin him, then you can make ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... his button-hole upright, "Did Farmer Crouder put, "A slip of paper twisted tight, "And held ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... noblest horse of the world, strained him mightily and stably, and kept still the spear in the rest; and therewith Sir Launcelot strained himself so straitly, with so great force, to get the horse forward, that the button of his wound brast both within and without; and therewithal the blood came out so fiercely that he felt himself so feeble that he might not sit upon his horse. And then Sir Launcelot cried unto Sir Bors: Ah, Sir Bors and Sir Lavaine, help, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... know if the ship worked. Well, she did. Went like a bomb. We got lined up between Earth and Mars, you'll remember, and James pushed the button marked 'Jump'. Took his finger off the button and there we were: Alpha Centauri. Two months later your time, one second later by us. We covered our whole survey assignment like that, smooth as a pint of old and mild which right now I could certainly use. Better yet would be a pint of hot ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily
... sir, and nothing else—Yes, here is 'Forwarded by Cane, Spriggs, and Button, Rio de Janeiro.' It must have been put into a ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... turned suddenly upon his heel and held her with an upraised hand, the bony wrist of which was encircled, after an intervening space of some five inches, by a frayed cuff confined with a black onyx button the ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... better—ugh! ugh! ugh! When it's your misfortune to be in company with an old maid—I mean a reputed one—ugh! ugh! always be on the muzzle—for in her next issue of scandal she'll be sure to quote you as her authority. If a saint comes in your way, button your breeches-pocket, and look now and then at your watch-chain. I'm brought nearly to a fix, for bad bellows ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... unconcerned manner of his class the boy touched an electric button, and the lift slowly rose from ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... daily." Bill summoned a hollow cough. "Listen to that hospital bark,' I gotta blow this place, Doc, or they'll button me up in a rosewood overcoat. I gotta sell Eclipse Creek and beat it." Again ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Toplady seldom rose much before midday, it was not the mere luxury of repose that kept her in her chamber. As a rule, she awoke from refreshing sleep at eight o'clock. A touch on the electric button near her hand summoned a maid, who appeared with tea, the morning's post, and a mass of printed matter: newspapers, reviews, magazines, volumes, which had arrived by various channels since noon on the previous day. Apparatus of perfected ingenuity, speedily attached to the bed, enabled her ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... boys, Cass Martel,—the lame one, whose nose began quite seriously, as if it had every intention of being a nose, then changed abruptly into a button,—scraped the snow from the sewer grating with his cane, and swore savagely under his breath. But Quin shrugged his shoulders with ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... though he were his own son. He tried to train the lad to work in the mill, and was patient beyond what the patience of most fathers would have been with his stepson's idleness and shiftlessness. "Never mind," he was used to say. "Levi 'll come all right. Levi's as bright as a button." ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... Third of England was a button-maker, and therefore no wonder need be excited at the information which was sent to the Landers from the king of Boossa, announcing to them that his majesty was a tailor, and that he would thank them much for some thread and a few needles for his own private use; ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... All the same I should like to see the doctor's prescriptions, and the soap and the sugar. But, you know, I don't care a button about the matter. As for that little Madame Menoux, it's here to-day and gone to-morrow. She has her business, and I have mine. And you, too, have yours, and so much the better if you get as much out of ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... workman's heart, as in all others, the root of Pharisaism—the lust after self-glorifying superiority, on the ground of "genius." We too are men; frail, selfish, proud as others. The days are past, thank God, when the "gentlemen button-makers," used to insist on a separate tap-room from the mere "button-makers," on the ground of earning a few more shillings per week. But we are not yet thorough democrats, my brothers; we do not yet utterly believe our own loud doctrine of equality; nor shall we till—But I ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... approached her house, reasonably calm and quite determined to have his own way. But the house was dark from cellar to roof. Every window was closed although it was a warm night. He sprang up the steps and rang the bell. He rang again, and then kept his finger on the button for nearly five minutes. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... my boy—my boy? And unless you let me know I'll swear you are no sailor, Blue jacket or no, Brass button or no, sailor, Anchor and crown or no! Sure his ship was the Jolly Briton— 'Speak ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... know.