"Dig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out a penny, all that he had, on a coarse bit of line, such as fishermen use; and, lastly, he came to me for some large pins: one of which he bent like a hook; explaining to me that he was going to dig for worms to put upon it, that he might fish. I shook my head, saying, "No." Jack nodded his head, and said "Yes." I said "bad;" Jack said "good;" and then I took up his little red hand, and pretended I was going to run the ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... knelt there and took my delight of it and a rare, delicate good odour it was. For several days afterward I would not dig out the patch, for I said to myself, "What a cheerful claim it makes these early days, when most of the earth is still cold and dead, for a ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... to myself, she's coming it too peeowerful strong altogether. The sooner I dig out the better for my wholesomes. However, let her went, she is wrathy. 'I came ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... they had not looked at them long before they were convinced that they were their old neighbours. And so they really were. The painter who had drawn the rose-bush near the ruined house, had afterwards obtained permission to dig it up, and had given it to the architect, for finer roses had never been seen. The architect had planted it upon Thorwaldsen's grave, where it bloomed as an emblem of 'the beautiful' and yielded fragrant red rose-leaves to be carried as mementoes to ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... that we were studying we were drilled just as though we were actually at war. We were compelled to dig in, to find the range on certain objects and to direct imaginary artillery fire upon them. We had to find the range of airplanes that passed over us, just as though they were enemy planes. This drilling ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... dandy rice and runny eggs, and sits on the neck of every bottle in New York while I dig. Couldn't do without her. Say, tell her you are just giving me five ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... had made sufficient progress to make it possible for Dr. Daumer to teach him other things besides the use of his senses: he was encouraged to write letters and essays, to use his hands in every way, to draw, to make paper-models, to dig in the garden, where he had a little plot of ground with his name in mustard and cress; in fact, to use his lately acquired knowledge. The great difficulty was to persuade him to eat anything but bread and water, but by slow degrees he ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... good works. The most meritorious of all good works is to make an idol; the next to build a pagoda. It confers high merit, also, to build a zayat, to transcribe the sacred books, to erect any useful public edifice, to dig public wells, or to plant shade or fruit-trees by the wayside. If they give alms, or treat animals kindly, or repeat prayers, or do any other good deed, they do it entirely with this mercenary view of obtaining merit. This "merit" is not so much to procure them happiness ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... wood with the brown bark on; the interior is white and mealy, rather insipid, but nutritious, and invaluable as an article of food. It is raised from the seed, root, or stem; the latter being considered preferable. Its yield is very great. In six months, it is fit to dig, and may be preserved fifteen or eighteen months in the ground, but ceases to be eatable in three or four days after being dug. Tapioca ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... middle of the aisle, and leaning all his weight on the handle of the spade, he raised it. When the first flag was raised it was not hard to raise the others near it, and he moved three or four of them out of their places. The clay that was under them was soft and easy to dig, but he had not thrown up more than three or four shovelfuls when he felt the iron touch something soft like flesh. He threw up three or four more shovelfuls from around it, and then he saw that it was another body that was buried in the ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... be—but it isn't all beef-bones and country walks by any means. I first became aware of it about the same time the Dachshund at the corner house began to declare he was an Aberdeen Terrier. From that time on I scented something wrong, though could never quite dig it out. For one thing, the parrot began to practise a new phrase about "Down with the KAI...!" and also "Veeve" the something or other. Then Mabel—who does absurd things but has to be tolerated because she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... of the early part of the tenth century; the passage is interesting—"Against pockes: very much shall one let blood and drink a bowl full of melted butter; if they [pustules] strike out, one should dig each with a thorn and then drop one-year alder drink in, then they will not be seen," this was evidently to prevent the pitting dreaded even at so early a date. Smallpox was first described in Germany in 1493, and appeared in Sweden ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... a fishing-skiff the day before to bid the sexton dig the grave; and when they came into the churchyard, the parson stood ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... strange