"Combing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in shore that the danger is worst; for the tide, here running like a mill race, makes a long belt of broken water—a Roost we call it—at the tail of the land. I have often been out there in a dead calm at the slack of the tide; and a strange place it is, with the sea swirling and combing up and boiling like the cauldrons of a linn, and now and again a little dancing mutter of sound as though the Roost were talking to itself. But when the tide begins to run again, and above all in ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... comed back. Man was to the Red Bull, I count. Female a-washing and a-combing of herself ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... Harry's daughter. Now hand your partners all! The Queen was in her chamber, a-combing of her hair. There came Queen Mary's spirit and It stood behind her chair. Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass, But I will stand behind you till you face the looking-glass. The cruel ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... The dizzy whirl of the current and the jolting motion of the waves so terrified him that he dropped his paddle and clutched the combing with both hands. Then, as the bushes directly ahead caught his eye, he threw up his arms ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... humming-bird I have seen: she alighted, and rested frequently and for long periods. Droll enough it looked to see such an atom, such a mere pinch of feathers, conduct herself after the fashion of a big bird; to see her wipe that needle-like beak, and dress those infinitesimal feathers, combing out her head plumage with her minute black claws, running the same useful appendages through her long, gauzy-looking wings, and carefully removing the yellow pollen of the honeysuckle blooms which stuck to her face and throat. ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... extreme civilization. And yet he showed the hereditary trait, for all the genius which Mrs. White consecrated to the glorious work of making her house too neat to be habitable, her son Walter gave to tying exquisite knots in his colored cravats and combing his oiled locks so as to look like a dandy barber. And she had no other children. The kind Providence that watches over the destiny of children takes care that very few of them are lodged in ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... her long, and Esther soon was busy with her toilet, combing out and looping-back her curls, and bringing a plain dress of rich bombazine, with fresh bands of white crape, as had been worn the previous day. Katy's toilet was complete at last, and as Esther closed the door behind her, Katy, with a trembling hand, took from the drawer, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... His racking, scooping, combing insight, into the recesses of man's natural appetites will never be surpassed. How under the glance of his Norman anger, all manner of pretty subterfuges fade away; and "the real thing" stands out, as Nature and the Earth know it—"stark, bleak, terrible and lovely." His subjects ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... place to certainty and open accusation, while Hasbrook, combing at his beard, was muttering in a like tone. "You'll take him off to yourself, will you? Where you can do as you damned ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... was steaming down the valley. It was far ahead, but Arnaux overtook and passed it, as the flying wild Duck passes the swimming Muskrat. High in the valleys he went, low over the hills of Chenango, where the pines were combing ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... her bureau. "Put it on the table, please," she said, without turning; and while Ingram hovered, Mrs. Benson heaving like the sea, gathered into a combing wave and, breaking, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... is," said Grushenka, taking Mitya up to him. "I was combing his hair just now; his hair's like flax, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a great politician; and having, like her mother, a most beautiful head of hair, used, while combing it at her toilet, to receive men whose votes or ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the wave-beaten shore were combing out with combs the horses' hair, weeping, for there had come a messenger saying, that Hippolytus no longer trod on this land, having from thee received the sentence of wretched banishment. But he came bringing to us on the shore ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... no interference with the prisoners, either male or female, for how could they escape in the centre of that huge plain? The Emir came towards them once, and stood combing out his blue-black beard with his fingers, and looking thoughtfully at them out of his dark, sinister eyes. Miss Adams saw with a shudder that it was always upon Sadie that his gaze was fixed. Then, seeing their distress, he gave an order, and a negro brought a water-skin, from which he gave each ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... of the rock-bound Cantabrian coast, a poor fisherman, named Pedro, discovered a lovely maiden, magnificently dressed, combing her long jet-black hair with a ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... in the afternoon, and I don't think I was ever so stiff and uncomfortable and hungry in my life. I made my way over to the hatch and found I could reach the combing with my hands, so I pulled myself up, after a mighty hard tussle. Try it some time with ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... than I, then prevent me from telling thee unpalatable truths. Thou art very vain of thy beard, thou art combing and dressing it ten times a day, and thou would'st not shave half of it to get me out of this body. Cut off thy beard, and I promise to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... some fresh finds here, so I'm combing over the tombs.... But you—it's none of my business, Billy, but what in hell are you doing racing over Egypt with a ten-year ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... dressed up so that he really could not recognise his own words. Firth was afterwards called to London to give evidence, and he saved enough money out of his allowance to enable him to abandon hand wool-combing, and set up as a hawker of tea and coffee. He never looked behind him after that, and, being a great "spouter," he got onto the Keighley Local Board. He was one of the opponents of the Baths and Washhouses Scheme, and, in fact, he liked opposition in many ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... all over—you can begin now!" she said deeply, and in order to save herself from a sickening struggle, she bent her soul, as one bends one's body to dive under a combing breaker, and dipped under the ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... know nothing about flowers. By a bit of luck, James, my gardener, whom I pay half-a-crown a week for combing the beds, knows nothing about them either; so my ignorance remains undiscovered. But in other people's gardens I have to make something of an effort to keep up appearances. Without flattering myself I may say that I have acquired a certain manner; ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... very fond of cats was she, and whiskey, too, 'tis said, She didn't feed 'em very much, but she combed 'em well instead: As may be guessed, these large tom-cats did not get very sleek Upon a combing once a day and a ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... she made room for me at the table, and spread out an old newspaper for me to write on. A little later, when she had finished her washing, she came over to her usual place in the chimney corner, not far from where I was sitting, sat down on the floor, and took out her hairpins and began combing her hair. As I finished each letter I had to say who it was to, and where the people lived; and then I had to tell her if they were married or single, how many children they had, and make a guess at how many pounds they spent in the year, and ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... the long, wooden rake the man began "combing," as Vi called it, the snow along the hill. There was no need to look in the middle, where the sleds slid down, for there the snow was packed hard, and anything, even smaller than a good-sized Japanese doll, could be seen easily. But Dick raked on ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... here and there a woman's work-stand, some of them curiously inlaid with pearl and silver. The walls were hung with a great number of pictures of all kinds of vessels—generally, however, of the merchant description—under full sail, with vivid light-houses in the distance, and combing breakers under the lee; and all portraying gallant crews and buoyant freights, which probably had never reached their destinations. Among this gallery of marine display was a broad framing of the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... be. I took that note to the police, and they are on the case. They are combing the city right now for Hobart, and if they get him, this bubble of yours is likely ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... looking directly at her. Then Jinnie slowly dropped one white lid over a bright, gleeful blue eye in a wicked little wink. This was more than Peggy could endure. She had kissed the little boy several times during the process of washing the tear-stained face and combing the tangled hair, but that any one should know it! Just then, Peggy secretly said to herself, "If uther one of them kids get any more kisses from me, it'll be when water runs uphill. I 'spose now I'll never hear ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... lamb!" grunted John, who was combing his hair at the wash-basin in the corner. "I thought it was ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... didn't, again: but I'm combing out your brains for you, if you'll only stand quiet and not interrupt. Keep your mind fixed on Whitmore. Whitmore's your man. If Hodgson ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that will find favor with all women who have long hair and dread the long, tedious process of drying, and the misery and tangles that are a part of the first combing after ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 55, November 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... The next day every one could contemplate the European hero at their ease. Still some of the most obstinate spectators would not leave the deck of the Atlanta; they passed the night on board. Amongst others, J.T. Maston had screwed his steel hook into the combing of the poop, and it would have taken the capstan to get it ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... course have altered, Surely the port she'll win; Never my faith in my ship has faltered, I know she is coming in. For through the restless ways of her roaming, Through the mad rush of the wild waves foaming, Through the white crest of the billows combing, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... must move on. At any moment now might come a hunting party, combing the gorge for the smaller animals ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... those who govern here. M. de Villeroy has found himself depicted often, and now under pretext of a public negotiation he has found an opportunity of revenging himself. . . . Besides this cause which Villeroy has found for combing my head, Russy has given notice here that I have kept my masters in the hopes of being honourably exempted from the claims of this government. The long letter which I wrote to M. de Barneveld justifies ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... December 1, 1885, Lorenzo and Seth Wright were killed by Indians who had been combing the valley for horses. The Wrights had started, with members of a posse, from Layton, and were joined at Solomonville by Sheriff Stevens and two other men, after there had been recovered a number of the stolen horses, for the pursuers rode harder and faster than the fleeing ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... a handful of Spartans and other Greeks were posted in the pass, and sent a horseman to tell him what was to be seen. The horseman rode near the pass, and saw there the wall and outside it the small Spartan force, some of whom were engaged in gymnastic exercises, while others were combing their long hair. ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Galland, "I could help you a little if you would let me comb your hair. You are combing in a most unsystematic way, I must say. Systematic, gentle combing is very ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... in huge droves. In one building there are alone four hundred native schoolgirls, rows upon rows of them that never seem to come to an end, sitting on the ground in their sober blue coats and trousers, peacefully combing each other's hair, or working on sandbags with the imperturbability of the Easterner who is placid under death. Farther on, again, you come on families, sometimes three generations huddling together on a six-foot straw mat. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... roseate Morn had with her hairs In sundry sorts the Indian clime adorned; And now her eyes apparreled in tears, The loss of lovely Memnon long had mourned, When as she spied the nymph whom I admire, Combing her locks, of which the yellow gold Made blush the beauties of her curled wire, Which heaven itself with wonder might behold; Then red with shame, her reverend locks she rent, And weeping hid the beauty of her face, The flower of ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... nearest him, combing his beard with ostentation, burst into a laugh. "Did you hear that, fellows? Steve's grumbling because he wasn't let to do it all! Poor Steve! poor Hotspur! poor Pistol!" He bent, chuckling, over the pool that served him for mirror. "You stop ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... and found a man at the companion obstructing our way. He was standing on the ladder with his back to us, peering over the combing of the hatchway. He was, I could see, a misshapen man, short, broad, and clumsy, with a crooked back, a hairy neck, and a head sunk between his shoulders. He was dressed in dark-blue serge, and had peculiarly thick, coarse, black hair. I heard the unseen ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... clean; but if it be dirty, I wash it in the next piss pot that I can find: the balls I use to wash such sluts withal is a sow's pancake or a pilgrim's salve. Those that I find with their heads nitty and scabby, for want of combing, I am their barbers, and cut their hair as close as an ape's tail; or else clap so much pitch on it, that they must cut it off themselves to their great shame. Slovens also that neglect their masters' business, they do not escape. Some I find that spoil their masters' horses for want of ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... were like wine, Her eyes in her wee face Like water-sparks shine, Her niminy fingers Her sleep tresses preen, The which in the combing She peeps ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... to the north of the castle, which still bear as names the King's and the Queen's Crag, Guinevere chanced to let fall a remark which angered Arthur; whereupon he, snatching up a rock that lay ready to his hand, hurled it at his royal consort. Now, Guinevere at the moment was combing her long, fair locks; but she saw the stone come hurtling through the air, and, with remarkable presence of mind and dexterity, with her comb she fended off the missile, so that it fell between them, doing no harm. And if anyone ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... nets at their life's occupation as fishermen the sturdy shoresmen of Brittany's coast gave of their time and their smacks to the perilous task of combing adjacent water ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... and bundles. A tailor approaches The vodka tent also; 320 A shrivelled old fellow. His irons and his scissors He holds in his hands, Like a leaf he is shaking. The pope has arisen From sleep, full of prayers. He is combing his hair; Like a girl he is holding His long shining plait. Down the Volga comes floating 330 Some wood-laden rafts, And three ponderous barges Are anchored beneath The right bank of the river. The barge-tower yesterday Evening had dragged them With songs ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... companions are old, or gouty, or mad; invariably disagreeable, or why have they to advertise for a friend? I think I see you shut up with a trying old lady, combing the lap-dog's hair, and winding wool! You wouldn't be a very agreeable companion, Ruthans dear. Better make the best of things, ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... questions. I'll be in the clinical laboratory where the only cases present are those rare cases of Mekstrom's. The other doctors, espers every one of them, and the scholars over them, will dig the man's body right down to the last cell, looking and combing—you know some of the better espers can actually dig into the constituency of a cell?—but I'll be the doctor who can collect all their information, correlate it, and maybe ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... of rickety steps the interviewer climbed. She knocked three times. When she was bade to enter she opened the door to find an old woman sitting near a wood stove combing her long, white hair. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... symmetry of a peeled pear." Lord Devonport, occupied in deciding on the exact architecture and decoration of the Bath bun (official sealed pattern), would make a companion picture. For the rest the House has been occupied with the mysteries of combing and re-combing. The best War saying of the month was that of Mr. Swift MacNeill, in reference to proposed peace overtures, that it would be time enough to talk about peace when the Germans ceased to blow ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... asked myself. When a conscientious housewife has returned to her home after an absence of seven weeks, one does not expect her to start racing off again the day after her arrival. One feels that she ought to be sticking round, ministering to her husband, conferring with the cook, feeding the cat, combing and brushing the Pomeranian—in a word, staying put. I was more than a little bleary-eyed, but I endeavoured, as far as the fact that my eyelids were more or less glued together would permit, to give her an austere and ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... the cattleman nothing could change him from. His gray flannel shirt was agape over his sunburned chest. His leather chapps creaked as he moved, his vicious spurs clanked. Then, too, the curling iron-gray hair of his bared head was innocent of all extra combing. With Nan it was different. She had striven to rid herself of every sign of the prairie to which she belonged. She was dressed with consummate care. Every jealous feeling of the woman in her had cried out for her rights, and those rights were that her successful rival should be unable ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... stopped by two sailors, who would have robbed and stripped the owners. "Let me get down," she exclaimed simply, and so saying she got down, and fought with them both until they turned round and ran away. On another occasion, while combing out her long hair beneath a hedge, she was insulted by a jockey. Starting up, though her hair was unbound, she promptly gave him what he characterised as "a most confounded whopping," and "the only drubbing I ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... off coat and hat, and with the aid of the well-stocked dressing-bag went through such a process of dusting, brushing, and combing-out as she had not known for weeks past. Finally the old Rhoda seemed to smile upon her in response, in her own eyes at least, but when Erley Chase was reached some hours later Mrs Chester was far from satisfied with her darling's appearance. Her anxious ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... maid-servant came running in at the door quite out of breath, saying that a horseman was coming over the Master's Mount, with a tall plume waving on his hat; and that she believed it was the young lord. When my child, who sat upon the bench combing her hair, heard this, she gave a shriek of joy, which would have moved a stone under the earth, and straightway ran out of the room to look over the paling. She presently came running in again, fell upon my neck, and cried without ceasing, "The young lord! the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... habit, Felicite entered Virginia's room and gazed at the walls. She missed combing her hair, lacing her shoes, tucking her in her bed, and the bright face and little hand when they used to go out for a walk. In order to occupy herself she tried to make lace. But her clumsy fingers broke the threads; she had ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... is something of moment, Ensign. I shall surely be glad to hear all about that. But we must be brisk. Do you know that your Captain Trevor is combing the sea and the coast with wireless ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... Howe and standing by a boulder there be seen of a summer's eve a maiden there seated a-combing out her jet black tresses so as to hide her bare breast and shoulders, she looking to be much shamed ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... you spoke a word I'd tickle you to death; that's what I'd do. I know how to fix you off. And if you did call her I'd just whap out of the window and run off with my ladder, and then you'd get a fine combing for disturbing the house. What's in ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... help you to a bonny face, my lad,' I continued, 'if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking—tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... the country being very woody, it is not uncommon to find them with their head-dress entangled in the trees. Whenever they comb their hair, they pass an hour by the fire in melting the wax; but this combing is only performed once or twice ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... waters. The open sea closed in on them. Before they could get in sail and make secure the sheets ripped with a scream, braces parted and the topmasts snapped off. The Nancy went pitching forward into the yawning deeps with drunken plunges from which it seemed she would never emerge. Great combing seas toppled down and pounded the decks, while the sailors clung to stays or whatever would ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... her size. "Not much chance," thought I, "of this old barkie dragging her anchors home and driving ashore in anything short of a hurricane!" She carried a full poop, the break of which came so far forward that there was scarcely room to pass comfortably between the foot of the poop ladders and the combing of the after hatch. The poop cabin was a very spacious affair, extending, for the greater part of its length, to the full width of the ship, and it was most comfortably fitted up, although, as might ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... field was not large, but Bell took the plane to its edge. He faced it about, and bent below the cockpit combing to avoid the slip stream and look at his maps again, brought from the big amphibian. Something caught his eye. Another ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... likewise between the guns, chiefly those abreast of the fore-hatchway, there have been groups assembled to scrape and polish themselves ever since breakfast-time, and even before it. Some are washing themselves; others cutting, and combing, and trimming their hair; for, now-a-days, there are none of those huge long tails, or club ties, which descended along the back of the sailors who fought with Benbow and Rodney. The dandyism of Jack has now taken another turn, and the knowing ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... of him: he is Omphale's slave, dressed up in an absurd costume, his lion- skin and club transferred to her, as though she were the true Heracles, while he, in saffron robe and purple jacket, is combing wool and wincing under Omphale's slipper. A degrading spectacle it is—the dress loose and flapping open, and all that was man in ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... end of the car. That could be managed only through the side doors, which were too close to Scott to be available, and the scout, now fairly well enlightened and prepared, merely awaited developments. He wanted to see the man come to his breakfast, and the man in the wash-room, combing his hair with vigor and peering anxiously through his own scrap of a mirror at Bob Scott, wanted to see the scout finish his coffee and leave the car. Scott, however, pounding ostentatiously on ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... the refusal to accept Negro volunteers for the army, except in the four black regiments already established. While the nation was combing the country for volunteers for the regular army, it would not let the American Negro furnish even his proportionate quota of regular soldiers. This led to some ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... druggets, or both together, have L2000 worth of goods in hand left unsold, and has trusted out to drapers, and mercers, and merchants, to the value of L4000 more; and look into his workhouse at home, namely, his wool-lofts, his combing-shop, his yarn-chamber, and the like, and there you will find it—in wool unspun, and in yarn spun, and in wool at the spinners', and in yarn at and in the looms at the weavers'; in rape-oil, gallipoli oil, and perhaps soap, &c, in his warehouses, and in cloths at the fulling-mill, and in his rowing-shops, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... so as to lay the schooner to with her head up to the sea. The billows were increasing in volume so fearfully that it was no longer prudent to permit the vessel to roll in the trough of the sea, where she was in danger of being overwhelmed by the combing waves. ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... I bid you!" said Dorothy, and glided past her to her dimity dressing-table, and began combing out ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... start the accumulated grime and blackness of five weeks, it was held of little consequence. We soaped down and scrubbed one another with towels and pieces of canvas, stripping to it; and then, getting into the head, threw buckets of water upon each other. After this came shaving, and combing, and brushing; and when, having spent the first part of the day in this way, we sat down on the forecastle, in the afternoon, with clean duck trousers and shirts on, washed, shaved, and combed, and looking a dozen shades lighter for it, reading, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... that the boy would be overtaken before the pinto gave out; it was even suggested that this waiting for Andrew Lanning to commit a crime was perilously like forcing him to become a criminal. To all of this the deputy listened sadly, combing his mustaches. The hunger for the manhunt is like the hunger for food, and Bill Dozier had been starved ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... the act of combing his beard, which he had allowed to grow, as well as his hair, in order to reproach Mazarin with his wretched appearance and condition. But having some days previously seen from the top of the donjon ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in Lizzie's room was combing out her long curls, and trying the effect of wearing them entirely behind her ears. Suddenly there was the sound of sleigh bells, which came nearer, until they stopped before the door. Lucy flew to the window, and in tones of intense anger and surprise, exclaimed, "Now, heaven defend us! here ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... and rose reluctantly. It seemed as if she had just gone to sleep. She was still combing her hair before the tiny mirror that hung on the tent pole swinging in the wind when the breakfast bugle blew. Migwan waited for her dutifully and escorted her to the "Mess Tent," where the other girls were already gathered around ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... I said, ... in an off-hand way; but really, next to nothing. I am a barber, your honor, and Heaven be praised! I have custom enough to keep me busy from morning till night. There are three of us in the shop, and what with shaving and combing and hair-cutting, not one of the three has the time to stop and scratch his head, and I least of all. Many of my customers are so kind as to prefer my services to those of my two young men; perhaps because I amuse them with my little jokes. And, what with lathering and shaving ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... chair now lifted himself higher, while Reifsnyder began an elaborate ceremony of anointing and combing his hair. Now free to join comfortably in the talk, the man said: "They say he is the most terrible thing in the world. Young Johnnie Bernard—that drives the grocery wagon—saw him up at Alek Williams's shanty, and he says he couldn't eat ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... garlands made of herbs, flowers, and plants consecrated to certain gods and goddesses, which possessed peculiar virtues suitable for the occasion. Cakes were bestowed on the bride on her marriage day; and there was a custom among the Greeks and Romans of combing her hair with a spear which had belonged to a man that lost his life in a fight, or with a weapon that had been used in killing a man. If this was done, she was sure to have brave sons. As the bride rose to leave her ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... said the governor to the prince; 'you brought her to this when you burnt the crocodile's skin. Now try if, by combing, you can soothe ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... one, I guess," cried the bold Yankee, combing out his matted locks hastily with his fingers, and sitting up in what he conceived to be a proper position. "Here you are, sir. I'm your man; fix me off slick. Only think! Big Waller in a ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... hit there!—Rosa, I'm proud of you. This odious Yankee needs combing down; he ran over us so long at college that he is conceited in his own impudence," and Vincent ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... talk sociably; while the former would not smile at any face, but would stare at it with the large glaring eyes that penetrated to the innermost soul. The latter would keep himself scrupulously clean, shaving, combing, brushing, polishing, oiling, perfuming, while the former would be entirely indifferent to his apparel, being always clad in a faded yellow robe. The latter would compose his sermon with a great care, making ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... gaslights flared brightly. The costumer was preparing gaudy costumes, and the make-up man sat whistling and combing a ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... every one, after he had anointed and washed himself, the servants introduced into a particular room, purposely fitted and prepared for the men; they were guided thither through a porch, in which Anacharsis sat, and there was a certain young lady with him combing his hair. This lady stepping forward to welcome Thales, he kissed her most courteously, and smiling said: Madam, make our host fair and pleasant, so that, being (as he is) the mildest man in the world, he may not be fearful and terrible for us to look on. When I was curious to inquire ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the plunge, the combing of the hair, All this I view,—a sight beyond compare Since Daphne died in all the varied charms Of her chaste body,—rounded regal arms, And shape supreme, too fair for human gaze, But not too fair to win the mirror's praise That throbs to see thee ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... off by the bleak wind, As pale as formal candles lit by day; Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind; The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play, Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee, 180 White crests as of some just enchanted sea, Checked in their maddest leap ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... us and came up to pay his respects; said they wouldn't be back at the chateau until about five; perhaps the ladies would come to the stable-yard and see the pansage. It was quite interesting; all the horses ranged in a semi-circle, men scrubbing and combing hard, the sous-officiers superintending, the officers standing about smoking and seeing that everything was being packed and ready for an early start the next morning. I was astonished to see how small the horses were. ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... bark, as much as saying, "Wake up, lazy fellow, and have a frolic with me," and then bounced up beside him for a game. And how he frisked when Joe took him out! The only thing he did not enjoy was his weekly scrubbing, and the combing with an old coarse toilet comb which followed. But he bore it patiently for Joe's sake. Vacation came to an end, and school began. This was as sore a trial to Blinky as to Joe, for of course he could not ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Monday morning. The agony of suspense was too keen, and he lay with closed eyes, trying to drowse his consciousness, and exchanging it in his fitful snatches of sleep for oppressive dreams, in one of which Eileen figured as a Lorelei, combing her locks on a rock as she sang ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... said Anko. "I'd been away to foreign parts, seeing how the earth people were getting along. I found the Germans dancing the german and the Dutch making dutch cheese and the Belgians combing their belgian hares and the Turks eating turkey and the Sardinians sardonically pickling sardines. Then I called on the ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... beheld the pretty Countess sitting on the ground at Genevieve's knee, while the peasant girl was wholly absorbed in combing out Stephanie's long, black hair with a huge comb. The Countess submitted herself to this, uttering low smothered cries that expressed her enjoyment of the sensation of physical comfort. A shudder ran through M. ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... had been delivered, and the bearer of it dismissed with a gratuity, the relieved populace returned to the contiguities of shade from which curiosity had drawn it—the women to their baking in the mud ovens under the orange-trees, or to the interminable combing of their long, straight hair; the men to their cigarettes and gossip in ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... quite see their faces. Yet his thoughts continued their search, groping in the darkness; he felt sure he ought to be sharing his adventures with these other little persons, whoever they were; they ought to have been sitting beside him at that very moment, eating mushrooms, combing their wings, comparing the length of their feathers, and snuggling with him ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... game. Naturally, it worried Petey almost to death to see the dear old Coll. disintegrating under the Scroggs Inquisition, and he used to sit around the frat house with his head on his hands for hours, smoking his pipe, which had the largest bowl in school, and combing his convolutions for a plan. Then, along in March, he electrified the whole school by taking Martha Scroggs ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... to take other food, and as it grew up accustomed to their hands, it was very tame and docile, and became a great favorite with all the family. Sylvia loved and played with it continually. She kept it always in trim by washing it in a fountain, and combing and smoothing its hair, and she amused herself by adorning it with wreaths, and garlands, and such other decorations as ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Weymouth by this time. He could read plainly the advertisement posters outside the cinema theatre facing the esplanade: "Wilkins and the Mermaid. Comic Drama." There was a picture of the lady combing her hair; also of Wilkins, a stoutish ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... any moment a full realization may come to us of the significance of the fact that while the United States is putting only three percent of its workers into the fighting forces, Great Britain has put twenty-five percent, and is now combing its industrial army over to find an additional five hundred thousand men to throw on the French front. It is probable that it will be felt by this country in the near future that such a contrast of fulfillment of obligation cannot continue without serious reflection on our national honor. ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... directions: Wet the fur with a hair-brush, brushing up the wrong way of the fur. Leave it to dry in the air for about half an hour, and then give it a good beating on the right side with a rattan. After beating it, comb it with a coarse comb, combing up the right ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... in the pass, a scout sent by Xerxes rode up to see how strong the enemy were, and how they were employing their time. In front of and on the walls were a number of the Greeks engaging in games and combing out their long hair. Surprised to see so few men, and to see those few busying themselves in such an apparently unnecessary way, the scout rode back and made his report to the Persian king. Now there was in the camp of Xerxes one Demaratus, who had formerly been King of Sparta, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... with the eye of a general, made a silent approach through a deep and woody vale, till he could distinctly perceive the indolent security of the Germans. Some were bathing their huge limbs in the river; others were combing their long and flaxen hair; others again were swallowing large draughts of rich and delicious wine. On a sudden they heard the sound of the Roman trumpet; they saw the enemy in their camp. Astonishment ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... got blood in their eyes now. The coach has been combing them down, and they're just bound to carry things before them, or die trying. It's going to be ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... eyes at once. All round me were little ripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling sound, and slightly phosphorescent. The Hispaniola herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the yard past Olenin's very window, and came up to the window of the cornet's hut. It was already quite dark. Maryanka, wearing only her smock, was combing her hair ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... spoke, locking the door again, and Mollie got up with a heavy sigh. She had taken off only her outer garments before lying down; and after washing, and combing out her bright silken hair, she resumed the glittering, bride-like finery of the evening before. Poor Mollie looked at the silver-shining silk, the cobweb lace, the gleaming, milky pearls, with a very ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... Whitey nor Monty knew that that roar came from a mother bear, and that back of the bear was a small cub, with a round, funny little stomach, industriously combing the bushes for berries, and regarding life as one round of pleasure. There was no need for them to know that. Whitey had had experiences with bears, as you may remember. If wireless had been invented, he might possibly have been willing to use it ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... dainty dressing gown, of white embroidered flannel, the combing of the bright tresses is a lengthy affair, for thought is busy; "Yes, this intense sympathy, this earnest tenderness, this languor and sweet sense of a new joy in living, all mean that I love him; and, as 'tis so, I am not at one with the ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... echo of the command and the promise, a dull concussion shuddered through Nissr. The drone of the helicopters sank to a sullen murmur; and down below, waves began combing angrily over ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... on her scaled and fish-tailed costume. When her turn came, a spot-light on the clubhouse was to illuminate the float and reveal her, combing her golden hair with a golden comb and singing away like the ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... evening of the third day after his latest interview with Doctor Jones, Keith threw down his paper with a cry of triumph. He had been scanning the columns of every issue with minute care, combing even the fine print for the auctioneer's advertisements. Here was what he wanted: top of column, third page, where every one would be sure to see it. The commissioners issued a signed statement, calling public attention to the details of their appointment, and warning ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... as she asked herself the question, the goodly steamer, happening to dip her lowest courtesy to a rude in-coming wave of giant proportions, shipped its combing crest, that poured through the latticed guard-rail and swirled across the deck, with a force, that sent poor Hope a drenched, doubled-up little heap of helplessness, pounding right into the ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... little girls choose Susie, the large and middle-sized girls can pull their hairs when they are combing them," was the appalling threat from Hannah Straight Tree. "If they tell the teachers we can say their hairs were snarly and we could not ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... in a manner equally grand, and at one end of it was a glorious couch of velvet, silk and gold, and there sate Burd Ellen, combing her golden hair with a silver comb. And when she saw Childe Rowland she stood up ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... and dashed on the rocks and on the reef in beautiful breakers, sending up now and then a tall jet of foam or a shower of spray. The hazy mainland shore line was very indistinct under the bright sky and lowering sun; while every bit of west-looking rock, and every sail, and every combing billow was touched with warm hues or gilded with a sharp reflection. The air was like the air nowhere but at the Isles of Shoals; with the sea's salt strength and freshness, and at times a waft of perfumes from the land side. Lois ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... fine dresses and jewels the while she stitched tiny garments for her newest child who had come to her with no clothing at all, or fashioned a marvelous hat for another whose features were but a smudge of paint and whose hair had been glued on so many times that it was far past combing and a hat was a necessity to hide the tangled mat. And sometimes she was a princess shut up in a castle tower and a noble prince, who wore golden armor and rode a great war horse, would come to woo her and ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... a dark gleam. He looked at Pavel, combing down his beard with his fingers. His air was at ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... swiftly, deftly, combing a refractory curl into fluffiness, perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or shaking a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have a better pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frowning prodigiously, and ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... of invitation, I drew up a stool, and seating myself opposite the small unbending person, began in a conversational murmur: "M—m, I guess those are tingly-tanglies up there in that curl Lottie's combing; did you ever hear about the tingly-tanglies? They live in little girls' hair, and they aren't any bigger than that, and when anybody tries to comb the hair they curl both weeny legs round, so, and hold on tight with both weeny hands, so, and won't let ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... finger, and the first boatswain's-mate advanced, combing out the nine tails of his "cat" with his fingers, and then, sweeping them round his neck, brought them with the whole force of his body upon the mark. Again, and again, and again; at every blow, higher and higher and higher rose ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... clergyman, such as Dr. Chauncey, wearing a white wig, which the barber took from his head and placed upon a wig-block. Half an hour, perhaps, was spent in combing and powdering this reverend appendage to a clerical skull. There, too, were officers of the Continental army, who required their hair to be pomatumed and plastered, so as to give them a bold and martial aspect. There, once in a while, was seen the thin, care-worn, ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eighty times the amount an average dope fiend uses, enough to kill forty men, fifteen years at it too,—this is the record of Dopy Phil Harris, the human dope marvel found to-day by the California Board of Pharmacy in its combing of the San Francisco underworld. If poison were taken away from Harris for forty-eight hours, he would ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... small-featured and smooth-shaved, and I don' know as, to come in sudden, you would have thought he was a man, except his hair stood up short and straight all on the top of his head, as men-folks had a fashion o' combing their hair then, and I must say he did make a dreadful ordinary-looking woman. The neighbors got used to his ways, and, land! I never thought nothing of it after the ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... You ill-looking, lousy, beard-combing, head-shaving rascal! Did you ever know any body for to have a beard upon ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... wurth twenty pun!"—said one of the rustics to Mary, on one occasion when she was sitting in her little garden, carefully brushing and combing the silky coat of the little "toy"—"Th'owd man thee's been a' nussin' ought to give 'im to thee ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... point the crafty eyes of Crichton the Chancellor were turned full upon the speaker. His hand tugged nervously at his thin reddish beard as if it had been combing the long goat's tuft which grew ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... the faded curtains wavered slowly in the breeze like long swaying strips of seaweed. Blanche, swathed in a pale wrapper and sitting on the bed whose whiteness was dimmed by the greenish dusk, was suggestive of a stage mermaid combing her locks upon a ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... carded or combed by machinery into fibres or threads: formerly this was always performed by the hand, by means of an instrument, called a comb, with several rows of pointed teeth; this, though not much used now, is still occasionally employed, except in large factories. This combing is repeated two or three times, till it is sufficiently smooth and even for spinning. Spinning or converting wool, or cotton, silk, &c. into thread, was anciently performed by the distaff and spindle: these we find mentioned in sacred history, and they have been ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... a people that are ill used, to show that they are not totally forgotten. These others do the same, who insist upon stoutly defending the forms of speaking, dances and games to a people totally abandoned to all sorts of execrable vices—it is for the Spartans only to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they are just upon the point of running headlong into some ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... friends, and they let him. And the nasty wicked people took him away, and he was never seen in that country any more. And that's enough to-day, I think. Let us sing 'Lord Lovel he stood at his castle-gate, a combing his ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... rebuilt they were now guarding; but he had a clear view of those on the outside, whose arms were piled in front of the wall. At this time the Lacedaemonians happened to be posted outside; and some of the men he saw performing gymnastic exercises, and others combing their hair. On beholding this he was astonished, and ascertained their number, and having informed himself of everything accurately, he rode back at his leisure, for no one pursued him and he met with general contempt. On his return he gave an account to Xerxes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various |