—There, you dear old brown suit! Forgive me, and I never will do such a mean thing again. To think of all the lovely places I have been in with you, and now that I should like to cheat you out of seeing Michael Angelo's frescoes!" and she adjusted the last button with such a comical, half-disgusted expression on her face that Betty burst into a ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... was that year. It was a little box for holding buttons, which I had bought at the village shop, and it had a picture of the old, old Abbey Church at Middlemoor on its lid. Grandmamma has that button-box still, I saw it in her work-basket only yesterday. I was very proud of it, for it was the first year I had saved pennies enough to be able to buy something instead of ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... will give you a letter which will insure you an interview, and, I hope, enlist his services in your behalf." He pressed a button on his desk, summoning a stenographer. "I sincerely hope ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... juncture, who should come in view of the window but the head-master himself. He was passing it with a quick step, when out flew Mr. Galloway, and caught him by the button. Roland Yorke, who was ever glad of a pretext for idleness, rose from his stool, and pushed his nose close up to the nearest pane, to listen to any colloquy that might ensue; but, the window being open, he might have ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... assistant to relieve our distress. With his help I swiftly selected an outfit that was not half bad for ready-to-wear garments. There was a black morning-coat, snug at the waist, moderately broad at the shoulders, closing with two buttons, its skirt sharply cut away from the lower button and reaching to the bend of the knee. The lapels were, of course, soft-rolled and joined the collar with a triangular notch. It is a coat of immense character when properly worn, and I was delighted to observe in the trying on that Cousin Egbert filled it rather smartly. Moreover, ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... profit. They follow his textual allusions in their little Bibles, and devoutly receive the crude and amusing interpretations as utterances of the highest exegetical skill. But their faces shine when the discourse moralizes; it seems to take them by the button, so friendly it is,—but it looks them closely in the eye, without heat and distant zeal, with great, manly expostulation, rather, and half-humorous argument, that sometimes make the tears stand upon the lids. The florid countenances become ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... as he comes up the avenue; So looks a clerk! A clerk has such a gait! So does a clerk dress, Julia!—mind his hose— They're very like a clerk's! a diamond loop And button, note you, for his clerkship's hat,— O, certainly a clerk! A velvet cloak, Jerkin of silk, and doublet of the same,— For all the world a clerk! See, Julia, see, How Master Walter bows, and yields him place, That he may ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... and acute—his planted stillness, his vivid truth, his grizzled bent head and white masking hands, his queer actuality of evening-dress, of dangling double eye-glass, of gleaming silk lappet and white linen, of pearl button and gold watch-guard and polished shoe. No portrait by a great modern master could have presented him with more intensity, thrust him out of his frame with more art, as if there had been "treatment," of the consummate sort, ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... of the boys, the captain lumbered towards them, waving a dirty piece of paper. "Read that," he roared, "just brought in by that copper-faced, shoe-button-eyed son of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the whole thing over to you," he declared briskly, with his finger already on the button that would summon his stenographer for dictation. "Just step into that room there and stay as long as you like. Whatever Patch says I'll back up. You'll find him thoroughly capable and trustworthy. And now good luck to you," he finished, throwing wide the ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... white button (white center with blue rim) has been adopted for both the Intermediate (13-16 years) and Senior (17-20 years) Departments, the blue indicating loyalty and ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... Racey, clasping his hat to his bosom, so that he could button unseen the top button of his shirt, "except cuc-can you find Miss Dale for ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... stairway and found the master And mistress sound asleep in a large room. I went up to the bed, gave the Bed clothes a quick tug, uttered a low cry and stepped back out of sight. The master jumped up exclaiming, "What was that?" At the same time he touched a button on the wall and flooded the house with light. He listened intently and hearing a noise downstairs rushed down. I followed in time to see the man jump out of the window, leaving on the floor a large sack, which was ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... than ever and wondered at whom to look so as to avoid vacancy, and what to do with my hands. Nervously I used the right hand to button up my coat, and then put it out of ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... tight ships," said Bearwarden, passing a decanter of claret to Stillman, "may remind us that it is time to splice the 'main brace.' There's a bottle of whisky and some water just behind you," he added to Deepwaters, "while three minutes after I ring this bell," he said, pressing a button and jerking a handle marked '8,' "the champagne cocktails will be on the desk." "I see you know his ways," said Stillman to Bearwarden, drooping his eyes in Deepwaters's direction. "Oh, yes, I've been here before," replied Deepwaters. "You see, we navy men have to hustle now-a-days, and ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... irreverent Katy. "I don't care a button for that argument. Yes; bridesmaids and going up the aisle in a long procession and all the rest are pretty to look at,—or were before they got to be so hackneyed. I