thing to do; nor was it very easy, I should imagine, to dig out all those deep-rooted fangs from the dead dragon's jaws. But Cadmus toiled and tugged, and after pounding the monstrous head almost to pieces with a great stone, he at last collected as many teeth as might have filled a bushel or two. The next thing was to ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... burst of noises I tried the pantry window, but it was frozen shut. Nothing but a hammer would have loosened it. I began to dig at it with a wire hairpin, but I hadn't ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... did them without being asked. She was really very watchful of Ellen when it would least have been expected, and sometimes she was sweet. She never was sweet with Boyne, but she was often his friend, though this did not keep her from turning upon him at the first chance to give him a little dig, or a large one, for that matter. As for Boyne, he was a mass of helpless sweetness, though he did not know it, and sometimes took himself for an iceberg when he was merely an ice-cream of heroic mould. He was as helplessly sweet with Lottie as ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... grasshoppers was to dig a large hole, somewhat in the shape of a fly trap, with the bottom larger than the opening at the top, so that the insects could not readily get out of it. This hole was dug in the center of a meadow, which was then surrounded by ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... about, and two men were sitting by roaring with laughter. They said their dinner was all prepared in their dugout, and they had gone off to get some wood for the fire, when a shell landed and knocked their home into ruins. They were preparing to dig for their kit and so much of their dinner as would still be eatable. As they took the whole matter as a joke, I joined with them in the laugh. One day as I was going up the line, a young sapper was carried out on a sitting stretcher. He was ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... never yet penetrated: perhaps he might discover, by questioning a nature still rude and fresh, powers by which he could retain on earth its short-lived inhabitants; perhaps he might extort from a virgin soil the secret of regeneration, or dig up the fountain of the water of life and death. But he who desired to penetrate deeper into the nature of man, might have remarked other motives in his desire. Did not knightly blood boil in his veins? Did not the spirit of adventure whisper in his heart its hopes and high ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... W. Childs contracted with the city to dig a water ditch 1,600 feet long, 18 inches wide and 18 inches deep and the city allowed him a dollar per running foot. In payment for the ditch digging he took land, a large part of which was the square from Sixth street to Twelfth street, from Main to Figueroa. ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... wine of a mighty pulse. 30 —Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Draw close: that conflagration of my church —What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! 35 My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find ... Ah God, I know not, I! ... Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 40 And corded up in a tight olive-frail, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Bolvar distinguished himself in Caracas, going hither and thither among the ruins, counteracting with his words the effect of the speeches of the royalists and assisting to dig out of the debris corpses and the wounded, giving the ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... say two thousand dollars. You get masons, and carpenters, and people to dig the cellar, and you engage them to build your house. You needn't pay them until it's done, of course. Then when it's all finished, borrow two thousand dollars and give the house as security. After that you see, you have only to pay the interest on the borrowed money. When you save enough ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... you need do is dig. Over there at the edge of the wood will answer, and we shall have to place all three in one grave—we ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... upon them holding one wing up as high as possible, as if to strike with it, and shuffle along the ground toward them, scolding all the while in a harsh voice. I feared at first that they might kill him, but I soon found that he was able to take care of himself. I would turn over stones and dig into ant-hills for him, and he would lick up the ants so fast that a stream of them seemed going into his mouth unceasingly. I kept him till late in the fall, when he disappeared, probably going south, and ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... work to dig up the onions and potatoes with our pointed sticks, and to pull away at the ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... appearances," answered Vilda. "But anyhow, don't talk to the neighbors, Jabe; and if you haven't got anything special on hand to-day, I wish you'd patch the roof of the summer house and dig us a mess of beet greens. Keep the children with you, and see what you make of 'em; they're ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... You would beggar my people, in order to curry favor with the Turk. You seek to take me because I know your ways! Two