"Flax" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... paint it so truly that you could hear the drowsy hum of the bees among the thyme, and smell the scented hay-meadows in the distance, and feel that it is midsummer in England! That would indeed be truth, and that would be art. Shall I paint the Bobby baby as he stoops to pick the cowslips and the flax, his head as yellow and his eyes as blue as the flowers themselves; or that bank opposite the gate, with its gorse bushes in golden bloom, its mountain-ash hung with scarlet berries, its tufts of harebells blossoming in the crevices of rock, and the quaint low clock-tower ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... as hemp and flax, a plant which surpasses all those used for the same purposes in other countries. The ordinary dress of the New Zealanders is composed of leaves of this plant, with very little preparation. They fabricate their cords, lines, and ropes from it, and they are much stronger than those ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the days of home-grown flax and spinning-wheels, was plain and unpretentious. Built of gray, rough-hewn quarry stone it hid like a demure Quakeress behind tall evergreen trees whose branches touched and interlaced in so many places that the ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... my hesitation, she came forward again and presented severally four others—Enva ("Snow" Blanche), Leenoo ("Rose"), Eirale, Elfe, all more or less of the usual type of female beauty in Mars, with long full tresses varying in tinge from flax to deep gold or the lightest brown; each with features almost faultless, and with all the attraction (to me unfailing) possessed for men who have passed their youth by la beaute du Diable—the bloom of pure graceful girlhood. Eive, the ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... of that has been the means of bringing out a wonderful study, that is explained by the nature of the soil itself. In every country certain sections will spontaneously produce product alike, in almost every essential quality. Thus, flax, for instance, is found, identical in its character, in Kamscatska, and in Minnesota; in the Siberian wilds and in Central America; on the heights of the Himalayas, and in the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... together as friends and partners. Altotas, in the course of a long life devoted to alchymy, had stumbled upon some valuable discoveries in chemistry, one of which was an ingredient for improving the manufacture of flax, and imparting to goods of that material a gloss and softness almost equal to silk. Balsamo gave him the good advice to leave the philosopher's stone for the present undiscovered, and make gold out of their flax. The advice was taken, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... barefoot in the summer, but in winter the pioneer wore moccasins of buckskin, and buckskin leggins or trousers; his coat was a hunting shirt belted at the waist and fringed where it fell to his knees. It was of homespun, a mixture of wool and flax called linsey-woolsey, and out of this the dresses of his wife and daughters were made; the wool was shorn from the sheep, which were so scarce that they were never killed for their flesh, except by the wolves, which were very fond of mutton, but had no use for wool. For ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... Apollyon's great army, With maces uplifted, stand to make way for great Cyrus of Elam. Watching for signal from him whose truncheon this way or that bids: 'Strike!' said Cyrus the King. 'Strike!' said the princes of Elam; And the brazen gates at the word, like flax that is broken asunder By fire from earth or from heaven, snapped as a bulrush, Snapped as a reed, as a wand, as the tiny toy of an infant. Marvellous the sight that followed! Oh, most august revelation! Mile-long were the halls ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... and went to his faithful steed and wept bitterly, and told him all about it. "Well," said the horse, "this time 'tis no trifle, but a real hard task. Go now to thy master, and bid him buy twenty hides, and twenty poods[13] of pitch, and twenty poods of flax, and twenty poods of hair."—So Tremsin went to his master and told him, and his master bought it all. Then Tremsin loaded his horse with all this, and to the sea they went together. And when they came to the sea the horse said, "Now lay upon me the hides and the tar and the ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... like large country houses: walking out of their gates, you seem to be stepping from a door or window that opens on a trim and beautiful garden, where mulberry-tree is married to mulberry by festoons of vines, and where the maize and sunflower stand together in rows between patches of flax and hemp. But it is not in order to survey the union of well-ordered husbandry with the civilities of ancient city-life that we break the journey at Parma between Milan and Bologna. We are attracted rather by the fame of one great painter, whose work, though it may be studied piecemeal ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... soul, hobbling to the door, and looking in at Elsie, who was sitting flat on the stone floor of her cottage, sorting a quantity of flax that lay around her. The severe Roman profile was thrown out by the deep shadows of the interior,—and the piercing black eyes, the silver-white hair, and the strong, compressed lines of the mouth, as she worked, and struggled with the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... "I shall not need you at the stand to-day. There is that new flax to be spun, and you may keep company with your uncle. I'll warrant me, you'll ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... always bear it and yourself in mind, whether on land or water; and as a proof of the good-will she bears to you, she has sent you a lock of the hair which she wears on her head, which you were often looking at, and were pleased to call flax, which word she supposes you meant as a compliment, even as the old people meant to pass a compliment to their great folks when they called them bears; though she cannot help thinking that they might have found ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... were quite enough, He thought them all too few, And so her uncle, rude and rough, Invented something new. He took her to a little room, Her willingness to tax, And pointed out a broken loom And half a ton of flax, Observing: "Spin six pairs of trousers!" His haughty manner seemed to rouse hers. She met ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... mangold-wurzels are the chief root-crops. Niort is a centre for the growing Of vegetables (onions, asparagus, artichokes, &c.) and of angelica. Considerable quantities of beetroot are raised to supply the distilleries of Melle. Colza, hemp, rape and flax are also cultivated. Vineyards are numerous in the neighbourhood of Bressuire in the north, and of Niort and Melle in the south. The department is well known for the Parthenay breed of cattle and the Poitou breed of horses; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... 'am too lazy to avoid traps; and I rather like to remark the cleverness with which they're set. But then of course I know that, if I choose to exert myself, I can break through the withes of green flax with which they try to bind me. Now, perhaps, you won't ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Isa. 61:1, 2. The execution of this mission required a tender and forbearing spirit, that would not break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax; and such was the spirit of his whole ministry. For the penitent, though publicans and sinners, he had only words of kindness. Towards the infirmities and mistakes of his sincere disciples he was wonderfully forbearing. When a strife had arisen among the apostles which of them ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... and the prophecies of the goddesses, he would kill the children and perhaps their parents also. With the object in her mind of telling the king the handmaiden went to her maternal uncle, whom she found weaving flax on the walk, and told him what had happened, and said she was going to tell the king about the three children. From her uncle she obtained neither support nor sympathy; on the contrary, gathering together several strands of ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... always rainy days through the season, when out-door work comes to a stand. At such times my father was almost always found in his workshop, making pails or tubs for the house, or repairing his tools or making new ones. At other times he would turn his attention to dressing the flax he had stowed away, and getting it ready for spinning. The linen for bags, as well as for the house, was then all home-made. It could hardly be expected that with such facilities at hand my ingenuity would not develop. ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... Joel," Martha replied to her brother, "but tell me whether the kittuna of this Rabbi is wool or flax, or ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, That ope in the ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... frontiers, the settlers of Carolina began to stretch backward, and occupied lands above an hundred and fifty miles from the shore. New emigrants from Ireland, Germany and the northern colonies obtained grants in these interior parts, and introduced the cultivation of wheat, hemp, flax and tobacco, for which the soil answered better there than in the low lands nearer the sea. The cattle, sheep, hogs and horses multiplied fast, and having a country of vast extent to range over, they found plenty of provisions in it through the whole year. From ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... of hiving truths. It follows from it that Emerson is more striking than suggestive. He likes things on a large scale—he is fond of ethnical remarks and typical persons. Notwithstanding his habit of introducing the names of common things into his discourses and poetry ('Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood,' is a line from one of his poems), his familiarity therewith is evidently not great. 'Take care, papa,' cried his little son, seeing him at work with his spade, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... name of improvements and methods; in short, mortgaged lands as the inevitable result of experiments. To her, prudence was the true method of making your fortune; good management consisted in filling your granaries with wheat, rye, and flax, and waiting for a rise at the risk of being called a monopolist, and clinging to those grain-sacks obstinately. By singular chance she had often made lucky sales which confirmed her principles. She was thought to be maliciously clever, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... left still in some degree open; to unite the French and English, the civil and military, in one firm body; to raise a revenue, to encourage agriculture, and especially the growth of hemp and flax; and find a staple, for the improvement of a commerce, which at present ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... Imperatrice appellation that belonged to her. She was certainly as charming a little creature as ever one saw in flesh and blood. Her sweet child's face, her dimpled, fair cheeks, her rose-bud of a mouth, and great, wistful, blue eyes, that laughed like flax-flowers in a south-wind, her tiny, round chin, and low, white forehead, were all adorned by profuse rings and coils and curls of true gold-yellow, that never would grow long, or be braided, or stay smooth, or do anything but ripple and twine and push their shining tendrils out ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... curious ruling of fate which makes the spinning of cotton fiber possible. There are many other short vegetable fibers, but cotton is the only one which can profitably be spun into thread. Hemp and flax, its chief vegetable competitors, are both long fibered. The individuality of the cotton fiber lies in its shape. Viewed through the microscope, the fiber is seen to be, not a hollow cylinder, but rather a flattened cylinder, shaped in ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... intended for this new County is very good, and fit to produce Hemp and Flax, which they were there solely to cultivate and manufacture; from whence the County was designed to ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... watched her mother spin off the fine silk and make it into neat skeins, and once she rode on her mother's back to market to sell it. You could gather mulberry-leaves, and set up these little silkworm boxes on the windowsill of your schoolroom. I have seen silk and flax and cotton all growing in a pleasant schoolroom, to show the scholars of what linen and ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... the unreposing brooks, And the green light which, shifting overhead, 670 Some tangled bower of vines around me shed, The shells on the sea-sand, and the wild flowers, The lamp-light through the rafters cheerly spread, And on the twining flax—in life's young hours These sights and sounds did nurse ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... from its own essence, as he who knoweth not the vintage shall make vinegar of wine. When we have stubbed up and consumed the first growth of our sinfulness, there ariseth a second crop from the ashes of that which was destroyed. Even as 'the flax and the barley were smitten; for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled: but the wheat and the rye were not smitten, for they were not grown up;' so will SELF-SATISFACTION arise, after worldly pride and vanity have been withered up. Let him who has found inward peace content ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... it is recorded: "April the 28th day, Old John Seagle departed this world, 1780." On page 11 this entry appears: "May the 3rd day I sowed flax seed in the year 1779," and other entries relating to the same agricultural avocation are interspersed through the little book. The culture of flax was then an indispensible employment. Our soldiers then wore hunting shirts, made of flax, to the battle fields. Cotton was not generally cultivated ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... which grow to the size of small trees; a shrubby speedwell, found near all the beaches, sow-thistles, virgin's bower, vanelloe, French willow, euphorbia, and crane's-bill; also cudweed, rushes, bull-rushes, flax, all-heal, American nightshade, knot-grass, brambles, eye-bright, and groundsel; but the species of each are different from any we have in Europe. There is also polypody, spleenwort, and about twenty other different sort of ferns, entirely ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... Implements are better made and polished. There were domestic animals and cultivated plants. The lake-dwellings in Switzerland were well contrived for shelter and defense. Every hut had its hearth. It is probable that most of them were furnished with a loom for weaving. Fragments of pottery are found, and flax was grown and made into cord, nettings, etc. Stalls were constructed near the huts for the ox, the goat, the horse, sheep, and pigs. The lake-dwellers cultivated wheat and barley. The Bronze Age, when implements were made of copper or of ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... established ourselves at the hotel, we went to deliver a letter to Mr. Hope, the official assignee, a very handsome, aristocratic-looking gentleman, who seemed as much out of place at Leeds as the Abbey." At Leeds they visited the flax mills of Messrs. Marshall, "a firm noted for the conscientious care they take of their workpeople.... We mounted on the roof of the building, which is covered with grass, and formerly was actually grazed by a few sheep, until the repeated inconvenience of their tumbling through the glass domes ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... little farm. In the garden almost enough vegetables were raised for the use of the family. Quinces, apples, and pears were preserved in honey for the winter. The wool of their own sheep was spun by the women, and so was the flax of their field, which the neighbors helped them to strip of an evening. From the walnuts of their trees they pressed oil for the table and for the lamp. The great chestnuts were boiled for food. The bread also was made of their own grain, and the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... be produced from potato tops. Gather them when ready to flower, press out the juice, mix it with a little water, and suffer the cloth to remain in it for twenty-four hours. The cloth, whether of wool, cotton, or flax, is then to be dipped in spring water. By plunging the cloth thus tinged with yellow, into a vessel of blue dye, a brilliant ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... In a country so densely peopled there could not be many large farms, and the majority of the farmers cultivate what would not be more than a garden in America; but the system of agriculture is not surpassed by that of any country in the world. Flax-raising is the principal occupation of the farmers; but grasses and roots receive particular attention. Horses, cattle, and sheep are raised in ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... smoking flax, and tie up the bruised reed!" he was saying to himself aloud, when in walked ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... of Swan River, from its moist state, is better adapted to the cultivation of tobacco and cotton than any other part of Australia. Both these articles are intended to be cultivated on a large scale, as also sugar and flax, with various important articles of drugs that the climate is peculiarly adapted to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... soul is well pleased; I will put my spirit on him, and he shall declare judgment to the nations. [12:19]He shall not strive nor cry aloud, nor shall any one hear his voice in the streets. [12:20]A bruised reed shall he not break, and a smoking flax shall he not extinguish, till he sends forth judgment to victory. [12:21]And in his name ...
— The New Testament • Various
... feet were walking! and she would have been successful, but for one thing. The customs of society were against her. She could not keep him away from the parties and evening entertainments of her friends; and here all the good resolutions she had led him to make were as flax fibres in the flame of a candle. He had no strength to resist when wine sparkled and flashed all around him, and bright eyes and ruby lips invited him to drink. It takes more than ordinary firmness of principle to ...
— The Son of My Friend - New Temperance Tales No. 1 • T. S. Arthur
... everywhere, with cherry- trees, plum-trees, and others which we know not. Many kind of herbs we found here in winter, as strawberry leaves innumerable, sorrel, yarrow, carvel, brook-lime, liver-wort, water-cresses, with great store of leeks and onions, and an excellent strong kind of flax ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... other birds. Again, the hawthorn, or whitethorn, field-fares, belong to English poetry more than to American. The ash in autumn is not deep crimsoned, but a purplish brown. "The ash her purple drops forgivingly," says Lowell in his "Indian-Summer Reverie." Flax is not golden, lilacs are purple or white and not flame-colored, and it is against the law to go trouting in November. The pelican is not a wader any more than a goose or a duck is, and the golden robin or oriole is not a bird of autumn. This stanza from "The Skeleton ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... knowledge is more proper to prophecy than is action; wherefore the lowest degree of prophecy is when a man, by an inward instinct, is moved to perform some outward action. Thus it is related of Samson (Judges 15:14) that "the Spirit of the Lord came strongly upon him, and as the flax [*Lina. St. Thomas apparently read ligna ('wood')] is wont to be consumed at the approach of fire, so the bands with which he was bound were broken and loosed." The second degree of prophecy is when a man ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... how it should be trimmed? What would an infinite God care on which side he cut the breast, what color the fringe was, or how the buttons were placed? Do you believe God told Moses to make curtains of fine linen? Where did they get their flax in the desert? How did they weave it? Did He tell him to make things of gold, silver and precious stones, when they hadn't them? Is it possible that God told them not to eat any fruit until after the fourth year of planting ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... at first proposed that wheat flour should be taxed, but that item has, I believe, been struck out of the bill in its passage through the House. All articles manufactured of cotton, wool, silk, worsted, flax, hemp, jute, India-rubber, gutta-percha, wood (?), glass, pottery wares, leather, paper, iron, steel, lead, tin, copper, zinc, brass, gold and silver, horn, ivory, bone, bristles, wholly or in part, or of other materials, are to be taxed— provided ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... the greensward by some gurgling spring. A view like that of a narrowing gorge, with a bridge arched boldly over it, awakens at once his artistic sense. Even the smallest details give him delight through something beautiful, or perfect, or characteristic in them—the blue fields of waving flax, the yellow gorge which covers the hills, even tangled thickets, or single trees, or springs, which seem to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... made his way. When his friends nominated him as a candidate for the legislature, his enemies made fun of him. When making his campaign speeches he wore a mixed jean coat so short that he could not sit down on it, flax and tow-linen trousers, straw hat, and pot-metal boots. He had nothing in the world but ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... military electronics), trucks, electric power equipment, wood products, textiles, chemicals, machine tools Agriculture: dominated by stock breeding (sheep and cattle) and dairy farming; main crops are potatoes, hops, hemp, and flax; although self-sufficient and having an export surplus in these commodities, Slovenia must import many other agricultural products and has a negative overall trade balance in this sector Illicit drugs: NA Economic aid: NA Currency: Slovene Tolar (plural - Tolars); 1 Tolar (SLT) ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... example, "an old Planter of above thirty years standing," whose establishment was at Blunt Point on the lower James, it was written in 1648: "He hath a fine house and all things answerable to it; he sowes yeerly store of hempe and flax, and causes it to be spun; he keeps weavers, and hath a tan-house, causes leather to be dressed, hath eight shoemakers employed in this trade, hath forty negroe servants, brings them up to trades in his house: he yeerly sowes abundance of wheat, barley, etc. The wheat he selleth at four shillings ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... wool and cotton, of fur, and hair, and down, of hemp, flax, and silk:—microscope permissible if any cause can be shown why wool is soft, and fur fine, and cotton downy, and down downier; and how a flax fiber differs from a dandelion stalk, and how the substance of a mulberry leaf can become velvet for Queen Victoria's ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... foothold with olive, Indian fig, and aloe. The valley, as it spread below our gaze, appeared one huge carpet of heavy-fruited orange-trees, save where at times a rent in the web left visible the bluish blades of wheat, or the intense green of a flax-plantation. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... his marriage with Miss Mutimer that he took the voyage—partly for his health, partly to examine some property his father had had an interest in. Old Mr. Eldon engaged in speculations—I believe it was flax-growing. The results, unfortunately, were anything but satisfactory. It was that which led to his son entering business—quite a new thing in their family. Wasn't it very sad? Poor Godfrey and his young wife both drowned! The marriage ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... thirteen-year-old Jendrek[1] minds the cows and performs strange antics meanwhile to amuse himself. If you look more closely you will also find the eight-year-old Stasiek[2] with hair as white as flax, who roams through the ravines or sits under the lonely pine on the hill and ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... which was situated between the Lecamus house and the one adjoining it, ran under the rue de la Vieille-Pelleterie, and was called the Pont-aux-Fourreurs. It was used by the dyers of the City to go to the river and wash their flax and silks, and other stuffs. A little boat was at the entrance of it, rowed by a single sailor. In the bow was a man unknown to Christophe, a man of low stature and very simply dressed. Chaudieu and Christophe entered the boat, which in a moment was in the middle of the Seine; ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... oftentimes would in the night visit farmers' houses, and help the maids to break hemp, to bolt[5], to dress flax, and to spin and do other work, for he was excellent in everything. One night he came to a farmer's house, where there was a good handsome maid: this maid having much work to do, Robin one night did help her, and in six hours did bolt more than she could have done in twelve hours. The ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... quenched. As Christ our Lord is tenderly careful of spiritual life when it is feeble, and cherishes it into strength, we should sternly stamp out evil while it is yet young in our own hearts, lest it spread like a fire. He will not quench the smoking flax of beginning grace, and we should quench with all our might the smoking flax of sin. He commanded the Church in Sardis to "be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die" (Rev. iii. 2). The counterpart and complement ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... wore linses [flax] petticoats and 'bedgowns' [like a dressing-sack], and often went without shoes in the summer. Some had bonnets and bedgowns made of calico, but generally of linsey; and some of them wore men's hats. Their ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... forgiving, divine way. We should all be with ourselves as God is with us. He knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are dust. He shows all patience toward us. He does not look for great things from us. He does not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. He shall not fail nor be discouraged till He have set judgment in the earth. And so ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... bring accurate intelligence to the king. The minds of the men preoccupied by the thought of their distinguished prisoner, and the thickening gloom, aided his resolution. Happening to have a quantity of thick flax in his pocket, the boy, with admirable foresight, fastened it to different shrubs and stones as he passed, and thus secured his safe return; a precaution very necessary, as from the windings and declivities, and ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a houswife take thee between her legs and ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... there would now be four Ulsters instead of one. Even in the days before restrictions were placed on the production of Irish linen for the better encouragement of the English trade, the North of Ireland was far ahead of the rest of the country in the matter of flax-spinning, and this pre-eminence was mainly due to the fact that the climate there is more suited to that plant than in other parts ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... steeple. beard, chevaux de frise[Fr], porcupine, hedgehog, brier, bramble, thistle; comb; awn, beggar's lice, bur, burr, catchweed[obs3], cleavers, clivers[obs3], goose, grass, hairif[obs3], hariff, flax comb, hackle, hatchel[obs3], heckle. wedge; knife edge, cutting edge; blade, edge tool, cutlery, knife, penknife, whittle, razor, razor blade, safety razor, straight razor, electric razor; scalpel; bistoury[obs3], lancet; plowshare, coulter, colter[obs3]; hatchet, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... hedgerow, such as the purple bugloss, the yellow iris, the star thistle, the common mallow; and, a convolvulus which was brilliantly pink, in contrast to his white brother before- mentioned. Besides these, Nellie had also gathered some sprays of the "toad flax" and "blue succory," a relative of the "endive" tribe, which produces the chicory-root so much consumed in England, as in France, as a "substitute" for coffee. A splendid sprig of yellow broom and dear little bunch of hare-bells, the "blue Bells of Scotland," with two or three ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... middens, of the Swiss lake dwellings. The men who lived in it had domesticated the dog, the cow, the sheep, the goat, and the invaluable pig; they had begun to sow small ancestral wheat and undeveloped barley; they had learnt to weave flax and wear decent clothing: in a word, they had passed from the savage hunting condition to the stage of barbaric herdsmen and agriculturists. That is a comparatively modern period, and yet I suppose we must conclude with Dr. James Geikie that ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... cotton-spinning for England for the sum of 30,000l; the wool-spinners paid the same sum for the privilege of applying the process to wool; and the Messrs. Marshall, of Leeds, 20,000l. for the privilege of applying it to flax. Thus wealth suddenly flowed in upon poor Heilmann at last. But he did not live to enjoy it. Scarcely had his long labours been crowned by success than he died, and his son, who had shared in his privations, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... the hickory or the oak for the same purposes that you do the pine or the poplar. There are differences also in the grain of metals, in the texture of fabrics. Gold differs essentially from iron as silk does from flax. Men display an infinite variety of quality, from the strong lumberman of the pine forests, with his corded muscles and angular frame, to the delicate young man who presides gracefully over the ribbon counter in the dry ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... same trade is the origin of the Latin-looking Dexter (Chapter II). From Mid. Eng. litster, a dyer, a word of Scandinavian origin, comes Lister, as in Lister Gate, Nottingham. With these goes the Wadman, who dealt in, or grew, the dye-plant called woad; cf. Flaxman. A beater of flax was called Swingler— ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... and hammered Mallet huge and heavy axe; Workmen laughed and sang and clamored; Whirred the wheels, that into rigging Spun the shining flax! ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... cares were upon him even then; he told how he longed for the Session to be over, that he might be with his family; he sent dear love to little Winifred and Asahel, and postscripts of fatherly charges to Winthrop, recommending to him particularly the care of the young cattle and to go on dressing the flax. And Winthrop, through the long winter, had taken care of the cattle and dressed the flax in the same spirit with which he shut his bedroom door that night; a little calmer, not a ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... writing-materials with him to the fields. His books were procured by the careful accumulation of the halfpence bestowed on him by the admirers of his juvenile tastes. In his sixteenth year, he entered on the business of a flax-dresser, in his native town—an occupation in which he was employed for a period of fourteen years. He afterwards engaged in mercantile concerns, and has latterly retired from business. He now resides at Upper Tenements, Brechin, in the enjoyment ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... with whom Rabelais is more permeated even than Montaigne, were a mine of inspiration. The proof of it is everywhere. Pliny especially was his encyclopaedia, his constant companion. All he says of the Pantagruelian herb, though he amply developed it for himself, is taken from Pliny's chapter on flax. And there is a great deal more of this kind to be discovered, for Rabelais does not always give it as quotation. On the other hand, when he writes, 'Such an one says,' it would be difficult enough to find who is meant, for the 'such an one' ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... himself, but it had been told him two years before by his uncle, who was mate of a ship that traded to the North Sea. "The ship," said he, "was the John and Thomas, named after the owner's two brothers, and bound to Stockholm for flax and iron. One day they were becalmed near the Island of Oland, and let go the anchor in twelve-fathoms water, when soon afterwards they saw, as they supposed, two men swimming towards the ship. They soon after came alongside, and made signs for a rope to be thrown ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... astonishing to us as to the Rebels, who would have lain unsheltered upon the sand until bleached out like field-rotted flax, before thinking to protect themselves in this way. As our village was approaching completion, the Rebel Sergeant who called the roll entered. He was very odd-looking. The cervical muscles were distorted ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... for a brighter sphere; but vot can one do, cooped up at home without men of henergy for companions? No prospect of improvement either; for I left our old gentleman alarmingly well just now, pulling about the flax and tow, as though his dinner depended upon his exertions. I think if the women would let me alone, I might have some chance, but it worries a man of sensibility and refinement to have them always tormenting of one.—I've no objection to be led, but, dash my buttons, I von't be driven." "Certainly ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... be intermingled with the honest well-gotten estate of this innocent gentleman, to be a moth and a caterpillar among it, and bring the judgments of heaven upon him, and upon what he has, for my sake? Shall my wickedness blast his comforts? Shall I be fire in his flax? and be a means to provoke heaven to curse his blessings? God forbid! I'll keep them asunder ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... and costumes of typical Yorkshire subjects, such as: The Horse Couper, Cloth Maker, Fishermen, Oat Cakes, Nur and Spell, Yorkshire Regiments, the Old Cloth Hall, the Fool Plough, Bishop Blaize Procession, Riding the Stang, Wensleydale Knitters, Sheffield Cutlers, The Flax Industry, Hawking, Racing, Cranberry Gatherers, Leech ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... hand about two million poods (a pood is a little over thirty-six English pounds) of flax, and any quantity of light leather (goat, etc.), but the main districts where we have raw material for ourselves or for export are far away. Hides, for example, we have in great quantities in Siberia, in the districts of Orenburg and the Ural River and in Tashkent. I have myself made the suggestion ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... one spot, saw a Man sowing flax in a field. When the Swallow found that they thought nothing at all of this, she is reported to have called them together, and thus addressed them: "Danger awaits us all from this, if the seed should come to maturity." The Birds laughed {at her}. When the crop, ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... presence and been enriched. A shepherd found the mountain open on St. John's Day, and entered. He was allowed to take some of the horse-meal, which when he reached home he found to be gold. Women have been given knots of flax, of the same metal. A swineherd, however, who went in, was less lucky. The emperor's lady-housekeeper made signs to him that he might take some of the treasure on the table before him; accordingly he stuffed his pockets full. ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... of Solon must have been altogether inoperative, in reference to the great articles of human subsistence; for Attica imported, both largely and constantly, grain and salt provisions, probably also wool and flax for the spinning and weaving of the women, and certainly timber for building. Whether the law was ever enforced with reference to figs and honey may well be doubted; at least these productions of Attica were in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... animals were domesticated at a much earlier period than has hitherto been supposed. The lake-inhabitants of Switzerland cultivated several kinds of wheat and barley, the pea, the poppy for oil and flax; and they possessed several domesticated animals. They also carried on commerce with other nations. All this clearly shows, as Heer has remarked, that they had at this early age progressed considerably in civilisation; and this again implies a long continued ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... Thousands of Families, which are now famishing, easy in their Circumstances, and useful to their Country. We begin to be convinced, that our chief view herein must be to increase the Number of Acres sowed with Flax-Seed, and the Spinners who Manufacture it; for if these were doubled (and with Care and Time they will be doubled) they wou'd soon enrich us, and employ many Hands, that are now a Burthen to us. 'Tis certain there is not by the fairest Computation, ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... us see what was the progress and success of this experiment. It seemed a risk to trust the raw materials of industry— wool, flax, hemp, etc.—to the hands of common beggars; to render debauched and depraved class orderly and useful, was an arduous enterprise. Of course the greater number made bad work at the beginning. For months they cost more than they came to. They ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... James Ivory (1765-1842) was, as a young man, manager of a flax mill in Scotland. In 1804 he was made professor of mathematics at the Royal Military College, then at Marlow and later at Sandhurst. He was deeply interested in mathematical physics, and there is a theorem on the attraction of ellipsoids that bears his name. He was awarded three medals of ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... hardly of those who are in want and misery, for as nothing succeeds like success, nothing fails like failure. But again, that is not Christ's way. He never breaks the bruised reed, or quenches the smoking flax. My brothers, let us learn to look on all men as our neighbours, let us stretch out a helping hand to those who have fallen among thieves, let us pour the wine and oil of sympathy, and kind words where we can, let us be gentle in our judgment of another's fault, ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... and as a station for ships making the voyage to the Philippines, sailing whence they make a landfall on this coast. This port is sheltered from all winds * * * and is thickly settled with people, whom I found to be of gentle disposition, peaceable, and docile; * * * they have flax like that of Castile, and ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... other State. The Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 35,000,000 bushels, while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco, Sorgheim, Grapes, Peaches, Apples, &c., which go to swell the vast aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons of produce were sent out the State of Illinois ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... with which to bind the earth and the waters," and on Christmas Eve "the oldest man in each family takes a spoonful of kissel (a sort of pudding), and then, having put his head through the window, cries: 'Frost, Frost, come and eat kissel! Frost, Frost, do not kill our oats! Drive our flax and hemp ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... with a love beyond all words or sense!" And it had sounded like bathos or sacrilege. What did these dolls know of love, or life? Chattering parrots to weary a man's brain! Yes, the Greeks were right, it would be better to keep them spinning flax, and uneducated. ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... when they'd have those big corn shuckings, flax pullings, and quilting parties. They would sow acres after acres of flax, then they would meet at some house or plantation and pull flax until they had finished, then give a big party. There'd be the same thing ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... this combustible is still so precious, that when gathered up, ground anew with paper and sawdust, and at length amalgamated with a mucilaginous water composed of soaked flax-seed, one finally obtains a kind of pulp that one tries vainly to make ignite, but which obstinately refuses to do so, though examples to the contrary have ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... not trust thee, but in all my plots I 'll rest as jealous as a town besieg'd. Thou canst not reach what I intend to act: Your flax soon kindles, soon is out again, But gold slow heats, and long ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... Fort rising from the plain. Under their tree was a new encampment, one tent with the hood of a wagon behind it, and oxen grazing in the sun. As they drew near they could see the crouched forms of two children, the light filtering through the leafage on the silky flax of their heads. They were occupied over a game, evidently a serious business, its floor of operations the smooth ground worn bare about the camp fire. One of them lay flat with a careful hand patting the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... Take of flax-seed meal 2 lbs., finygreek meal 2 lbs., liver antimony 1/2 lb., and nitre 1/2 lb., mix well; give a tablespoon for three days and omit ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... littered over with billets of 'lightwood,' unwashed cooking utensils, two or three cheap stools, a pine settee—made from the rough log and hewn smooth on the upper-side—a full-grown blood-hound, two younger canines, and nine dirt-encrusted juveniles, of the flax-head species. Over against the fire-place three low beds afforded sleeping accommodation to nearly a dozen human beings, (of assorted sizes, and dove-tailed together with heads and feet alternating,) and in the opposite corner a lower couch, whose finer furnishings told plainly ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... little Christine's great beauty; the same delicate, wild-rose pink in her cheeks, the same mischievous smile dimpling her laughing face. But Christine's eyes had not been a starry hazel like the Little Colonel's. They were blue as the flax-flowers she used to gather—thirty, was it? No, ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... consists of raw or first materials, such as flax, hemp, flax-seed, oil, tallow, leather, woad, metals, and of which to the aggregate value in 1841, of 59,773,354 silver rubles was exported; an amount nearly stationary as compared with the three previous years. But the export of Russian manufactures, viz. woollens, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... the top of the wall, is regarded by some people as a weed and an impudent intruder. For myself, I love the spectacle of stone walls breaking out into flower with red valerian and ivy-leaved toad-flax. The country people have greeted these flowers with comic and friendly names. Valerian they call "drunken sailor," and the ivy-leaved toad-flax that blossoms in a thousand tiny blue butterflies from the stones ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... The poor people in some countries use them instead of blisters, when they are sick. Those leaves which do not sting are used by some for food, and from the stalk others get a stringy bark, which answers the purpose of flax. Thus you see that even the despised nettle is not made in vain; and this lesson may serve to teach you that we only need to understand the works of God to see that "in goodness and wisdom he has made ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... all that night in the river and among the trees and up among the stars, but he little knew what it all meant to him or to her. He thought of the Turners back at home, and he could see them sitting around the big fire—Joel with his pipe, the old mother spinning flax, Jack asleep on the hearth, and Melissa's big solemn eyes shining from the dark corner where she lay wide-awake in bed and, when he went to sleep, her eyes followed him in ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... normal state. The respite following upon the Treaty of Utrecht was the more welcome; and in that breathing space of almost thirty years it seemed as if a real prosperity had at last visited the St. Lawrence. The cultivation of flax and hemp and the weaving of cloth, which had been but a feeble industry since the days of Talon, now assumed real importance. Furs were still the main resource of the colony; but grain, fish, oil, and leather also found their way to France in ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... materials employed for making candles are beeswax and tallow. The beeswax was bleached before use. The tallow was melted and strained and then cotton or flax fibers were dipped into it repeatedly, until the desired thickness was obtained. In early centuries the pith of rushes was used for wicks. Tallow is now used only as a source of stearine. Spermaceti, a fatty substance obtained from the ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... their Highnesses a lump of copper originally of six arrobas,[364-1] lapis-lazuli, gum-lac, amber, cotton, pepper, cinnamon, a great quantity of Brazil-wood, aromatic gum,[364-2] white and yellow sandalwood, flax, aloes, ginger, incense, myrobolans of all kinds, very fine pearls and pearls of a reddish color, which Marco Polo says are worth more than the white ones,[364-3] and that may well be so in some ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... etc., and feeding them on bread and water to effeminate them (canto 4). When she overthrew Sir Artegal in single combat, she imposed on him the condition of dressing in "woman's weeds," with a white apron, and to spend his time in spinning flax, instead of in deeds of arms. Radigund fell in love with the captive knight, and sent Clarinda as a go-between; but Clarinda tried to win him for herself, and told the queen he was inexorable (canto 5). At length Britomart arrived, cut off Radigund's head, and liberated the captive (canto ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... no fertilizers of any sort being required. The berry in its full maturity is very solid, weighing from 65 to 69 pounds per bushel, this being from five to nine pounds over standard weight. While wheat is the staple product, oats are also grown, the yield being very heavy. Rye, barley, and flax are also successfully cultivated. Clover, bunch-grass, ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... I was calling her: I want a light. I cannot see to spin my flax. Bring the lamp, Elsie. ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... England is sleeping on the lap of Dalilah, traitorously chained, but not yet shorn of strength. Let the cry be once heard—the Philistines be upon thee; and at once that sleep will be broken, and those chains will be as flax in the fire. The great Parliament hath left behind it in our hearts and minds a hatred of tyrants, a just knowledge of our rights, a scorn of vain and deluding names; and that the revellers of Whitehall shall ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... year Pennsylvania enacted a law declaring ten hours a legal day in certain industries and forbidding children under twelve from working in cotton, woolen, silk, or flax mills. Children over fourteen, however, could, by special arrangement with parents or guardians, be compelled to work more than ten hours a day. "This act is very much of a humbug," commented Greeley, "but it will serve a good ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... every year, and the question has been raised whether the cultivation of the plant in Egypt can be said to date far back. This is not so. The fibre almost exclusively used by the ancient Egyptians was flax, and the nature of the garments covering the mummies of the ancient Egyptians has been satisfactorily decided by the microscope. It is very probable that the cultivation of the plant at the beginning ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... fathom of match on his arm. This was a rope, made of the tow of hemp or flax, loosely twisted, and prepared to retain the fire, so that, when once lighted, it would burn till the whole was consumed. It was employed in connection with the match-lock, the arm then in common use. The wheel-lock followed in order of time, which was discharged by means of a notched wheel of steel, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... thoughts that Agnes twisted into the shining white flax, while her eyes wandered dreamily over the soft hazy landscape. At last, lulled by the shivering sound of leaves, and the bird-songs, and wearied with the agitations of the morning, her head lay back against the end of the sculptured ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... apparel and an hundred pieces of fine white linen cloths of Egypt and silks of Suez and Cufa and Alexandria and a crimson carpet and another of Tebaristan[FN217] make and an hundred pieces of cloth of silk and flax mingled and a goblet of glass of the time of the Pharaohs, a finger-breadth thick and a span wide, amiddleward which was the figure of a lion and before him an archer kneeling, with his arrow drawn to ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... of these closets there is a roll of linen." She opened one after another, looking into each. "No; it is not here. Then it must be in there. Yes; here it is. This linen was spun and woven from flax grown on your great-great-grandfather's land. Look at it! It is beautifully made. Each generation of the family has inherited part and left the rest for generations yet to come. Half of it is yours, half is Dent's. When it has been divided until there is ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... singing, Lord bless you, he had a tune with wooden turns to it,—it was most cruel to hear; and then the look of him, those eyes, like dropsical oysters, and the hair standing every way, like a field of insane flax, and the mouth with a curl in it like the slit in the side of a fiddle. A pleasant fellow that for a mess that always boasted the best-looking ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... sitting in-doors by the wide-mouthed fireplace singing fragments of songs such as his fathers before him had sung in their orchards in sunny France, and Evangeline was close beside him at her wheel industriously spinning flax for her loom. Up-stairs there was a chest filled with strong white linen which Evangeline would take to her new home. Every thread of it had been spun and woven by ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... time," continues our narrative, "there lived at Smyrna a man named Phemius, a teacher of literature and music, who, not being married, engaged Critheis to manage his household, and spin the flax he received as the price of his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her son, who, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... "conservation and use of agricultural land resources"—the so-called AAA program—for the fiscal year 1947, compared with 356 million dollars in the current year. This reduction of 86 million dollars is in large part accounted for by elimination of the wartime flax production incentive project and other nonrecurring items; the proposed reduction in normal activities is less than 33 ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... won't see, if you know what that means. Where are our missing twenty millions of Irish should be here today instead of four, our lost tribes? And our potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world! And our wool that was sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal and our flax and our damask from the looms of Antrim and our Limerick lace, our tanneries and our white flint glass down there by Ballybough and our Huguenot poplin that we have since Jacquard de Lyon and our woven silk and our Foxford tweeds and ivory raised point from the Carmelite convent in New Ross, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Latimer,' answered the lady, 'as one who is still in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. God forbid that we should endeavour to preserve nets of flax and stakes of wood, or the Mammon of gain which they procure for us, by the hands of men of war and at the risk ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... articles in the world for the manufacture of coarse cloth, and every sort of cordage and ropes. The material used for the purpose is the fibrous covering of the stalk, which is separated almost by the same means that are employed in obtaining flax. The hemp, when pulled up, is tied in bundles, and for a time submitted to the action of water. It is then dried and broken, and afterwards "scutched," and rendered still cleaner and finer by a process called "hackling." It makes no difference ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... creation or design. If I am wrong in this, I shall cheerfully say so when convinced of it. Many of these machines are very good of their kind without involving any novel principle or important adaptation. With regard to Flax-Dressing, for example, I find less here than I had hoped to see; and though what I have seen appears to do its work well and with commendable economy of material, I think there are more efficient and rapid Flax-Dressers in the United States than are contained in this Exhibition. ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... through the villages, and all sorts of other temptations crop up; and by this road, or, if not, by some other, wealth of the most varied description—vegetables, calves, cows, horses, pigs, chickens, eggs, butter, hemp, flax, rye, oats, buckwheat, pease, hempseed, and flaxseed—all passes into the hands of strangers, is carried off to the towns, and thence to the capitals. The countryman is obliged to surrender all this to satisfy the demands that are made upon him, and temptations; and, having parted ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... to begin spinning some very fine flax next week," said Mara; "and have I shown you the new pattern I drew for a counterpane? it is to be morning-glories, leaves and flowers, you know,—a pretty ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Susquehannah, the Ohio, and the Alleghany. Here is a country but a little less than the size of England; its surface covered with a rich vegetable loam capable of the highest cultivation, and of producing wheat, barley, rye, Indian corn, hemp, oats, flax. Here too are mighty forests supplying woods of every kind, abounding too in wild game and venison, equal to any in England. The rivers are full of fish, oysters, and crabs in abundance. On the ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... the fanega, but by ounces, or at most by the pound. And the pound of wheat cost a maraved and a half, and that of barley a maravedi, and that of painick a maravedi and a quarter, and of pulse a maravedi, and of flax-seed three parts of a maravedi, and of cheese three dineros, and of honey three, and of figs one; and the panilla of oil was eight dineros, and the pound of colewort five, and the ounce of carobs three ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... remarked, "there is a very fine piece of wheat." The man had been brought up in an eastern city, and was unable to distinguish between oats and wheat. I knew a gentleman who asked a man, standing by the side of an old-fashioned flax-break, what he thought it was used for? The man took hold of the handle, lifted it up and let it down a few times, and said: "It looks like it might be used to chop up sausage meat." It is very natural for us to draw comparisons, and when we do not make ourselves familiar with things and their ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... extended scale himself. In this manner was accomplished the prophecy of Isaiah, "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... her having been split in some bad weather which she met with in her passage thither. The people were directed at the same time to procure some of the bark of the tree lately discovered, to be manufactured into cordage; for which purpose it was reckoned superior to any of the flax that had been brought ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... familiar livery, and the land which is fully cultivated repays the toil of the husbandman with some of the most luxuriant crops of wheat I ever saw. Barley and oats are not equally good, perhaps from the stiffness of the soil, which is principally of chalk; but flax is abundant and luxuriant. The surface of the ground is undulated, and sufficiently so to make a pleasing alternation of hill and dale; hence it is agreeably varied, though the hills never rise to such a height as to be an ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... had been raging for some time with terrible fury, and had already got full possession of two large warehouses, each five or six floors in height, all connected by means of double iron folding-doors, and stored from basement to roof with spirits, tallow, palm-oil, cotton, flax, jute, and other merchandise, to the extent of upwards of two millions sterling in value. The dock fire-engines had been brought to bear on the flames a few minutes after the fire was discovered. The two floating-engines were ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... told with such inimitable picturesqueness here: how the two spies, swimming the Jordan in flood, set out on their dangerous mission and found themselves in the house of Rahab, a harlot; how the king sent to capture them, how she hid them among the flax-stalks bleaching on the flat roof, confessed faith in Israel's God and lied steadfastly to save them, how they escaped to the Quarantania hills, how she 'perished not' in the capture, entered into the community of Israel, was married, and took her ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that is, all carved in wavy lines which were arranged in intricate patterns. The women tattooed only their lips, chins, and eyelids, but often smeared their faces with red ochre, and soaked their hair with oil. Men and women wore round the waist a kilt of beautifully woven flax, and over the shoulders a mat of the same material. They were expert sailors, and built themselves large canoes which thirty or forty men would drive forward, keeping time with their paddles. Their large war canoes were sixty and seventy feet long, and would ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... still shall be his voice; No threats from him proceed; The smoking flax shall he not quench, Nor break the ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... children look like creatures born in sin and brought up to misery. Probably all this is owing as much to the sort of life which these highlanders lead, as to the severity of their climate. They are all either weavers, or spinners and teazers of flax, except the very few whose services are required in the cultivation of a barren soil. Now, were you to shut up even a hardy Argyleshire shepherd, in a heated chamber, where he should be condemned to breathe all day long foul air, abundantly mixed with minute portions of ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... mauve-grey flowers, and the comfrey, both purple and white. The dewberry, a blue-coloured more luscious bramble fruit, and tiny wild roses, grow on the marl-face also. At its foot are the two most beautiful flowers, though not the most effective, the small yellow snapdragon, or toad-flax, and the forget-me-not. This blue of the forget-me-nots is as peculiar as it is beautiful. It is not a common blue by any means, any more than the azure of the chalk-blue butterflies is common among other insects. Colour is a very constant feature in certain groups ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... board in which are fixed a number of sharp steel prongs upright for dressing hemp, flax, &c. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the swine in pigstyes, and provide a hen roost. In spring one should plough and graft, sow beans, set a vineyard, make ditches, hew wood for a wild deer fence; and soon after that, if the weather permit, set madder, sow flax seed and woad seed, plant a garden and do many things which I cannot fully enumerate that a good steward ought ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... Norwegian farmers, always owning their farms or being tenants for life, reside in the midst of them, allowing some labourers a dwelling rent free, who have a little land appertaining to the cottage, not only for a garden, but for crops of different kinds, such as rye, oats, buck-wheat, hemp, flax, beans, potatoes, and hay, which are sown in strips about it, reminding a stranger of the first attempts at culture, when every family was obliged to be an ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... that she was washing her clothes, often pointing to the white clouds as her linen which she had put out to bleach. When long grey strips of clouds drifted across the sky they said she was weaving, for she was supposed to be also a very diligent weaver, spinner, and housekeeper. It is said she gave flax to mankind and taught them how to use it, and in the Tyrol the following story is told about the way in which she bestowed ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... run him down by a wicked faction; if he be in error, I woulde rather have him reclaymed than destroyed; for this is most agreeable to the doctrine of our deare Lord and Master, who woulde not bruise y'e broken reede, nor quenche y'e smoaking flax." And much more ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... opened on the twelfth day of Khoiak with a ceremony of ploughing and sowing. Two black cows were yoked to the plough, which was made of tamarisk wood, while the share was of black copper. A boy scattered the seed. One end of the field was sown with barley, the other with spelt, and the middle with flax. During the operation the chief celebrant recited the ritual chapter of "the sowing of the fields." At Busiris on the twentieth of Khoiak sand and barley were put in the god's "garden," which appears to have ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... about Phormiun tenax (New Zealand flax), which I see is imported to San Francisco in large quantities yearly for making cordage and binder twine, and is said also to be the best of bee pasture. Can I get the plants on the coast, and is California soil and climate ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... woman, with a red handkerchief wound about her head, was a chestnut merchant. The sailors, children, and Italians coming over the border bought her wares, and when she was not employed in serving them she twisted flax ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... instance to match this. A year before, Joan of Arc, a low-born peasant girl, had occupied herself in tending sheep and spinning flax; her hours of leisure being given to dreams and visions. Now, clad in armor and at the head of an army, she was gazing in triumph on the flight of a hostile army, driven from its seemingly assured prey by her ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... Michael to Baja, where he had an office, and where, when he traveled into the flax districts of Hungary, he had his letters sent. A whole bundle awaited him; he opened one after another with indifference; what did he care whether the rape had been frost-bitten or not, that the duties in England were raised, or that ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... than sixteen—choked, reddened, held down his head, studying the marshal's face anxiously from beneath lowered flax-coloured brows. ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... girls were filled with wonder when they saw that they had slept in the wood among the raspberry bushes. They looked at each other, they looked at their beds, which were of the finest flax covered over with leaves and moss. At last Lisa said: 'Are ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... one was called Slagfid, the second Egil, the third Volund. They went on snow-shoes and hunted wild-beasts. They came to Ulfdal, and there made themselves a house, where there is a water called Ulfsiar. Early one morning they found on the border of the lake three females sitting and spinning flax. Near them lay their swan-plumages: they were Valkyriur. Two of them, Hladgud-Svanhvit and Hervor-Alvit, were daughters of King Hlodver; the third was Olrun, a daughter of Kiar of Valland. They took them home with them ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... evident that the sacred structure would be destroyed, and their screams and cries on quitting it were truly heartrending. Solomon Eagle was the last to go forth, and he delayed his departure till the flames burst through the windows. Another great storehouse of oil, tar, cordage, hemp, flax, and other highly inflammable articles, adjoining the church, had caught fire, and the flames speedily reached the sacred fabric. The glass within the windows was shivered; the stone bars split asunder; and the seats and other woodwork withinside catching ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... winter's thraldom from which Happy Moses had escaped, I never learned. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, six feet in height, with a beard like flax, and a sunny, ingenuous countenance. What term should have been applied to his eccentricities in politer circles I cannot say, but in Wallencamp, he was artlessly designated as "the fool." Whether it was on this account, that with a certain ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... a side-street a draycart came jogging along. Half a score of labourers lay tugging in the shoulder-strap or leant with all the force of their bodies against the cart, which rolled on toilsomely. 'Twas a load of flax, packed tightly in great square bales standing one against the other, the whole cart full. The dray caught its right wheel in the grating of an open gutter and remained stock-still, leaning aslant, as though ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... procure in abundance from the sea and the lochs, and I was able sometimes to add to the general stock of provisions by the aid of my gun. The feathers and oil from the wild sea fowl I shot were sold or bartered for other commodities; and the wool of the few sheep we kept, and the flax we grew, were helpful in supplying us with clothing and ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... from cotton, hemp, flax, and ramie.—The comparative oxidation of these celluloses, by treatment with HClO{3} at 100 deg., gave remarkably uniform results, as shown by the following numbers, showing extreme variations: yields, 68-70 p.ct.; hydrazine reaction, N fixed 1.58-1.69; fixation of basic colouring ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross
... oar indeed and home with sails Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, Staunch to the wave, from spear-storm free, Have to this shore escorted me, Nor so far blame I destiny. But may the all-seeing Father send In fitting time propitious end; So our dread ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... formed by a neatly-rounded bundle of leaves, held in place by a net-work of coarse cord. The edges of the wooden mask are perforated in several places; by means of these the back head, some long locks of fine flax which serve as hair, and a number of other ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes
... her son, and says that when he first received them he hid them until the next day in a rotten birch log, bringing them home wrapped in his linen frock under his arm.* Later, she says, he hid them in a hole dug in the hearth of their house, and again in a pile of flax in a cooper shop; Willard Chase's daughter almost found them once by means of a peek-stone of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... was once a certain woman who did not pay due reverence to Mother Friday, but set to work on a distaff-ful of flax, combing and whirling it. She span away till dinner-time, then suddenly sleep fell upon her—such a deep sleep! And when she had gone to sleep, suddenly the door opened and in came Mother Friday, before the eyes of all who ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... not cultivated. Yet it is famous for commerce with India, and the islands of the Indian sea; and merchants from Sennar, Arabia, and Persia, bring thither all sorts of silk and purple manufactures, hemp, cotton, flax, and Indian cloth, with plenty of wheat, barley, millet, and rice. The Indian merchants bring also great quantities of spices, and the natives act as factors and interpreters, by which they make great gains; but in that place there are not above 500 Jews. Sailing thence ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... milk, and a very limited variety of vegetables, constituted the food throughout the year. When night came on his light was derived from a few candles of home manufacture. The farmer and his family wore homespun. If linen was wanted, the flax was sown and weeded, pulled and retted, then broken and swingled, for all of which processes nearly a year was required before the flax was ready for the spinners, bleaching on the grass, and making and wearing. If woolens were wanted, sheep were sheared ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... Sometimes, during the finest summer weather, he would send rain in the midst of the hay-harvest; or if the time had come for sowing oats, he would parch the land with drought; or if the time for sowing is past, he dries up the barley in the ground, beats down the flax, and presses down the peas in the furrows; he won't let the buckwheat grow, or the lentils in their pods; and when the rye is white for harvest, he either glows fiercely and drives away the clouds, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... quite kind like, "you will be shut in here to-morrow morning with some victuals and some flax, and if by evening you have not spun five skeins, your ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... gooseberries, the briery vines she did not like. There were jars of jam and preserves, rose leaves to gather, and all the mornings were crowded full. Often in the afternoon she went up in the garret to see Miss Eunice spin—sometimes on the big wheel, at others with flax on the small wheel. She liked the whirring sound, and it was a mystery to her how the thread came out so fine ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Meacham, elder sister to the wife of the Squire, and taking upon herself, with active zeal and a neatness that knew no bounds, the office of housekeeper. This was rendered necessary in a manner by the engagement of Mrs. Elderkin with a group of young flax-haired children, and periodic threats of addition to the same. The hospitalities of the house were fully established, and no state official could visit the town without hearty invitation to the Squire's table. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various |