can imagine the first bridal procession up the aisle of some early cathedral as having been ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... Tartarin was alone in his study thinking sad thoughts, when the Commandant appeared, somberly dressed and gloved, with every button fastened "Tartarin!" said the former captain, with authority, "Tartarin, you must go!" and he stood, upright and rigid in the doorway, the very ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... while with the other he drummed a nervous tattoo upon the broad oaken sill. "Not at home, Sir Henry; but fortunately I know where to find him with but little loss of time," he said, and pressed twice upon an electric button beside his desk. "My motor will be at the door in a couple of minutes, and with ordinary luck we ought to be able to pick him up inside of ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... was a great blossoming thing in a silver basket-frame, so large and high that when they were seated, Hare, who was neither, could just see Mary over the top of it. About it were four tall vases of cut roses, two of white, two of red. Button-holes in white and red lay at three covers, gigantic American Beauties, red, with flowing white ribbons, at two. And napery, silver, iridescent glass, all the materialities, were well worthy of ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... home of Judge Norman L. Carter an upset madhouse. He was stopped at the front door by a secretary at a small desk whose purpose was to screen the visitors and to log them in and out in addition to being decorative. Above her left breast was a large enamelled button, red on top, white in the middle as a broad stripe from left to right, and blue below. Across the white stripe was printed CARTER in bold, black letters. From in back of the pin depended two broad silk ribbons that cascaded forward over ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... twenty-six for admission! Ninety-eight against!" sang out the voice of the secretary, who could not pronounce the letter r. Then there was a laugh; a button and two nuts were found in the box. The nobleman was allowed the right to vote, and the new party ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... care a button for the Dutch painters," he said with a laugh. "But I shall certainly write ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... studied that grammar, stretched full length on the store-counter, or under a tree outside the store, or at night before a blazing fire of shavings in the cooper's shop. And soon, he had mastered it. He borrowed every book in New Salem; he made the schoolmaster give him lessons in the store; he button-holed every stranger that came into the place "who looked as though he knew anything"; until, at last, every one in New Salem was ready to echo Offutt's boast that "Abe Lincoln" knew more than any man "in these United States." One day, in the bottom of an old barrel ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... to say much about radishes; I do not like them. They are, however, universal favorites. They come round, half- long, long and tapering; white, red, white-tipped, crimson, rose, yellow-brown and black; and from the size of a button to over a foot long by fifteen inches in circumference—the latter being the new Chinese or Celestial. So you can imagine what a revel of varieties the seedsmen may indulge in. I have tried many—and cut my own ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... &c., indicative of the poverty of the soil; in the uplands of the rest of the state, hickory, post-oak, and white oaks, &c., are the prevailing growth; and in river-bottoms, the cotton-tree, sycamore, or button-wood, maple, ash, walnut, &c., predominate. The south-eastern corner of the state, below Cape Girardeau, and east of the Black River, is a portion of the immense inundated region which borders the Arkansas. A considerable part of this tract ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... up and tried on the coat. It fitted admirably; the waistcoat could be made to button by ripping up the back, and the trousers were perfect; but below were the ragged boots. The German was not disconcerted. Going to the beam where a pair of top-boots hung, he took them off, dusted them carefully, and put them down before Bonaparte. The ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... admit of many variations, which should embody the substantial characteristics and be entirely consistent with a substantial identity of form. Thus, if the invention were of a design for an ornamental button, the face of which was grooved with radial rays, it would seem that the first designer of such a button might properly describe a button of five rays, and, having stated that a greater number of rays might be used, might claim a design consisting generally of radial ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... and a rough towel, and from under the white silk kerchief on her head he could see the wet hair sticking to her forehead. There was the cool damp smell of the bath-house and of almond soap still hanging about her. She was out of breath from running quickly. The top button of her blouse was undone, so that the boy ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of the death-like stillness that followed, the steady tramp of feet was heard on the staircase, and the next instant the head of a young man, with a rosy face and side-chop coachman whiskers, close-cut black hair and shoe-button eyes, glistening with fun, was craned around the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... attendant at the "Pytchley," when he went a day's hunting it was his custom to single out some fellow disciple of Nimrod that happened to take his fancy, keeping behind him all day, noting his attitudes in the saddle, and marking every item of his turn-out, to the last button and button-hole