months ago you knew to within a day or two when these new massacres would begin. One month, three weeks, and four days ago you ordered men to dig my grave, and swore to bury me alive in it! What shall hinder me from ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... no accident that the three-hundred-men gangs of foreign workmen who dig ditches, tunnels and tubes, construct buildings, railroads and cities work with fewer foremen and supervisors than are ordinarily required to keep much smaller forces of ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... diamanto. Diarrhoea lakso. Dice ludkuboj. Dictate dikti. Dictation diktato. Dictator diktatoro. Dictionary vortaro. Die morti. Die presilo. Diet dieto. Differ diferenci. Difference (dispute) malpaco. Difficulty malfacileco. Diffusion vastigo. Dig fosi. Digest digesti. Digit fingro, cifero. Dignify indigi. Dignitary rangulo. Dignity indeco. Dignity (rank) rango. Dilapidate ruinigi. Dilate plilargxigi. Dilatory prokrastema. Diligence diligento. Diligent diligenta. Dim dubeluma. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the rich man from his mines of gold Dig treasure which his mind can never fill, And lofty neck with precious pearls enfold, And his fat fields with many oxen till, Yet biting cares will never leave his head, Nor will his wealth ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... 71. Dig-gaja, i.e. an elephant supporting the globe. There are four such in Hindu mythology or ten according to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... hundred found their first fortune at home, or near at hand, and in meeting common everyday wants. It is a sorry day for a young man who cannot see any opportunities where he is, but thinks he can do better somewhere else. Several Brazilian shepherds organized a party to go to California to dig gold, and took along a handful of clear pebbles to play checkers with on the voyage. They discovered after arriving at Sacramento, after they had thrown most of the pebbles away, that they were all diamonds. They returned to Brazil only to find that the mines had been taken ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... they should breed a pestilence. But when they laid hold of them by the arms to drag them to the pits, the bodies proved to be so baked, as it were, by that tremendous heat, that the arms parted from the trunks, and in the end the people had to dig graves hard by each where it lay, and so ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... these words, she went straight to Prince Astrach, and told him how he must go to that field, and seek for the three oaks, dig up the worm under the biggest oak and crush it. So the Prince went forth, and rode on from morning to night, until at length he came to the three green oaks. Then he dug up the worm from the roots of the largest, and having killed it, he returned ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... seem to notice where he was or what he was doing; they were all whooping and holloing, and now they began to play war with the watermelon rinds. One of the dogs thought he smelled a ground-squirrel and began to dig for it, and in about half a minute all the dogs seemed to be fighting, and the fellows were yelling round them and sicking them on; and they were all making such a din that Pony could hardly hear himself think, as his father used to say. But he thought he saw some one come out of Bunty's ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... praises a self-denying and heroic life? Is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave of John Stuart Mill? Is it heretical to pay a just and graceful tribute to departed worth? Must the true Presbyterian violate the sanctity of the tomb, dig open the grave, and ask his God to curse the silent dust? Is Presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no excellence, of no purity of intention, of no spiritual and moral grandeur outside of its barbaric creed? Does it still retain within ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... representations of easy independence, had suffered, died, and wasted away. He would see mothers from English farms trudging along with their infants in their arms, when the child would be stricken with fever and would die; the mother would pause to dig a hole in the loose earth with her bare hands, would bury the babe therein with the same natural grave-tools, shed one tear, and again ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... last, seemed to be my work. It had enough of the charm in it on account of the hazard which accompanied us on every step, and this for the first time put me on my mettle to learn to dig out the hidden secrets, which caused it to be ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... alas! The task is useless, they are past all aid; The cold earth sepulchres their mortal frames— Still, hope's star-beacon lures the toilers on, And with stout hearts and mercy sinewed arms, They, toiling, dig, if haply they may save But one poor soul from out the piteous heap. But as they worked, their honest hearts elate With love-inspiring toil, Oh, sad to tell! Another mass, far larger than the last, Fell from the dark flood-loosened mountain side, Burying those noble men beneath the deep Dank ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... escaped. This occurred at the spot where we had halted for our night-camp, and after the tents were pitched, several of the party went "rat-hunting." The burrow of a family of these curious little animals was discovered in the bank, and an attempt was made to dig them out, but without success. The family proved ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... without including the sowing and planting. The plain was to be divided into square compartments of two hundred and fifty acres each, where the ground had to be cleared, not only of its stunted growths, but of rocks. Laborers would have to dig innumerable trenches, and stone them up so as to let no water run to waste, also to direct its flow at will. This part of the enterprise needed the active and faithful arms of conscientious workers. Chance provided them with a tract of land without natural ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... thunderbolt must have struck the beasts, and the earth swallowed them up, he poured forth a most dismal lamentation over his lot, roaring aloud until the woods echoed to the sound. When he was tired of this, he bethought him of running home to find a pick and a spade to dig his unlucky oxen out of the earth ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... on the other side of the river. Pertaub would help us, there. He is sure to know someone who will look after them for a few days. Then Ibrahim and the girl can start together, go over there and saddle them, so as to be in readiness to mount, directly we come along. We will stop at the wood and dig up the caskets. There is nothing like taking them away with us, when there is a chance, and it is not likely that we shall come back to Seringapatam again—it would be like putting our heads into a ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... other plans of no less gigantic dimensions. The port of Ostia was bad, and in reality little better than a mere roadstead, so that great ships could not come up the river. Accordingly it is said that Caesar intended to dig a canal for sea-ships, from the Tiber, above or below Rome, through the Pomptine marshes as far as Terracina. He further contemplated to cut through the Isthmus of Corinth. It is not easy to see in what manner he would have accomplished this, considering the state of hydraulic architecture ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... Moses; "here—feel behind you an' you'll find grub for yourself an' some to pass forid to massa. Mind when you slip down for go to sleep dat you don't dig your heels into massa's skull. Dere's no bulkhead to ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... They have their way scattered, their gain lies in many arts. Many things they must seek, because they forsake the one thing necessary. When they forsake the one fountain of living water, they must dig up, and hew out to themselves many broken cisterns, that can hold no water, no one to help another. This is even proclaimed by the conversation of a great part of the world. Do ye not declare this, by your eager pursuit of this world, and the things of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... about the present coal-strike, or lock-out, as it might be more accurately described, it will be admitted by many persons who do not rail at Political Economy that the miners are following a sound instinct in demanding that a decent wage shall be a fixed element in price. To dig coal out of the earth is worth a minimum of (say) thirty shillings a week, and if it will not yield that modest remuneration to the worker let it stay where it is, and let the community do without coal altogether. Morally speaking, society has no right to demand ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... was three cries, again in the dark, when a neighbouring battalion sent out a working party to dig a sap in front of our lines. I could hear their picks and shovels busy in front, and suddenly (p. 114) somebody screamed "Oh! Oh! Oh!" the first loud and piercing, the others weaker and lower. But the exclamation ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... boy, moving close to her side, and laying his head on her knee, "yes, but who'll help you when I am gone? Who'll dig the lot, and hoe, and cut the wood, and carry the water? You can't go away down to the spring in the deep snow. And who'll make the fire in ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... two children dig a hole And plant in it a cherry-stone: "We'll come to-morrow," one child said— "And then the tree will be full grown, And all ...
— Foliage • William H. Davies
... dissolve a formless shadow, now to the left to throw into blinding white relief a school of half-transparent fish which scurried with frantic wrigglings of tails from the glare, now slanting up to bathe the cold glassy face of an inverted ice-hill, now down to dig two white holes in the ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... charter, and it became a town of some importance, as he granted it extensive trading-privileges. In another charter, given by the lord of the manor in 1305, the first allusion is made to Welsh coal, for the people among other privileges are allowed to dig "pit-coal in Ballywasta." Thus began the industry that has become the mainstay of prosperity in South Wales. Warwick's Castle at Swansea has entirely disappeared, the present ruins being those of a castle afterwards built by Henry ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... they hadn't seen the color of their wages since they were children, as a body might say. The wonders which Joan had been performing before the King had been carried all around by this time, so the road was so packed with people who wanted to get a sight of her that we could hardly dig through; and as for talking together, we couldn't, all attempts at talk being drowned in the storm of shoutings and huzzas that broke out all along as we passed, and kept abreast of us like a wave ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... know? An alluvial field is where you can dig out gold with a pick and shovel and wash it out with a pannikin. You don't want any machines, and everybody digs for himself, or mates with other fellows, and if you want a man to do a job you've got to pay him as much as he could dig for ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... splendid treasures the moment he got to London. And according to the surmisers, that is what he did. Yes, although there was no one in Stratford able to teach him these things, and no library in the little village to dig them out of. His father could not read, and even the surmisers surmise that he did ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... sank deeper. "Now I will make you dig, dig, dig, to the very depths of the earth ...
— Opera Stories from Wagner • Florence Akin
... these works partly by the allusions to them in Mr. Mill's "Logic," partly by the recommendation of a distinguished theologian, and partly by the urgency of a valued friend, the late Professor Henfrey, who looked upon M. Comte's bulky volumes as a mine of wisdom, and lent them to me that I might dig and be rich. After due perusal, I found myself in a position to echo my friend's words, though I may have laid more stress on the "mine" than on the "wisdom." For I found the veins of ore few and far between, and the rock so apt to run to mud, that one incurred the risk of being ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... purpose of consultation, I sent for the same experienced eunuch, and said to him, 'I can devise no plan by which I may see the youth for a moment, and inspire my heart with patience. There remains only this method, which is to dig a mine from his house and join the same to the palace.' I had no sooner expressed my wish, than such a mine was dug in a few days, so that on the approach of evening the eunuch used to conduct the young man through that same passage, in ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... good and evil, Bring the square, the line, the level,— Rear the altar, dig the trench, Blood both stone and ditch shall drench. Cubits six, from end to end, Must the fatal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... dig me a garden and plant it with seeds, I will hoe and water it and keep down the weeds; Then perhaps some of these bright summer days, To mamma I can carry ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... thing, you're quite clever to-night! What difference does it make? They never know—they never dream! I wish I could dig." Alicia looked pensively at the olive between her finger ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... in 1846 under Eric Janson, who had been their religious leader in the Old World, where they were greatly persecuted on account of their peculiar religious views. They suffered great hardships in effecting a first settlement, some of them going off, in the interest of the community, to dig gold in California, and others taking to stock-raising and speculating. In this they were quite successful, so that jobs and speculations became the peculiar work of this community. They took various public and private contracts; among others, one to grade a large portion ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... when our mode of life is taken into consideration; but this, I imagine was owing to the good advice of the surgeon to bathe daily, which we always did. One morning, towards the end of November, one of us wishing to leave the hut, found the door tightly closed by the snow, and was obliged to dig through it. This work we had to repeat daily, or otherwise we should have been completely buried. On the 16th of November, we found that we had used all the fuel that was in the hut, and were therefore, obliged to dig out of the snow the rest of what we had gathered for ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... the house an' git a spade," Tom said finally. "It'll take one ter dig a hole big enough ter ever persuade one er these dogs ter put his nose in that den. Hit ain't more'n a mile ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... BUTTERED the bread. But it was all one with them; they ate as though at a banquet, and Blix even took off her hat and hung it upon one of the nearby bushes. Of course Condy had forgotten a corkscrew. He tried to dig out the cork of the claret bottle with his knife, until he had broken both blades and was about to give up in despair, when Blix, at the end of her patience, took the bottle from him and pushed in the cork with ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... my hoss, an' been a-fwo'ced to stan' All's day in mud an' water vor to dig, An' meaede myzelf so wetshod ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... mischievous whisper. 'Am I in disgrace with you, too, Phoebe? Miss Fennimore says I have committed an awful breach of propriety; but really I could not leave you to the beating of the pitiless storm alone. I am afraid Malta's sagacity and little paws would hardly have sufficed to dig you out of a snowdrift before life was extinct. Are you greatly displeased with me, Phoebe?' And being by this time in the bedroom, she faced about, shut the door, and looked ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... preachers, public speakers, reformers, and legislators, but always in the wrong key. There is no use in making up an ideal of any class; but if you must have one, let it be of an extinct class. It does not much harm to construct horrible plesiosaurians from the petrified scales we dig out of a coal-mine or chalk-pit; but when it comes to idealizing the sea-serpent, who winters at the Cape Verds and summers at Nahant, it is a serious matter. For the love of Agassiz, give us true ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... earthworm is the most unfortunate variety of the species. Beaks are always after him, and he is often taken up early in the morning while lying perdue in the moist meadow grass. Earthworms are a good bait for trout, but the highflyers of the gentle craft consider it infra dig to dig them. Impaled on a hook, they are as lively as if on a bender, and if thrown, in this condition, into a stream or pool, the fish are apt to mistake them for their natural Grub. When quickly drawn from the liquid element by the angler, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... for their knowledge of their own ignorance. There was with them no affectation. The mother would scold the father for being so "easy"; Josie would roundly berate the boys for carelessness; and all know that it was a hard thing to dig a living ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... act in India to build temples, dig tanks, or plant trees by the roadside. Rich people have idols in their houses for daily worship, and pay a priest who comes every morning to wake up the idols, wash and dress them, and offer them their food. In the evening he comes again, gives them their supper ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... by piecemeal brought the pile; No barks embowel'd Portland Isle; Dig, cried experience, dig away, Bring the firm quarry into day, The excavation still shall save Those ramparts which its entrails gave. "Here kings shall dwell," the builders cried; "Here England's foes shall low'r their pride; ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... are, though I never heard tell of the Kennedys raising flowers before. Sweet peas ought to be planted along a fence. We will have Mike dig a little trench just inside the front yard fence, and ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... for your old chair?" was the reply in a scornful tone, as she gave another and harder dig with her nail. "You're a little old maid—so particular with all your things— that's what mamma says you are. Now tell ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... out enough of th' shale an' dirt they slid int' th' opening, so that we can get th' horses through," Slim answered. "We ought t' have shovels, but we can use sticks t' dig with. It will take longer, but it's the best ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... split up, even sometimes into contradictory parts, and where an absolute reconciling unity is wanting, where what connection there may be is derived rather from casual outward ties than from inner necessary union, the whole system must of necessity dig its own grave, and become its own murderer. Now it was exactly at such a time of supreme crisis that I had the good or the evil fortune to be at Yverdon. All that was good and all that was bad, all that was profitable and all that was unprofitable, all that was strong ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... matted head. "We don't know," he said; "we was just put in here to dig. At first there was ten of us; but we was kep' on to give the ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... after the manner of white babies. The Indian ponies too are models of endurance. The squaws tie their purchases in blankets and hang them across the backs of their ponies, swing their pappooses to one side and perhaps a joint of fresh meat to the other, then mount on top astride, dig the pony's neck with their moccasined heels and start off at a trot. Sometimes a large party of Indians, men, women and children, camp on Skunk River and fish. In the spring they make a general hegira to a wooded section two or three days' journey to the northward for the purpose of tapping ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... he began to sink down into the ground until only the top of his head could be seen. Then that disappeared. Old Mr. Toad had gone down, and the sand had fallen right back over him. Peter just had to rub his eyes again. He had to! Then, to make sure, he began to dig away the sand where Old Mr. Toad had been sitting. In a minute he felt Old Mr. Toad, who ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... fox, who after long hunting will at last cost you the pains to dig out; it is a cheese which, by how much the richer, has the thicker, the homelier, and the coarser coat; and whereof to a judicious palate the maggots are the best; it is a sack posset, wherein the deeper you ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... which I have heard spoken of by older people, among whom it is a fixed article of faith. This deluge is supposed to have affected the whole Crati valley, submerging towns and villages. In proof, they say that if you dig near Tarsia below the present river-level, you will pass through beds of silt and ooze to traces of old walls and cultivated land. Tarsia used to lie by the river-side, and was a flourishing place, according to the descriptions of Leandro Alberti and other early ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... a party to dig potatoes, while Lieutenant Baker and myself, with a number of men, slashed down with sabres the extensive grove of plantain trees, so as to have a perfectly ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... a little jamboree. I'm breaking out some alkite and meat; make a big fire outside and dig some barbecue pits. Go ahead—out of here! But wait: you, ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... hight. Shall flower so cankered bloom to the world's end? But since I speak of flowers, this none may deny them, that they are most cunning in making roses and gilliflowers to blow unseasonably. In summer they nip certain of the budding roses and water them not. Then in winter they dig round these discouraged plants, and put in cloves; and so with great art rear sweet-scented roses, and bring them to market in January. And did first learn this art of a cow. Buds she grazed in summer, and they sprouted ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... o' Blake's mostly," was Ingalls' laconic answer. "Course they was slingin' everythin' else they could dig down an' drag up, too." He chewed thoughtfully a moment, "We had some time ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... to dig in, and thus render all assistance in my power, yet I feel little to encourage me here in good works. Would it not be wise to test the potency of prayer? Verily the prayer ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... there, my Benjamin, and I doubt he was never beautiful before. And I have planted him so firmly. I think if we leave him there he may grow and blossom. Do not dig him up again yet. Imagine Benjamin in flower! ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... nearly every hundred yards, which builds in similar spots, and attracts the attention of herd-boys, who dig out its nest for the sake of the young. This, and a most lovely little blue and orange kingfisher, are seen every where along the banks, dashing down like a shot into the water for their prey. A third, seen more rarely, is as large as a pigeon, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... pulled the zipper down halfway. The guard fingered the blue denim but didn't dig deeper to find the towel. He checked Joe's badge number, made a note on his pad, and motioned to the next worker. Joe let tight breath slowly out of his lungs as he walked toward Building B. Getting past the ...
— The Stowaway • Alvin Heiner
... to dig information out of a servant was not a pleasant experience, yet he felt that in this case it was fully justified. To be sure he had gained little, yet that little helped to clear away the fog, and sustain the girl's theory that she was being ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... place where the filth was, the child made his grandfather dig and find a pot of money which he told him to use better than he had done his own. The child then said he was St. Oniria, exculpated his mother, and said his grandfather would see him again when the dead spoke with the living. Then he was ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... said," went on Isaiah. "But I got in one dig on my own hook. 'The sheriff don't wait much down to your house, Abner, does he?' says I. 'You bet he don't,' says he; 'he don't have to.' 'Well, he'd starve to death if he waited there long,' says I. Ho, ho! His wife's the stingiest woman about her cookin' that there is on ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Agriculture was not practised by the Yana. The verbal idea of "to farm" would probably be expressed in some such synthetic manner as "to dig-earth" or "to grow-cause." There are suffixed elements corresponding to ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... not been able to make the performance a success. As they edged forward she explained to Lorry that it wasn't Pancha's fault, it was the sort of thing she didn't do as well as other things and she oughtn't to have been made to do it. Then, her eye ranging, she suddenly stopped and gave Lorry a dig with her elbow. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... he corrected the force of his denial, in deference to the years and services of one so aged. "The Big-knives are very wise, and they are men; all of them would be warriors. They would leave the Red-skins to dig roots and hoe the corn. But a Dahcotah is not born to live like a woman; he must strike the Pawnee and the Omahaw, or he will lose the name ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was sprinkled on the ground. After that the silver never went far away. Still, it waltzed about the big hole in such a lively manner that frequent tunnelling to effect its capture availed nothing. At last the prophet decided that it was of no use to dig unless one of their number was made a sacrifice. None of the faithful responded to his call, and thus the magnificent scheme was abandoned. Oliver Harper, one of the diggers who furnished the money, was soon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... while, our friend became grave and began to philosophize. "Well," said he, "you see, your temperament is peculiar; the conditions ain't favourable in your case; there are some people who never can work these things. But there's water below here, for all that, as you'll find, if you dig for it; there's nothing like a hazel-rod ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... important in both ways. For the artist or poet it has in a quite extraordinary degree the quality of beauty. For instance, to take a contrast with Rome: if you dig about the Roman Wall in Cumberland you will find quantities of objects, altars, inscriptions, figurines, weapons, boots and shoes, which are full of historic interest but are not much more beautiful than the contents ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... number was accordingly selected to act as herald, and directed to proceed to the front gate, and to demand a parley. The man thus honoured was a broad shouldered Celt, evidently more accustomed to dig than to perform the part for which he had been appointed. He was furnished, however, with a stick and white handkerchief fastened to it, to act as a flag of truce, and urged to proceed at once ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... this a dig at Powart. "Why, of course their government is autocratic, dear! How else can ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... is a moor beside a river, where the mud is full of ore, washed down from the country above—sometimes from the old mines. The streamers dig this mud up and wash it through sieves, and so they get the tin. There was enough of it, my father said, in Luxulyan Couse to keep a captain and twelve men in good wages and pay for a feast once a year at the Rising Sun Public House. The supper took place some time in the week before Christmas, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and stopping suddenly). California? The great gold country? Where they dig gold out ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... asked me if I could spare him a root of it. I told him I could spare him any thing he would like to have, but that I would gladly give him every flower in my garden, roots and all, if he would but let me dig three yards square in his garden at the Old House, and have all that came up ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... good deed I claim, Last service for your lord: I ask a soldier's grave, good knights; I'll dig it with my sword. My horse's reins tie fast to yours— A friend on either hand— Then ride straight on to where you see The English ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to me to make the opening excavation. The difficulty was to know where each quail began and ended; the job really wanted a professional quail-finder, who might have indicated the point on the surface of the crust at which it would be most hopeful to dig for quails. ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... sake, forbeare To dig the dust inclosed here. Blessed be he that spares these stones, And curst be ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... the whole world cannot show its like! To be sure, the historian Herodotus tells us that, when Babylon stood in danger of the Medes, Queen Nitocris applied herself to dig new channels for the Euphrates to make it run crookedly. And in one place she made it wind so that travellers down the river came thrice to the same village on ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a sham; it is always a crime. A man that puts away his pound, and never goes out and says, 'Come, share with me in the wealth that I have found in Jesus Christ' will be like a miser that puts his hoardings into an old stocking, and hides it in the ground somewhere. When he goes to dig it up, he is only too likely to find that all the coins have slipped out. If you want to keep your Christianity, let the air into it. If you want it to increase, sow it. There are hosts of you who would ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the most laborious of arts. It will task all your powers of body and mind if you are faithful to it. Do not dabble in the muddy sewer of politics, nor linger by the enchanted streams of literature, nor dig in far-off fields for the hidden waters of alien sciences. The great practitioners are generally those who concentrate all their powers on their business. If there are here and there brilliant exceptions, it is only in virtue of extraordinary ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... sanctified with prayer and spell. If in the depths of earth he hide, Or lurk beneath the ocean's tide, Pursue, dear sons, the robber's track; Slay him and bring the charger back. The whole of this broad earth explore, Sea-garlanded, from shore to shore: Yea, dig her up with might and main Until you see the horse again. Deep let your searching labor reach, A league in depth dug out by each. The robber of our horse pursue, And please your sire who orders you. My grandson, I, this priestly train, Till ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... was returning to the gold find of Andrew Seldon that I came upon Black-heart Bill's camp, and, finding in him Hugh Mayhew, I killed him. My intention was to take Andrew Seldon's name, dig his gold, and, to ease my conscience, ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham |
