"Flatten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... river down there, but nobody ever drowns in it where I can have a hitch at him; and if there's a freshet, everybody at once gets out of reach. If there's a fire, all the inmates get away safe, and no fireman ever falls off a ladder or stands where a wall might flatten him out. No, sir; I don't have a fair show. There was that riot out at the foundry. In any other place three or four men would have been killed, and there'd a been fatness for the coroner; but of course, bein' in my county, nothin' ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... a sort of obedience to Deronda's advice, but day followed day with that want of perceived leisure which belongs to lives where there is no work to mark off intervals; and the continual liability to Grandcourt's presence and surveillance seemed to flatten every effort to the level of the boredom which his manner expressed; his negative mind was as diffusive as fog, clinging to all ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... could not afford to be squeamish. Obstinate violence had to be overcome by resolute vigour. The mule was now helplessly fixed, with its tongue hanging out and its eyes protruding. Nevertheless, in that condition it continued, without ceasing, to struggle and try to kick, and flatten its ears. It was a magnificent exhibition of determination to resist to the very death!—a glorious quality when exercised in a good cause, thought I—my mind reverting to ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... hanging sails. The men on board the felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L'Infresco with its lovely harbour of refuge, lonely as a bay in a desert island, its silent shade and its ancient spring. The wind ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... of veal next to the udder; separate the skin, and flatten the meat on a clean cloth; make slits in the bottom part, that it may soak up seasoning, and lard the top very thick and even. Take a stewpan that will receive the veal without confining it; put at the bottom three carrots cut in slices, two large onions sliced, a bunch of parsley, the roots cut ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... at you. You told me yesterday you were loaded for these Californians and could flatten their anti-Japanese ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... understood. They had only their entrenching implements, but in ten minutes most of them had very fair "lying down" cover. Ten minutes was all they were allowed. There was no artillery fire by the end of that time, but the bullets began to whizz past, or flatten themselves in the tree trunks. It was rather hard to see precisely what was happening. Black dots emerged from the wood, and quickly flitted back again. ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... victories. The dugouts of officers and observers were all called villas—Villa Chambery, Villa Montmorency being examples. It all seemed like cozy camp life underground except that three times the morning of our visit it was necessary to flatten ourselves against the mud sidewalls while dead men on crossed rifles were carried out, every head in that particular bit of trench being bared as the sad ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... is not readily expelled do not attempt to force it out by straining. Instead, flatten in the abdomen by forcibly ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... with the nose; the ancient Huns during the age of Attila were accustomed to flatten the noses of their infants with bandages, "for the sake of exaggerating a natural conformation." With the Tahitians, to be called LONG-NOSE is considered as an insult, and they compress the noses and foreheads of their children for the sake of beauty. The same holds with the Malays ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... of a reddish copper-color, with dark intelligent eyes, and a grave expression of features. They raise the flesh of their legs and thighs in long stripes, and shave most of the hair from their heads, but do not flatten the forehead, as is customary with the other tribes along the Orinoco. Columbia is a country of great natural riches, but suffered to lie for the most part waste, for the people are naturally indolent; and Captain Hall remarks, that the Columbian who can eat beef and plantains, and smoke cigars ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... hours of sleep we had had in nearly three days. But the German gunners were most inconsiderate, and a short time afterward they dropped a small barrage down the road. The front of our forge was open, and we were obliged to flatten ourselves on the ground to prevent the flying splinters from hitting us. When this diversion was over, we stirred up our fire, and made some tea, just in time to offer some to a gunner sergeant who came riding up. He hitched his horse to one of the posts, and sat down ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... in the water, a board may be placed upon it, weighted so as not to flatten against the bottom of the vessel, or it may be kept in position under the water by pressing thin slips of wood over from side to side. The skin being well saturated—which, according to the size of ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... when exposed to heat do not stand up of their own consistency, but have a tendency to melt and flatten; it was necessary that this bulk should be supported, so there were three attendants, one securely braced under each armpit, and the third with a more precarious grip under the mountain's chin. Every thirty seconds ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... Powers renounce the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard casing, which does not entirely cover the core, or ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... of thin copper hollowed, and a head over it of bullet metal, fitted a cavity in the bullet proper below it, as seen in the engraving. In the bottom of the cavity was fulminating powder. When the bullet struck, the momentum would cause the copper in the outer disc to flatten, and allow the point of the stem to strike and explode the fulminating powder, when the bullet would be rent into fragments ...
— A Refutation of the Charges Made against the Confederate States of America of Having Authorized the Use of Explosive and Poisoned Musket and Rifle Balls during the Late Civil War of 1861-65 • Horace Edwin Hayden
... succeeded better in his Books of Plants, who, besides the same faults with the former, is continually varying his numbers from one sort of verse to another, and alluding to remote hints of medicinal writers, which, though allowed to be useful, are yet so numerous, that they flatten the dignity of verse, and sink it from a poem, to a treatise of physic,' Dr. Sewel has informed us, that Mr. Philips intended to have written a poem on the Resurrection, and the Day of Judgment, and we may reasonably presume, that in such a work, he ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... Flatten them on with a broad-bladed knife, and fry the sole a golden brown in hot fat (for heat of fat see ...
— The Skilful Cook - A Practical Manual of Modern Experience • Mary Harrison
... would call back at every turn, as our way shrank to a black passage under a house bestriding the street, or a caravan of donkeys laden with obstructive reeds or branches of dates made the passers-by flatten themselves ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... feet made scarcely any sound on the granite floor. Still we were incautious, and it was purely by luck that I glanced ahead and discovered that which made me jerk Harry violently back and flatten myself against ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... lowers it gently into the nest, while the second foot seizes another egg, which during this time had appeared at the orifice. This manipulation lasts until the end of the operation, when the tortoise buries all its family, and to flatten the prominence which results she strikes it repeatedly with her plastron, raising ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... great deal of brush, together with limbs of trees, and were now filling this wicker-work in with earth and rocks which they procured a little distance above on the opposite bank. A beaver would run up, flatten his tail on the mud near the bank, then another beaver would scrape the earth up and upon the tail of the first, and pack it down. After he had his load complete, the carrier-beaver would swim away rapidly; his tail, with the load of earth, floating ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... the child to flatten himself against the wall, for the little fellow had spread out his arms and pressed his body ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... odor, by which the people become aware of their presence in a house. We have also the cobra ('Naia haje', Smith) of several colors or varieties. When annoyed, they raise their heads up about a foot from the ground, and flatten the neck in a threatening manner, darting out the tongue and retracting it with great velocity, while their fixed glassy eyes glare as if in anger. There are also various species of the genus 'Dendrophis', as the 'Bucephalus viridis', or green tree-climber. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... the gin blocks groaned. It was as if an invisible hand had given the ship an angry shake to recall the men that peopled her decks to the sense of reality, vigilance, and duty.—"Helm up!" cried the master, sharply. "Run aft, Mr. Creighton, and see what that fool there is up to."—"Flatten in the head sheets. Stand by the weather fore-braces," growled Mr. Baker. Startled men ran swiftly repeating the orders. The watch below, abandoned all at once by the watch on deck, drifted towards the forecastle in twos and threes, arguing noisily as they went—"We shall ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... head. And indeed, in my heart I knew I could never hope to equal, much less beat, such a mighty cast. I therefore decided on strategy, and, with this in mind, proceeded, in a leisurely fashion, once more to mark out the circle, which was obliterated in places, to flatten the surface underfoot, to roll up my sleeves, and tighten my belt; in fine, I observed all such precautions as a man might be expected to take before some ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... and usually a good deal more gaily, as they have not begun to appreciate the dangers. The smaller boys line the sides of the jump and pour out at the word of the judge on to the steep landing-slope like a lot of little goblins, jumping on their Skis horizontally to flatten away any track or hole made by a jumper who has failed to jump perfectly. Little chaps of seven or eight run through the woods on these occasions, swanking their turns through the trees and putting most grown-up runners to shame by their nimbleness. At Pontresina one winter I was much amused ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... the farther it will go. Tom's object, then, was to flatten the trajectory, by lowering the muzzle of the gun, in order to attain ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... middle-aged wives just had to grin and bear it. "An' Mavis," he thought, "can do the same. Heavens an' earth, I've got an answer ready if she tries to make a fuss, or wants to take the dinner-bell and go round as public crier—an answer that ought to flatten her as if a traction engine had bin over her. 'My lass, who began it? Bring out your slate and put it alongside mine, an' we'll see which looks dirtiest, all said and done.'" While he was thinking in this manner, his face became very ugly, with hard deep lines in it, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... than a ribbon torn from the green leaf of the ti plant, say three-quarters of an inch to an inch in width by 5 or 6 inches long, and rolled up somewhat after the manner of a lamplighter, so as to form a squat cylinder an inch or more in length. This was compressed to flatten it. Placed between the lips and blown into with proper force, it emits a tone of pure reedlike quality, that varies in pitch, according to the size of the whistle, from G in the middle register to a shrill piping note more than an ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... trudge along, keeping step with each other, and uttering a loud, peculiar cry to clear the way, reminding one of the gondoliers on the canals of Venice. People were obliged to step into shops and doorways, or flatten themselves against buildings, in order to make room for us to pass in the palanquins, but they did so with a good grace and took it quite as a matter of course. Whenever we stopped for a trifling purchase or to visit some point of interest, a small crowd was sure to collect. The narrow ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... flat rocks, where the Blackbears could not get at them; so Wahb found this a land of plenty: every fourth or fifth rock in the pine woods was the roof of a Squirrel or Chipmunk granary, and when he turned it over, if the little owner were there, Wahb did not scruple to flatten him with his paw and devour him as an agreeable ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the flame of a Bunsen burner, touching the under surface of the glass from time to time on the back of the other hand. As soon as the slide feels distinctly warm to the skin, the paraffin section will flatten ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... children. "Country boys are not symmetrically developed," asserts Superintendent Rapp, of Berks County. "They are flat-chested and round-shouldered." That is interesting, indeed. Mr. Rapp explains: "It is because of the character of their work, nearly all of which tends to flatten the chest. Whether or not that is the explanation, the fact remains, and with it the no less evident fact that it is the business of the school to correct the defects. In an effort to do this we have worked out a series of fifty games which the children are taught ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... escaping a repetition of near the same images, the same figures, the same expressions, with this further inconvenience added to the disgust it creates, that the words Joys, Ardours, Transports, Extasies and the rest of those pathetic terms so congenial to, so received in the Practice of Pleasure, flatten and lose much of their due spirit and energy by the frequency they indispensably recur with, in a narrative of which that Practice professedly composes the whole basis. I must therefore trust to the candour of your judgment, for your allowing for the disadvantage I am necessarily ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... now be slightly and evenly damp. To flatten the vellum the open pairs of leaves are interleaved with the slightly damp blotting-paper, and are left for an hour under the weight of a pressing-board. After this time the vellum will have become quite soft, ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... to call every year on mamma, for a subscription to some society for promoting thrift among the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. Dear mamma used annually to jump upon this courageous old party and flatten her out; and listening to the process was, to us, a fearful joy; but annually she returned to the charge. On one of these occasions, just before my marriage, Miss Murgatroyd accompanied her. Hence her intimate knowledge of "poor dear Lady Ingleby." Also she has a friend who, ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... she placed the ivory rod which she had found in the middle of the roll so as to flatten it out, and her eye fell on the words, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." To her, if to any one, was this glorious bidding addressed, for few had a heavier burden to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "Flatten in the jib, and take a pull at the main-sheet, my lads, and we shall run into the bay without a tack, if the wind holds as it does now," ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... cases apart, worthy doubtless of the home, but not worthy of the temple—dedicated to the grimacing, not to the clear-faced, gods. She herself, naturally, through the past years, had come to be much represented in those receptacles; against the thick, locked panes of which she still liked to flatten her nose, finding in its place, each time, everything she had on successive anniversaries tried to believe he might pretend, at her suggestion, to be put off with, or at least think curious. She was now ready to try it again: they had ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... He not to come ere evening, the woman that is dead must go to her burying without one to follow her, or any friend at all to flatten the green scraws ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... Highway Byeway, Grattan, (The Pyrenees begin to flatten, A feast denied to storm and shower, The pen's the wonder-working power); Or Smith, the master of "Addresses," Carves history out in modern messes:— Tells how gay Charles cook'd up his collops, How fleeced his friends, how paid his trollops— How ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... a thought; Its jaw and its mouth are tenantless both, Nor passes emotion its throat. No glow on its face, no ringlets to grace Its brow, and no ear for my song; Hush'd the caves of its breath, and the finger of death The raised features hath flatten'd along. The eyes' wonted beam, and the eyelids' quick gleam— The intelligent sight, are no more; But the worms of the soil, as they wriggle and coil, Come hither their dwellings to bore. No lineament here is left to declare If monarch or chief art thou; Alexander the Brave, as the portionless slave ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... right of other men to get an occasional word in edgewise—these are the true marks of the genuine bore. He must know that you take no interest in him or his story. Even if you did, his manner of telling it would flatten you, yet he fascinates you with that glassy stare, that self-conscious and self-admiring smirk, and distils his tale into your ears at the very moment when you are burning to talk over old College-days with CHALMERS, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... before it reached the ocean, lightnings which the ravenous and mountainous waves swallowed before they could pierce the gloom. The ship lay over on her side, held there by the madly rushing wind, which seemed to flatten down the sea, cutting off the top of the waves, and breaking them into fine white spray which covered the ocean like a thick cloud, as high as the topmast heads. Each gust seemed unsurpassable in intensity, but was succeeded, after a pause, that was not a lull but a ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... sun is at his fiercest, raging vertically down upon a street empty of folk, but glittering like glass and radiant with quivering air, Manvers was shot at from a distance, so far as he could judge, of thirty yards. He heard the ball go shrilling past him and then splash and flatten upon a church wall beyond. He turned quickly, but could see nothing. Not a sign of life was upon the broad way, not a curtain was lifted, not a shutter swung apart. To all intents and purposes he was ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... give or lend. Tip me your daddle; give me your hand. Tip me a hog; give me a shilling. To tip the lion; to flatten a man's nose with the thumb, and, at the same time to extend his mouth, with the fingers, thereby giving him a sort of lion-like countenauce. To tip the velvet; tonguing woman. To tip all nine; to knock down all the nine pins at once, at ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... Joshua got out his carriage and proceeded to Frankfort, where, as he had expected, he met Julia and his expected son-in-law. His greeting of the former was kind and fatherly enough, but the moment he saw the latter, he felt, as he afterward said, an almost unconquerable desire to flatten his nose, gouge his eyes, knock out his teeth and so forth, which operations would doubtless have greatly astonished Dr. Lacey and given him what almost every man has, viz., a most formidable idea of his ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... is grand only in cases where the snag is right, and the mundus wrong. Then persecution becomes the second-highest form of blessedness—the highest form, of course, being the ability to turn round and flatten-out the persecutor. Now, if Alf could open the windows of his understanding——But then, one of the gravest disabilities in the leopard of thirty-five, or thereabout, is connected with the changing of his spots. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... performance was an act, to prove you're a better man than I am. You talk about dreams. Good God! You don't know what dreams are! If you say one more word about quitting, I'll show you whether I love you or not—I'll squeeze you so hard it'll flatten you out flat!" ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... he was told, for his nature was rather docile. It could be seen that he was holding himself in readiness to flatten out on his stomach in case of hostile demonstrations on the part of the wildcat. No doubt he expected that he could in this way manage to protect his face from her claws; while the pack on his back would serve ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... this is always the same. Imagination and reality bear the same relation to each other as poetry and prose: The former conceives objects to be huge and precipitous, the latter always thinks that they flatten themselves out. The landscape painters of the sixteenth century, compared with those of our own day, furnish the most striking ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... insteps like springing bridges of crimson lacquer; they swing up over curved heels like whirling tanagers sucked in a wind-pocket; they flatten out, heelless, like July ponds, flared ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... in amazement, he found that by heating one he could flatten it out, then he could make small ones stick to it while hot and hammer all into one mass, then into a bar, and from that he could make an axe-head with an edge which would cut clean through a copper ring as though it was but cheese; next, when ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... dangerous as dry rot, or moth eating holes in you. Queer, but I was getting to think of myself as laid on the shelf before Brace drifted in, and when I do that I get old-acting and stiff-jointed. But I've noticed that it's the same with folks as it is with the world, when they begin to flatten down, then the good Lord drops something into them to make 'em sorter rise. No need to flatten down until you're dead. Feeling tired is healthy and proper—not feeling at all is being finished. So now, Peter, you just go along to bed. I always have ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... their weakness in regard to equipment and to munitions was not, however, known, or at all events was only partially known. There was much talk in the Press about the "steam-roller" which was going to flatten the Central Powers out. We at the War Office had received warnings from our very well-informed Military Attache, it is true; but those warnings did not convey to us the full gravity of the position, a gravity which ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... sufficiently well purified go to the middlings stone, while those from near the tail of the machine which contain a little germ and bran specks go to the second germ rolls, these being a pair of smooth rolls which flatten out the germ and crush the middlings, loosening adhering particles from the bran specks. From the second germ rolls the material goes to a reel, where it is separated into flour which goes into the baker's grade, fine ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... I ever did come to answerin' her back—'cept, of co'se, the time she chastised me—was the way I used regular to heat my knife-blade good an' hot 'twix' two batter-cakes an' flatten that devil out delib'rate. But he'd be back nex' day, ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Sauce Bearnaise.—Cut a thick steak off the large end of a beef tenderloin; flatten it out a little; rub olive-oil or butter over it, and broil over a charcoal fire; place it on a hot dish, add a little pepper and salt, and serve with ...
— Breakfast Dainties • Thomas J. Murrey
... above important question; for up to that moment I had always been haunted by a horrid paragraph I had met with somewhere in an Icelandic book of travels, to the effect that it was the practice of Icelandic women, from early childhood, to flatten down their bosoms as much as possible. This fact, for the honour of the island, I am now in a position to deny; and I here declare that, as far as I had the indiscretion to observe, those maligned ladies appeared to me as buxom in form as any rosy English girl ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... critical moment, and lowering their heads, they pressed the ground as closely as they could. Jack half wished that some car of Juggernaut might roll over them, so as to flatten them ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... animal neatly, such as a tiger, lion, large deer, etc. etc., the bullet should be pure lead, unmixed with any other metal. This will flatten to a certain degree immediately upon impact, and it will continue to expand as it meets with resistance in passing through the tough muscles of a large animal, until it assumes the shape of a fully developed mushroom, which, after an immense amount of ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... except in a dirty little North St. Louis flat with us three girls in a bed? Haven't I got my name all over town for speed, just because I've always had to rustle out and try to learn how to flatten out a dime to the size of a dollar? Where do I come in on the solid-gold talk, I'd like to know. I'm the penny-splitter of the world, the girl that made the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store millinery department famous. I can look tailor-made on a five-dollar bill and ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... would flatten against most parts of his body. By the by, I saw an instance of a rhinoceros having been destroyed by ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... the solid part of these strata, it is necessary to make a shaft at the foot of the wall of great depth through the strata; and in this shaft, on the side from which the hill slopes, smooth and flatten a space one palm wide from the top to the bottom; and after some time this smooth portion made on the side of the shaft, will show plainly which part of ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... stumbled on in semi-crouching posture, ready to flatten to earth as soon as any one of his many overshoulder glances detected another sky-spearing flight of sparks. But this necessity he was spared; no more lights were discharged before he groped through the wires to the parapet, with almost uncanny good luck, ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... will probably find more difficult at first. For the reason already explained it seems natural to observe objects as made up of outlines, not masses. The frame with cottons across it should be used to flatten the appearance, as in making outline drawings. And besides this a black glass should be used. This can easily be made by getting a small piece of glass—a photographic negative will do—and sticking some black ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... and by-and-by the snake began to flatten his ribs, and draw himself from under the load, until at last he was clear of it; then, heaving a deep sigh of relief he lay quiet for awhile to recover his breath. He knew there was a hole somewhere if he could only find it and he kept poking his nose here and there against ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... "Flatten out," I whispered. "Follow me!" And I crawled straight towards the fire, where, ink-black against the ruddy conflagration, an enormous pine lay uprooted, smashed by lightning or ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Flossie, who had, by this time, wiggled herself to a place beside Freddie, and so near the window that she could flatten ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... beat him up! That goes, do you hear? I'm gonna' flatten the big stiff. He made a monkey outa me, and he ain't gonna' ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... than an hour the mill was riddled with balls. They dashed against the old walls like hail. When they struck the stones they were heard to flatten and fall into the water. They buried themselves in the wood with a hollow sound. Occasionally a sharp crack announced that the mill wheel had been hit. The soldiers in the interior were careful of their shots; they fired only when they could take aim. From time to time the captain consulted his ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... object, nor are we concerned with any supposition as to how the velocity of rotation was caused. We can, however, easily see what the consequence of the rotation would be. The sphere would become deformed, the centrifugal force would make the molten body bulge out at the equator and flatten down at the poles. The greater the velocity of rotation the greater would be the bulging. To each velocity of rotation a certain degree of bulging would be appropriate. The molten earth thus bulged out to an extent which was dependent ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... cut out they are sewed together in rows and the rows in turn sewed to each other like a patchwork quilt, taking care to have the fur all run the same way. The robe should now be dampened again and stretched and tacked to its full extent to remove any wrinkles and flatten the seams. This sewing is all done from the back of the robe using an even over-hand stitch. Just before the final stretching it is well to apply arsenical solution to the ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... follow the advice to flatten himself on the ground. Instead, he stood straighter—even rose on his toes and stared in the direction whence he judged the shot ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... circle, just at the mouth of the dug-out which most of the half-section inhabit, and flood with tobacco-stained saliva the place where they put their hands and feet when they flatten themselves ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... plate a turbot of fabulous dimensions—one of those phenomenal fish which are only seen in the old paintings representing the miraculous draught of fish, or perhaps in the window of Chevet, before a row of astonished street-boys who flatten their ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... of the flute brings out this quality of song. I must not allow the pressure of too much greed to flatten out the reed, for then, as I fear, music will give place to the questions "Why?" "What is the use of so much?" "How am I to get it?"—not a word of which will rhyme with what Radhika sang! So, as I was saying, illusion ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... eating," said the grass-snake. He lay with all his four-foot length displayed in graceful sinuous curves, and was listened to in silence. Nothing loves a snake, however harmless. "With me, as with the caterpillars, it is mostly bluff. I can swing back my head, and flatten the nape of my neck, as well as any deadly adder. I can also strike, but there is no poison behind the blow. My only weapon of offence is smell, a sickening musty smell, that makes the enemy loose his hold. Once I am halfway down a hole, I'm safe. ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... said Ned; "rouse it up to the bows smartly, cat it, and then range along your cable all ready for letting go again if need be. Flatten in your larboard jib-sheets for'ard; man your larboard fore- braces and brace the headyards sharp up. Hard a-starboard with your helm, Williams—she has stern-way upon her. And you Rogers, away aloft and keep a sharp look-out for ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... every tenant, when he begins sowing and cutting the crops, offers a little curds and rice and a cocoanut and lays them on the boundary of the field, saying the name of Mirohia Deo. It is believed among agriculturists that if this godling is neglected he will flatten the corn by a wind, or cause the cart to break on its ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... glide, till it is quite near the surface of the aerodrome, the pupil has next to think of making a neat contact with the ground. The art here is, at a moment which must be gauged accurately, to check the descent of the machine by a movement of the elevator—to "flatten out," as the expression goes. If the movement is made neatly the craft should, when only a few feet from the ground, change from a descent into horizontal flight, and continue on this horizontal flight for a ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... Corpuscles. If we put a drop of blood upon a glass slide, and place upon it a cover of thin glass, we can flatten it out until the color almost disappears. If we examine this thin film with a microscope, we see that the blood is not altogether fluid. We find that the liquid part, or plasma, is of a light straw color, and ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... while the signs and passwords are so widely flung that every man speaks slowly and with a double tongue. Lately there have been slicings and other forms of vigorous justice no farther distant than Loo-chow, and now the Mandarin Shan Tien comes to Yu-ping to flatten any signs of discontent. The occupation of this person is that of a maker of sandals and coverings for the head, but very soon there will be more wooden feet required than leather sandals in Yu-ping, and artificial ears ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... that you should suffer for it. Call it what you wish, but don't expect any sympathy from me. While I use every precaution to preserve my health, you go sloshing around in your bare feet, or sit on a cake of ice to read a dime novel, or do some other tomfool thing to flatten you out. I refuse to sympathize with you, Mrs. Bowser—absolutely and teetotally refuse to utter one ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... close to my horse, and I have walked on Lebanon. I have cruised in the seven seas and seen the white marvels of ancient cities reflected in the wave of incredible blueness. But then I was young. When the years began to pile up, I longed to stake off my horizons, to flatten out my views. I wanted the simpler, the more elemental things, things cosmic in their associations, nearer to the beginning or end of creation. The parrot that flashed through "nutmeg groves" did not hold out so much allurement as the simple gray-and-slaty junco. The things that are unobtrusive ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... warning pats, they tiptoed guiltily to the side of the house and peered in at the dining-room window, where the shade was raised a couple of inches above the sill. A noise at the back of the house made them start and flatten ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... thimblefuls are emptied out in as many neat little piles on a plate, and left there over night. Next morning the piles are examined, and if any of them has fallen down, he or she whom it represents will die within the year. Again, the women carefully sweep out the ashes from under the fireplace and flatten them down neatly on the open hearth. If they find next morning a footprint turned towards the door, it signifies a death in the family within the year; but if the footprint is turned in the opposite direction, it bodes a marriage. Again, divination by eavesdropping ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... far off, spasmodic growling of the "heavies" told that fifteen miles away someone was being unmercifully plastered; but the nearer artillery slept. With eyes and ears straining to their utmost, with muscles held ready to relax and let him flatten out at the first sign of enemies, he continued up this new and very dangerous slope, possessing no idea where it would lead, knowing only that he must reach his own lines before dawn. And now he realized that the ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... king. "By George! I have a plan. If I could get to the place where they keep the Stupidity, I could carry away enough of it to flatten out the Earthquaker." ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... discovered, but has executed his work with an infinite perfection which bungling men may admire, but can never imitate. The sclerotic coat of the eye, and the choroid which lies next it are full of muscles which, by their contraction, both press back the crystalline lens nearer the retina, and also flatten it; the vitreous humor, in which the crystalline lens lies, a fine, transparent humor, about as thick as the white of an egg, giving way behind it, and also slightly altering its form and power of refraction to suit the case. Thus, that which the astronomer, or the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... holds the chief and highest power, as mese to hypate, in respect of the concupiscent; as mese to nete, in respect of the irascible; insomuch as it depresses and heightens,—and in fine makes a harmony,—by abating what is too much and by not suffering them to flatten and grow dull. For what is moderate and symmetrous is defined by mediocrity. Still more is it the end of the rational faculty to bring the passions to moderation, which is called sacred, as making a harmony ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... going on in open ground it frequently occurs that the opposing lines, confronting each other within a stone's throw for hours, hug the earth as closely as if they loved it. The line officers in their proper places flatten themselves no less, and the field officers, their horses all killed or sent to the rear, crouch beneath the infernal canopy of hissing lead and screaming iron without ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... employed by Murdock received the name "cockspur" from the shape of the flame. This had an illuminating value equivalent to about one candle for each cubic foot of gas burned per hour. The next step was to flatten the welded end of the gas-pipe and to bore a series of holes in a line. From the shape of the flames this form of burner received the name "cockscomb." It was somewhat more efficient than the cockspur burner. The next obvious step was to slit the end ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... writing doggerel. Many and many a time, when the enchanter and his wonderful animals were seated in their armchairs round a blazing fire, talking exactly as any three good friends might talk, a nose would flatten itself against the panes, and the three companions would see looking in at them some stranger whose curiosity had got the better ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... and away in a scurry of speed that seemed to flatten him close to the deck, and that, as he turned the corner of the deck-house to the stairs, made his hind feet slip and slide ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... its cirque, as a river often begins in its lake, the glacier flows downward, river-like, along a course of least resistance. Here it pours over a precipice in broken falls to flatten out in perfect texture in the even stretch below. Here it plunges down rapids, breaking into crevasses as the river in corresponding phase breaks into ripples. Here it rises smoothly over rocks upon its bottom. Here ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... to Colonel Musgrave with assumed modesty, adding that it would be a good thing to flatten out the tins before dispatching them, and that Sergeant Scott, who was a handy man, ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... attic in all the world. And then, after he had stroked the soft fur, and smelled the buckskin and sweet grasses, and tasted the crumbling maple sugar, and dressed himself in the barbaric splendours of the North, he could flatten his little nose against the dim square of light and look out over the glistening yellow backs of a dozen birchbark canoes to the distant, rain-blurred hills, beyond which lay the country whence all these things ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... such a way that the lens bulges out, and becomes thick in the middle and of the right curvature to focus the near object upon the screen. When we look at an object several hundred feet away, the muscles change their pull on the lens and flatten it until it is of the proper curvature for the new distance. The adjustment of the muscles is so quick and unconscious that we normally do not experience any difficulty in changing our range of view. The ability of the eye to ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... commanded that the like should be done to every male or female child for ever after. The Pelew Islanders believe that the perforation of the septum of the nose is necessary for winning eternal bliss; and the Nicaraguans say that their ancestors were instructed by the gods to flatten their children's heads. Again, in Fiji it is supposed that the custom of tattooing is in conformity with the appointment of the god Dengei, and that its neglect is punished after death. A similar idea prevails ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... not wish to make a noise on her island any more than she wished smoke to be seen, so at the end of her day's work she went to her gypsy's camp hoping that she might find a tool or something that would serve her for a hammer with which to flatten the tins that were to be used for plates, ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... stated, is without the plaits, folds, and scutellae, that characterise its Asiatic congener, yet it is far from being a soft one. It is so thick and difficult to pierce, that a bullet of ordinary lead will sometimes flatten upon it. To ensure its penetrating, the lead must ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... or iron pot, and blow together. At Padang alone, where the manufacture is more considerable, they have adopted the Chinese bellows. Their method of drawing the wire differs but little from that used by European workmen. When drawn to a sufficient fineness they flatten it by beating it on their anvil; and when flattened they give it a twist like that in the whalebone handle of a punch-ladle, by rubbing it on a block of wood with a flat stick. After twisting they again beat it on the anvil, and by these means it becomes flat wire with indented ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... precise position, or do anything unexpected, as the Pyramids of Egypt. I do not know any topic upon which he was not absolutely uninformed, and his contributions to conversation, delivered in that ringing baritone of his, were appallingly dull. Often I have seen him utterly flatten some cheerful clever person of the Crichton type with one of his simple garden-roller remarks—plain, solid, and heavy, which there was no possibility either of meeting or avoiding. He was very successful ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... were small, and like little white shells. He would take one between finger and thumb and play with it as if it were a toy, pulling at the lobe of it, or trying to flatten out the curved part. Her breasts, her shoulders, her knees, her little feet, every bit of her, he would examine and play with and kiss. She would lie and let him, seeming absorbed in some far-away thought, of which he was the object, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... and said that if he should happen to get drunk Monday night and Hatch should happen to arrest him, he would give the drunkard five dollars if the drunkard would mash Frank's new hat. The fellow said he would flatten it flatter than flatness itself. Just after dark Mr. Hatch was walking down Third street, "Whoop, hurrah for Tilden, (hic) 'endrix." The remark seemed so out of place that Frank went down there. The man was lying on the sidewalk, and telling the barrel to roll ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... as well, is the "hunter's fire," All you need is an axe. Take two green logs about six to eight inches thick and five feet long and lay them six inches apart at one end and about fourteen inches at the other. Be sure that the logs are straight. It is a good plan to flatten the surface slightly on one side with the axe to furnish a better resting place for the pots and pans. If the logs roll or seem insecure, make a shallow trench to hold them or wedge them with flat stones. The surest way to hold them ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... guarding on him," was Jeff's confident reply. "There aint no winder to the corncrib, and the door fastens with a bar outside. Some of the chinking has fell out atween the logs, but he can't crawl through the cracks less'n he can flatten himself out like a flying squirrel. Furthermore, there's the dogs that will be on to him if ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... seems necessary to look forward on all the changes which cannot fail to occur. Even the structure of the human body will be modified. It is an uncontradictable fact that without exercise all organs flatten and end by disappearing altogether. It has been observed that fishes deprived of light become blind. I myself have seen in Valais that shepherds who fed on curdled milk lost their teeth very early; some ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... are you?" cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy rage, "who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here, not you! Go back or I'll flatten you into a pancake," repeated he. This expression ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... side; and I suspect that the bees in such cases stand in the opposed cells and push and bend the ductile and warm wax (which as I have tried is easily done) into its proper intermediate plane, and thus flatten it. ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... the cage and opened the door. He went inside and picked up the gun from the shelf. The Slem-gun would take care of them. He notched it up to full count. The chain reaction from it would flatten them all, the police, the curious, ...
— The Skull • Philip K. Dick |