of his hunting coat. It was in this way that he obtained the correctness of detail which renders his famous sporting etchings so wonderfully true to nature. Strange to say, notwithstanding his knowledge of every detail of the huntsman's dress, even to the number of buttons on his ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... there was rather a bad half hour for Mr. Glascock. He was button-holed by the minister, and found it oppressive before he was enabled to escape into the drawing-room. "Mr. Glascock," said the minister, "an English gentleman, sir, like you, who has the privilege of an hereditary ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... sheet of flame and the guide may be made as short as desired, and the motion of the gaseous mass be directed by a simple button placed in the center of the burner; thus giving the form shown by Fig. 5, which, however, differs from the previous figure in the fact that the inverted flame is directed outward ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... Fluff was handing him a rose. He took it, and placed it in his button-hole. He was not very skillful in arranging it, and she stood on tiptoe to help him. Just then Frances came out of the house. The sun was shining full on the pair; Fluff was laughing, Arnold was making a complimentary speech. Frances did not ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... After a moment, he thumbed a button on his chair arm. "Inform Lord Senesin that he is requested to appear for a Royal Audience in forty-five ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... The barn doors and windows burst forth in light. There was not a dark corner to be found anywhere. In the house it was the same. Perkins led the amazed procession from room to room of the house they had shut up for the winter. On the wall in the hall outside of every room was a button which he pushed, and the room became as light as day before they entered. The cellar door, in opening, automatically lighted a lamp illuminating that cavern as it had never been lighted before since the day a house was built ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... dragged out his evening clothes, and stood at the wall looking on until the last note of the last dance—he a noted German leader in the younger set and the best dancer of his years in Gotham. Not so much as a single spin had he, and he longed to show those tight-waisted, button-bestrewed fellows in gray and white how little they really knew about dancing well as many of them appeared on the floor. His reward was tendered as the hop broke up. She came gliding to him with such witchery in her upraised face. "Now, sir, it is ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... running towards this door to see what his exclamation might mean when at the other appeared the constable whom Mr. Rogers called "Jim"—a youngish man, and tall, with a round head set like a button on top of a massive ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... action Toddles was as near to a wild cat as anything else that comes handy by way of illustration. Two legs and one arm he twined and twisted around Hawkeye's legs; and the other arm, with a hard and knotty fist on the end of it, caught the conductor a wicked jab in the region of the bottom button of the vest. The brass button peeled the skin off Toddles' knuckles, but the jab doubled the conductor forward, and coincident with Hawkeye's winded grunt, the lantern in his hand sailed ceilingwards, crashed into ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... inscription in Spanish: "Blessed is he who created thee!" The fifth, which was the most valuable of all, was in the form of a small cup with a foot of gold, and with four little chains of the same metal attached to a large pearl as a button: the edge of the cup was of gold, on which was engraved in Latin words, "Inter natos mulierum non surrexit major." These splendid gems are now buried deep in the sand on the coast of Barbary, where they were lost in 1529, when Cortes was shipwrecked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... for the top button of his pajama coat. His long hair was tousled in front and stood straight up at the back, and his lids were heavy yet with sleep. He looked very young and very unruly, and as though several years of grace were still left to Helen May before she need ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... rolls, and a sampling of other county records, he found substantial evidence to corroborate the suggested trend of the breakup of a number of large patents and their distribution to small freeholders. Illustrative of this development was the land known as Button's Ridge in Essex County. Originally including 3,650 acres, the tract was patented to Thomas Button in 1666. The estate then passed first to the brother of Button and later was sold to John Baker. Baker divided the ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.
... mind—that one dies out all inside—the sensations I mean, and the emotions—before the husk begins to wither?" She paused a moment, but as Laura continued to regard her with a soft, compassionate look she turned away again and, touching an electric button in the wall, flooded the room with light. The change was so startling that every object seemed to leap at once from twilight vagueness into a conspicuous prominence. On a chair in the corner was carelessly flung a white ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... have even tried saying 'You are welcome' to a beggar. It's astonishing how they like it. By-the-way, have you the habit of looking at your waiter when he comes to take your order; or do you let him stand facing you, without giving him a glance above the lower button of ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... excellent fellow in his way,' said Herbert, button-holing his own waistcoat; 'but he's spoilt by two bad traits. In the first place, he's so dreadfully conscious of the fact that he has risen from a lower position; and then, again, he's so engrossingly and pervadingly mathematical. X square seems to ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... thoughtful mood, already conscious that she was more than half in love with this good-looking lad who had come so strangely into her life. And at the corner of Praed Street she ran up against Mr. Melky Rubinstein, and button-holed him, and for ten minutes talked seriously to him. Melky, who had good reasons of his own for keeping in his cousin's favour, listened like a lamb to all she had to say, and went off promising implicit obedience ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... the doorway he paused, cocked his hat a trifle, turned towards the managing editor's door, raised his hand with his pipe in it with the manner of one who points a dueling pistol, took careful aim at the second button of the managing editor's waistcoat, and clucked. At the cluck the managing editor drew back hastily, as if Cleggett had actually presented a firearm; Cleggett's manner was so rapt and fatal that it carried conviction. Then Cleggett laughed, cocked his hat on the other side of his ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... your hole perfectly straight, and of exactly, the diameter of the button, having previously marked out the place for it, with two rows of running-stitches, two or three threads apart. Put in your needle at the back of the slit, and take up about three threads, bring the working thread round, from right ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... the chief ornament of the house. With your looks—and your manners—oh, success will be assured! Enormous! You'll sit like a queen in the office and keep the slaves going by the touch of an electric button. The guests will pass in review before your throne and timidly deposit their treasures on your table. You cannot imagine how people tremble when a bill is presented to them—I'll salt the items, and you'll sugar them with your sweetest smiles. ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... ninnies, all of them, and——But, contrary to my expectation, one of them did perk up courage, and, wriggling very much on his seat, ventured to ask if the cuff he had seen on the man's hand when it was thrust through the doorway had a button in it. ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... was wearing the gown that had hung in the Count's closet. A button had been torn off, and the gown gaped open. Her right hand was almost completely obscured by a dense cloud of smoke. Obviously she had just fired a pistol directly at ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... to Lige's love of botanical science. A large globe-shaped cactus plant, bristling like a hedgehog, hung dangling from the swivel of his gun—it was thus carried to save his fingers from contact with its barbed spines—while stuck into every loop and button-hole of his dress could be seen the leaves and branchlets, and fruits and flowers, of a host of curious and unknown plants! He had been herborising in the woods; and coming by chance within earshot of the scuffle, had scrambled through the bushes just in time to spoil the ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... escaped most narrowly. He was struck in three places; and a cannon-shot tore away the skirts of his coat. A button was afterwards found in the signal locker; and the shot broke one of the glasses and bulged the rim of the spectacles in his pocket. He gave the spectacles to his valued friend, the late gallant Sir Richard Keats, who caused their history to be engraven on them, and directed, that when ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... brought out some paper bags of cakes which she crammed into my pockets, and a purse which she put into my hand, but not one word did she say. After another and a final squeeze with both arms, she got down from the cart and ran away; and, my belief is, and has always been, without a solitary button on her gown. I picked up one, of several that were rolling about, and treasured it as a ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... that our knowledge is not necessarily useless because it is rather dim and vague. It is one thing to use a mental state; it is another to have a clear comprehension of just what it is and of what elements it may be made up. The plain man does much of his thinking as we all tie our shoes and button our buttons. It would be difficult for us to describe these operations, but we may perform them very easily nevertheless. When we say that we know how to tie our shoes, we only mean that we can ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... upon a kindly face that years and care had lined before its time: old-fashioned rather, with soft, grey whiskers belonging to an earlier day. A black tail-coat adorned it, and the neck-tie was crooked in the turned-down collar. The watch-chain went from the waist-coat button to one pocket only, instead of right across, and one finger wore a heavy signet-ring that bore the family crest. It was obviously the figure of an overworked official in the Civil Service who had returned from its daily routine in London to the evening routine of its family in the country, ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... stood always at the top,[53] nor could I with all my efforts supplant him. {p.081} Day came after day, and still he kept his place, do what I would; till at length I observed that, when a question was asked him, he always fumbled with his fingers at a particular button in the lower part of his waistcoat. To remove it, therefore, became expedient in my eyes; and in an evil moment it was removed with a knife. Great was my anxiety to know the success of my measure; and it succeeded too well. When the boy was again questioned, his fingers sought again for the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... your energy," the banker confessed, "and I'm inclined to bet some of my own money on you. Now"—he pushed a button on his desk—"let's see if there are any others here who feel as I do." It was early evening when Gus Briskow returned to his wife's and his daughter's rooms at the Ajax. He slipped in quietly and sank into ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... the precaution to button up the box office 'take' in my inside pocket, and while Merritt was making a bluff at looking for the key to the cage door I looked around to see that there was a free exit, for the coon was standing there swelling out his chest and grinning as if he had the five hundred already in his jeans, ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... profile of his close-shaven comrade, were half concealed beneath a bushy beard and immense moustache. His tunic, also, was of hide, and, tightened at the waist, fell loose to his knee; while a kind of cloak, fastened to the right shoulder by a large round button or brooch, flowed behind and in front, but left both arms free. His cap differed in shape from the Norman's, being round and full at the sides, somewhat in shape like a turban. His bare, brawny throat was curiously punctured with sundry devices, and a verse ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to walk back, and Charlie, saying he had to dine with Victor Button, made an appointment to see Taylor again, and left him, striking across the Row. Taylor strolled on, and, finding Mrs. Marland still in her seat, sat down by her. She was surprised and pleased to hear that ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... gave a modest knock with his horn ink-bottle, which he carried hanging to his button. The door was opened ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... Button is not exactly named by Shakespeare, it is believed to be alluded to in this passage; and the supposed allusion is to a rustic divination by means of the flowers, carried in the pocket by men and under the apron by women, as it was supposed to ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... the cabin of logs, Ben Bolt, At the edge of the pathless wood, And the button-ball tree with its motley limbs, Which nigh by the door step stood? The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt, The tree you would seek in vain; And where once the lords of the forest waved, Grow ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... motor with everybody helping you to keep out of harm's way, but it must be a trifle worse to do it in a mass with a man on a hill a little way off waiting for you to come up to the signal post so that he can touch a button and send you in small ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... Bond-street of the fashionable world; as Bow-street was before. The change of Bow-street from fashion to the police, with the theatre still in attendance, reminds one of the spirit of the Beggar's Opera. Button's Coffee-house, the resort of the wits of Queen's Anne's time, was in Russell-street—we believe, near where the Hummums now stand. We think we recollect reading also, that in the same street, at one of the corners of Bow-street, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... probably the primary one; namely, to parts, which from accident or disease before birth are not developed or do not grow{496}: thus, when a young animal is born with a little stump in the place of a finger or of the whole extremity, or with a little button instead of a head, or with a mere bead of bony matter instead of a tooth, or with a stump instead of a tail, these parts are said to be aborted. Naturalists on the other hand, as we have seen, apply this term to parts not stunted during the growth of the embryo, but which are as regularly ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... understand they? Do you know they? Do you know they to? The storm is go over. The sun begins to dissipe it. Witch prefer you? The paving stone is sliphery. The thunderbolt is falling down. The rose-trees begins to button. The ears are too length. The hands itch at him. Have you forgeted me? Lay him hir apron. Help-to a little most the better yours terms. Dont you are awaken yet? That should must me to cost my life. We are in the canicule. No budge you there. Do not might one's understand to speak. Where ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... as a flaring purple light sprang into being upon his board, and the assistants came to attention at their stations. "Seconds! Four! Three! Two! One! LIFT!" He touched a button and a set of plunger switches drove home, releasing into the forty-five enormous driving projectors the equilibrium power—the fifteen-thousand-and-odd kilofranks of energy that exactly counterbalanced the pull of gravity upon the mass of the cruiser. ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... speak of this deprecatingly, since, very likely, it may substitute something more real and genuine, instead of the many shams on which men have heretofore founded their claims to public regard; but it behooves civilians to consider their wretched prospects in the future, and assume the military button before it is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... his acquaintance with the mammals, he found their number greatly increasing on his hands. Button, like Raleigh, though a professed naturalist, and a writer of admirable genius, had no very distinct notions of species. He was inclined to question whether even the ass might not be merely a degraded horse; and ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... without the practice, as I have not the articles to use for that purpose. Then a lesson from the Bible, also, comes in, and some amusement in the way of puzzles. The girls are pleased to belong to a society of King's Daughters. I have a class for instructing the women in darning, patching, button-hole making and so on. We have a Society of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in which I have the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 4, April, 1889 • Various
... time when a similar state of things prevailed in English dress and the 'trussing of his points' was a laborious daily task for every English gentleman. The ghundis or small pieces of cloth made up into a ball, which were the precursors of the button, may still be seen on the cotton coats of rustics ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... called her away) a marvellous little band of light, of the colour of heliotrope, spread over the lawn like a carpet on which I could not tire of treading to and fro with lingering feet, nostalgic and profane, while Francoise shouted: "Come on, button up your coat, look, and let's get away!" and I remarked for the first time how common her speech was, and that she had, alas, no ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... summon the porter, she paused. Only half an hour ago she had forbidden Mr. Hilliard to come near her. Now she was about to send for him. This would appear to be a triumph for the enemy. "But I'll soon show him it isn't a triumph," she thought, and pushed the electric button. ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... beware of the thyrsus, tossed about so wantonly by himself and his chorus. The pine-cone at its top does but cover a spear-point; and the thing is a weapon—the sharp spear of the hunter Zagreus—though hidden now by the fresh leaves, and that button of pine-cone (useful also to dip in [64] wine, to check the sweetness) which he has plucked down, coming through the forest, at peace for ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... comes back and throngs the place with motley company,—dominoes, harlequins, pantaloni, illustrissimi and illustrissime, and perhaps even the Doge himself, who has the right of incognito when he wears a little mask of wax at his button-hole. Or may be the grander day revisits Venice when Doria has sent word from his fleet of Genoese at Chioggia that he will listen to the Senate when he has bridled the horses of Saint Mark,—and the whole Republic of rich and poor crowds the square, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... counting in a half-audible whisper, "Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three." It was a way he had when something big was about to happen. The hand of the slender man was at the second button on the other's rough coat when Johnny reached fifty. At sixty it had come to the top button. At sixty-five his long finger-tips were doubling in for the fatal, vice-like grip. Noiselessly, Johnny laid the knife ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... quires of paper with envelopes, 1 curling iron, 2 papers of pins, 2 papers of hairpins, 1 darning ball, 2 combs, 1 bottle Calder's tooth powder, 1 bottle of vaseline, 1 bottle of shoe polish, 1 box of lip salve, 1 button hook and ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... looking beyond him in the direction of the door, "Doctor Thorpe is going. Will you give him his hat and coat?" She had pressed a button beside the mantelpiece, and in response to the call, the butler stood in the doorway. "Good day, Braden. I am sorry that Anne is unable ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... d'etre, but in the older society it was held meet that these things be. So that when she put her question, not only was she not ignored, but each one felt it a serious thing for anybody to be so late that Mrs. Graham Townley instead of button-holing some one with, 'What, now, should you say is the extent of the Pan-Islamic influence in Egypt?' should be reduced to asking, 'Who are ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... Button landlord has been moving Out of his cosy tavern on the Square, But still retains his former skill in brewing, And in his new inn keeps the same good fare. And as around the table we sat cheering Our hearts with kindly memories ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... Adam. Stick this piece of paper in your button-hole, and then we'll know you from Abel. By the way, Whipcord, I suppose you never heard my last joke, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... to the tiny tapestried lift, beyond the curve of the great stairs, and she pressed the ivory button that sent them up. At the fourth floor the car settled lightly ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... one dozen button mushrooms, one tablespoon of finely chopped parsley, two shalots, the juice of a lemon, salt and pepper. Oil some pieces of foolscap paper, lay the fish on them and sprinkle over them the mushroom, parsley, shalot, lemon juice, pepper and ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... passage onward. Electrons will travel in this way in most metals, but copper is one of the best "conductors." So we lengthen the copper wire between the zinc and the carbon until it goes as far as the front door and the bell, which are included in the circuit. When you press the button at the door, two wires are brought together, and the current of electrons rushes round the circuit; and at the bell its energy is diverted into the mechanical apparatus which rings ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... taking a small, flat, black packet from her breast, and Gedge saw that it was envelope-shaped, but home-made in oil-skin, and instead of being adhesive; there was a neat button and buttonhole. "Put that in your breast-pocket, my boy," she said, "and never part with it. Bandages, oiled silk, needles and thread, and a pair o' scissors. And mind this: plug a bullet-hole directly; and whatever you do, clean water, and lots ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn |
