"Handful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... let down the ashes,—it isn't a bad thing to do with a well-contrived stove,—and set the pan, to which we had a duplicate, into the out-room, for Stephen to carry away. Then into the clean grate went a handful of shavings and pitch-pine kindlings, one or two bits of hard wood, and a sprinkle of small, shiny nut-coal. The draughts were put on, and in five minutes the coals were red. In these five minutes the stove and the mantel ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... cake, and yet very light; the flavour is most admirable, for the wheat is good and pure, and the bread well kneaded. The way they make this bread is as follows:—From large round panniers filled with wheat they take out a handful at a time, sorting it most carefully and expeditiously, and throwing every defective grain into another basket. This done, the wheat is ground between two circular stones, as it was ground in Egypt 2,000 years ago (see No. 117), the requisite rotary motion being ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... dealing as this which forced Black Hawk to fight with a handful of warriors for his inheritance. The Government simply made a treaty with the Sacs under Keokuk, and took the land of the Foxes at the same time. There were some chiefs who, after they had feasted well and drunk deep and signed away their country for ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... suddenly overthrew the scales in which they were weighing the precious metal, exclaiming: "Why quarrel for such a trifle? If such is your thirst for gold that for its sake you forsake your own country and come to trouble those of strangers, I will show you a province where you may gather by the handful the object of your desire; but to succeed, you ought to be more numerous than you are, as you will have to contend with powerful kings, who will vigorously defend their dominions. You will first find a cacique who is very rich in gold, who resides at the distance of six ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... unpleasant. One cannot go on hammering a beaten man and it is difficult to refuse a surrender. On the other hand, it was out of the question to let this fellow go. He had come here prepared to murder me for a paltry watch and a handful of loose change. Common justice and my duty to my fellow men demanded his elimination. Besides, if I let him escape into the open, what would happen? The fields were sprinkled with big flints. It was practically certain that I should never ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... though it was a thing for which we had been long prepared; and indeed, to his family and connexions, except for the loss of the stipend, it was a very gentle dispensation, for he had been long a heavy handful, having been for years but, as it were, a breathing lump of mortality, groosy, and oozy, and doozy, his faculties being shut up and locked ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... I told her she just shouted, 'I fixed 'em, The devils! Now, says she, do you [TR: know?] where you can get a few leaves off a yellow peachtree. It must be a yellow peach tree, though. Yes, mam, I says to her. I have a yellow peachtree right there in my yard. Well, she says, get a handful of leaves, then take a knife and scrape the bark up, then make a tea and give him so it will heal up the poison from that knot in his side, also mix a few jimson weeds with it. I come home and told him I wanted ter give him a tea. He got scared and said, what fer, Ma? I had ter tell ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... beautiful. "Say, Jim, I've seen a ball-game every darned day since I landed! Say, two days running Larry Doyle made home-runs! But, gosh! that guy Klem is one swell robber! See here!" Mr. Crocker sprang down from the desk, and snatched up a handful of books, which he proceeded to distribute about the floor. "There were two men on bases in the sixth and What's-his-name came to bat. He lined one out ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... called kung foocha, or "worked tea"; hence the English name of Congou. When the leaves have been sufficiently worked they are ready for the firing, an operation requiring the exercise of the greatest care. The iron pan used in the process is made red hot, and the workman sprinkles a handful of leaves upon it and waits until each leaf pops with a slight noise, when he at once sweeps all out of the pan, lest they should be burned, and then fires another handful. The leaves are then put into dry baskets over a pan of coals. Care is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... did not see Pike, nor did they expect to see him. By some mysterious Providence they had arrived the very day the coach started on its monthly trip down to Barcoo; and in front of the hotel were congregated quite a number of people—Pike's wife and his half-wild children, a handful of bushmen, station hands, opal miners, and what-not, and last, but not least, a fat lady of about forty summers, ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... Edinburgh, whilst her son was in the West Indies, the greater portion of the library was literally thrown away and dispersed—torn up for grocers as useless trash, by her permission. Of the library collected by generations of Lindsays, all that now remains is a handful of little over fifty volumes. The books of David Lindsay, first Lord Balcarres, who died in 1641, are recognisable from his signature, and on many of them his arms are impressed in ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... fire, with our drink-offerings and the right hands of fellowship wherein we have put our trust? We waste our time in words, and for all our talking here shall be no further forward. Stand, therefore, son of Atreus, by your own steadfast purpose; lead the Argives on to battle, and leave this handful of men to rot, who scheme, and scheme in vain, to get back to Argos ere they have learned whether Jove be true or a liar. For the mighty son of Saturn surely promised that we should succeed, when we Argives set sail to bring death and destruction upon the Trojans. ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... far-off peoples whose very names are faint guesses preserved only in the traditions of local speech. Strangely and suddenly we come upon the evidence of their life and death: here a circle of stones on a barren moor or bleak hilltop, there a handful of potsherds or a flint arrowhead; sometimes, indeed, though rarely, the bones of their very bodies, laid aside in earth-barrows or stone coffins for this unknown length of years. And there the most unreflective among ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... tomatoes use one small measure onions; boil and sift; one handful salt, one tablespoonful mustard, one tablespoonful cayenne pepper, two tablespoonfuls black pepper, one-half pound sugar. Add spice just ...
— The Community Cook Book • Anonymous
... countenance opposite but although the words had contained a mingled caution and rebuke there was not the slightest trace of interest in the face of the speaker, who was imperturbably wiping off the moist nickel cap with a handful of waste ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... the world's people to explore the far reaches of cyberspace. Think of this: the first time I made a State of the Union speech to you, only a handful of physicists used the World Wide Web— literally just a ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Angleford, a mere handful of red-brick cottages, five miles from a railway station, was little known to the outer world. Its nearest market-town was Dorminster, and the village of Thorley lay between Angleford and the county ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the original parts and the last revised edition have been followed in this translation. The greater part of the stories listed above are available in translations, under various titles; the list, of course, is merely a handful from the vast bulk of the fecund Kuprin's writings, nor is any group of titles exhaustive of its kind. "The Star of Solomon," his latest collection of stories, bears the ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... not?' says I; 'what for wouldn't you be helping a poor crayture out of trouble, when it wouldn't cost you more nor a handful ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... prophet. I saw a letter from him, to-day, to the President, opposing Gen. Morgan's last raid into Kentucky: predicting that if he returned at all, it would be with a demoralized handful of men—which turned out to be the case. He said if Morgan had been with Gen. Jones in the Valley, we might not have been compelled to confess a defeat, and lament the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... also a duty, of the Governor to declare the city in a condition of insurrection. When he had done this, the state troops must put down the insurrection; and, if they failed, then the Federal Government itself should be called on. Looked at in this way, the small handful of disturbers, no matter how well armed and ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... I first crossed over to France in October, 1914. I recalled my arrival in Belgium; the wonderful rearguard actions of the Belgian troops; the holding up of the then most perfect (and devilish) fighting machine the world had ever known, by a handful of volunteers. The frightful scenes in the great retreat through Belgium lived again; the final stand along the banks of the Ypres canal; the opening of the dykes, which saved the northern corner of France; the countless ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... it too strong for me. In all this night I have only torn away a handful of planks. The walls stand! The towers stand! They have chained my flood, and my river is not free any more. Heavenly Ones, take this yoke away! Give me clear water between bank and bank! It is I, Mother Gunga, ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... At night they encamped under some spreading tree, and, tethering their horses among the timbers, lighted a fire with the extra flint which each one carried in his bullet-pouch. Their mode of lighting a fire is peculiar to the backwoodsman. A handful of dry grass or leaves is gathered, then twisted into a nest, in which is placed a piece of ignited punk; then the grass is closed over the punk, and the ball is waved, in the air till it breaks into a blaze, when it readily ignites the bundle of dry sticks with which the fire is kindled. Then ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... merchants, and planters left tobacco, wine, julep, and toddy to press around his temporary throne. Every day at this hour Lynch mounted this height, and he dearly loved the transient importance. Now he solemnly unfastened the bags, drew out a great handful of matter, looked it over, amid laughing clamour, with pursed lips and one raised, deprecating hand, then in a cheerful, wheezing voice began to call out names,—"Major Du Val—Major Baker—Mr. Allan—Mr. Munford—Mr. Chavallie—Colonel Harvie—Major ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... was yet a fighting chance, so back to the upper story the fire-fighters returned, led by Superintendent Leach. At length the mint was pronounced out of danger and a handful of exhausted but exultant employes stumbled out on the hot cobblestone to learn the fate ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... little more or a little less does not signify anything." But it does signify in this world of material things. Is one man as impressive as an army, one tree as impressive as a forest? "Scoop a little water in the hollow of your palm; take up a handful of shore sand; well, these are the elements. What is the beach but acres of sand? what is the ocean but cubic miles of water? A little more or a little less signifies nothing." It is the mass that does impress us, as Niagara does, as the midnight sky does. It is not as parts of this "astonishing ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there: And millions in those solitudes, since ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... said to her: "If you will go to yonder haystack and fetch me a handful of hay, I'll give you the milk." So away went the old woman to the haystack; and she brought the hay ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... rich presents which Alexander bestowed on them with a liberal hand. But this was not the prime impulse in the business. They were astonished at the daring with which Alexander with a comparative handful of men set out from Greece, having meditated the overthrow of the great Persian empire. They were astonished with his perpetual success, and his victorious progress from the Hellespont to mount Taurus, from mount ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... broke out. "Do you dare to tell me you're an Englishman, and won't fight? But I'll stand no more of this! I leave this place, where I've been insulted! Here! what's to pay? Pay yourself!" I went on, offering the landlord a handful of silver, "and give me back ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bubbling on the fire. "Bouillon! A good five-cent bouillon. Luxury!" She picked up something from a chair, a handful of new cotton chemises. "Luxury!" She turned back her bedspread: new cotton sheets. "Did you ever lie in your bed at night and dream of sheets? Comfort! Luxury! I should say so! And friends! My dear, look!" Opening her door, pointing to an opposite gallery, to ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... almost to the ground, keeping his left hand on the wound, which pained him. Suddenly he seized a handful of dust and threw ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... she saw dowager lady Chia and the rest of the company arrive. They each sat where and how they pleased. First and foremost, a waiting-maid brought two trays of tea. After tea, lady Feng laid hold of a napkin, made of foreign cloth, in which were wrapped a handful of blackwood chopsticks, encircled with three rings, of inlaid silver, and distributed them on the tables, in the order in which they ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... consult Clarke, who took the view of delay. Has he changed his mind already? I wonder: here at least is the news. Some little while back some men of Manono—what is Manono?—a Samoan rotten borough, a small isle of huge political importance, heaven knows why, where a handful of chiefs make half the trouble in the country. Some men of Manono (which is strong Mataafa) burned down the houses and destroyed the crops of some Malietoa neighbours. The President went there the other day and landed alone on the island, which (to give him his due) was plucky. Moreover, he succeeded ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was an instance.' He happened to be present at a sermon which, he perceived, was to finish with a collection for an object which had not his approbation. 'I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... his stand at the head of the grave, and, lifting his hat, proceeded with what remained of the service, while we stood bareheaded around. When he came to a particular part, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," the undertaker lifted a handful of earth, and threw it rattling on the coffin,—so did the landlady's son, and so did I. After the funeral the undertaker's friend, an elderly, coarse-looking man, looked round him, and remarked that "the grass had never ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the captain, as he draws from H. Ogden's inside coat-pocket a handful of new bills of the Second National Bank of Espinosa City. 'Your regular engraved Tuesdays-and-Fridays visiting-card wouldn't have a louder voice in proclaiming your indemnity than this here currency. You can get up now and prepare ...
— Options • O. Henry
... the apparition made its way to a forbidden spot slyly haunted by the little boy in his days of mischief,—a certain shelf where a box of some peculiar sort of expensive confections was kept. I had seen his mother, with unwonted generosity, give the child a handful of these a day or two before his death. I could go no farther. A mighty fear fell upon me, a dimness of vision and a terrible faintness; for that child-phantom, gliding on before, stopped like a retribution at that very ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... in their race, and that accounted for their diminutive forms and pale bodies. Still, they had been able to survive with a degree of happiness until some ten or a dozen years ago, when a strange enemy had come down in a great metal fish, like that of these new strangers, and with a handful of men had conquered ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... nearly midnight, I calculated, when I felt that I must stop to rest and take some food. I sat down on what I took to be a mound of earth covered with snow. I ate a handful of rice and a little biscuit, and chewed a piece of wolf's flesh, and felt somewhat revived. I should have liked to have gone to sleep, but I dared not, even for a moment. It would have been, had I given way to the feeling, the sleep of death. I scarcely know why, but as I sat ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... Fort Moultrie and the British fleet in the harbor of Charleston, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, the expedition of Clark and his handful of dauntless followers in Illinois, the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the treasonable schemes builded against Washington ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... doctor received his blessings with a welcome, and a brisk assurance to his wife that the more they were the merrier. And neither Mrs. Carnegie nor Bessie presumed to think otherwise; though seven tiny trots under ten years old were a sore handful; and seven was the number Bessie kept watch and ward over like a fairy godmother in the doctor's nursery, when her own life had attained to no more than the discretion and philosophy of fifteen. The chief ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... boyhood on cold mornings, I looked behind him to see if he also were under compulsion, but there was no other mouse in sight. He would scoop up a double handful of water in his paws, rub it rapidly up over nose and eyes, and then behind his ears, on the spots that wake you up quickest when you are sleepy. Then another scoop of water, and another vigorous rub, ending behind his ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... in sudden generosity, he paid the captain the necessary sum to transfer the refugees from the forecastle to his own select portion of the steamer, where he was so conspicuous a figure among a handful of lower-level merchant folk and others of little mark who were going to Quebec. To these latter Jean Jacques was a gift of heaven, for he knew so much, and seemed to know so much more, and could give them ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... With a handful of stemless violets, wet With the drops of gathering dew, And asked of the wonderful points of light That ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford
... was still determined to rush forward in the same course in which he was already, by his precipitate career, so fatally advanced. Though he knew that every order of men, except a handful of Catholics, were enraged at his past measures, and still more terrified with the future prospect; though he saw that the same discontents had reached the army, his sole resource during the general ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... the hatch and began undogging the heavy door. As the last of the heavy metal bars were raised, sand began to trickle inside around the edges. Astro bent down and sifted a handful through his fingers. "It's so fine, it's like powder," he said as it fell to the deck in a ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... cook throws into the pot a few handfuls of evaporated potatoes, a handful of evaporated onions, and smaller quantities of evaporated "soup vegetables," and leaves them to soak and simmer and resume their original size and flavour. By and by he will cut up the moose meat or the rabbits or ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... go out, and when Pyaree developed a housemaid's knee and was kept in, she revenged herself upon her more fortunate companions by biting each one hard as it passed her head on its way to and from the door. Gulab was the biggest handful, and Williamson managed him with skill: some of them, especially Lal Khan, were very playful, running round and round their leaders and stopping to paw the ground: Khan Sahib, on the other hand, was bored, yawning continually: ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... from length of wear and lack of washing, a tint bordering upon the orange. He had untwisted the long red sash which he wore coiled round his waist, and withdrawn from its folds, at one of its extremities, forming a sort of purse, a goodly handful of gold coin, the result of the more or less honest enterprises in which he had recently been engaged. This he was counting out, and arranging according to its kind, in glittering piles of four, eight, and sixteen-dollar pieces. A grim contortion of feature, his nearest ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... centuries without the curious things of which this foreigner speaks; she has produced in this time statesmen, poets, philosophers, soldiers; her people appear to have had their share of affliction, but not more than those of Europe; why should we now turn round at the bidding of a handful of strangers who know little of us or our country, and make violent changes in our life and habits? A railway in a province will throw thousands of coolies and boatmen out of employment and bring on them misery and starvation. This foreigner ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... of progress may be found in the ease with which winter wheat could be made into good, white, merchantable flour. That this flour was inferior to the flour turned out by winter wheat mills now is proven by the old recipe for telling good flour from that which was bad, viz.: To throw a handful against the side of the barrel, if it stuck there it was good, the color being of a yellowish cast. What good winter wheat patent to-day will do this? Still the old time winter wheat flour was the best there was, and it had no competitor. The settling ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... which they carried home to their masters as curiosities. Not being considered of any value, they were given to the children to play with. An officer who had spent some years in the East Indies saw these pebbles, and sent a handful to a friend in Lisbon to be examined. They proved to be diamonds. A few were collected and sent to Holland, and were pronounced to be equal to those of Golconda. The news soon reached Brazil, and those who possessed any of the "pebbles" soon realized ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... with much familiarity, when my presentation was to take place, and why it had not yet occurred. I replied, that the delay arose from the intrigues of Choiseul, and the king shrunk from the discontent of a handful of courtiers. "I am sorry for it," said M. de Maupeou; "in the first place, madame, because of the interest I take in you, and also because for his majesty, it would be a means of striking terror into the opposing party. You know, madame, how annoying parliaments are to all your ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... though not the same, still powerful. It was that venerable, good man, Lovie Pierce, the father of the great and eloquent bishop. What has he not seen? what changes, what trials, what triumphs! Generations before his eyes have passed into eternity; the little handful of Methodist communicants grown into a mighty and intelligent body; thousands of ministers are heralding her tenets all over the Protestant world—mighty in learning, mighty in eloquence—yet none surpass the eloquence, the power, and the purity ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... boy as ever shouldered a musket, John Ham, of the Seventy-seventh regiment, had sworn never to retreat before the enemy. Faithful to his word, when the handful of pickets were compelled to retreat (and this was the first time that any part of his regiment had ever fallen back before the enemy), he stood his ground, loading and firing as rapidly as ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... face were the continual falling in of the sides of the shaft and the presence of noxious gases. They never flinched, however, and I witnessed on that dreary pit platform at Hartley that which I have always considered the bravest deed I ever saw. I and a handful of watchers were dozing round the open fire in the early hours of a bitter winter morning, just one week after the accident had happened, when we were suddenly aroused by an urgent signal from the shaft, evidently coming from the men working far below. We ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... by way of half-pence, took out a twenty-franc piece and threw it down to the old man. He, however, did not take any notice of it, but continued looking at her ecstatically, and was only roused from his state of bliss by receiving a handful of gravel which she threw at him, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... due to the king's son-in-law. He pleads urgent secret business for Saul as a reason for his appearance with a slender retinue, and unarmed; and the priest, after some feeble scruples, supplies the handful of hungry fugitives with the shewbread. But David's quick eye caught a swarthy face peering at him from some enclosure of the simple forest sanctuary, and as he recognised Doeg the Edomite, Saul's savage herdsman, a cold foreboding of evil crept over his heart, and made him demand arms from the ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... followed almost immediately. It was pitiful to see the erstwhile Whittaker majority melt away. Alonzo Snow was triumphantly elected. But a handful voted against him. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... cured. Paracelsus gave him two small pills, which the man took and rapidly recovered. When he was quite well, Paracelsus sent for his fee; but the citizen had no great opinion of the value of a cure which had been so speedily effected. He had no notion of paying a handful of gold for two pills, although they had saved his life, and he refused to pay more than the usual fee for a single visit. Paracelsus brought an action against him, and lost it. This result so exasperated him, that he left Basle in high dudgeon. He resumed his wandering life, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... devotees, both Turk and Christian, have for ages been in the habit of pillaging it, to make ornaments, beads, and talismans; so that the work of destruction is nearly complete, and a manufacture of these relics, which are composed of gilded glass, will soon be required. I bought a whole handful for a few paras; and having seen them dug out of their cement by the mufti who sold them, I can vouch for their ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... officials stepped into the passage. The gendarme pushed the kitchen-door open; the room was cold as ice. On the hearth a handful of broken sticks had been placed, and the match-box lay beside them ready for ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... him down the street." The boy halted at the counter, producing a handful of square envelopes. "Note for you from the Lockwoods, Betty," he panted. "Josie ast ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... We saw how the application of machinery and mechanical power to productive industries replaced the independent citizen, or small capitalist, who worked with a handful of assistants, by the mill and factory owner with his numerous "hands." The economic use of machinery led to production on a larger scale. But new, complex, and expensive machinery is continually being invented, which, for those who can afford to purchase and use it, represents a fresh ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... according to their taste. These conditions are by no means impracticable, but how, in the large earthy mass, containing at least a cubic yard of soil, should we recover the atoms I had so much trouble to find in a handful of black soil from the heath? Moreover, such a laborious search would certainly detach ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... devised by the English colonists to keep down the native population of the island, and prevent it from becoming troublesome and dangerous. Such was the effect of the humane measures taken to preserve the glory of Protestant ascendency, and secure the rights and liberties of a handful ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... poems on sacred subjects in Castilian Alexandrines." According to the poem, the Spaniards, while combating the Moors, were overcome by "a terror of their foes," since "these were a numerous army, a little handful those." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... entered Edinburgh: but we know not if it be true or no. If so, he will surely push on straight for London, since the rebellious troops must have been driven quite away, before he could do that. So my Uncle Charles says; and he saith too, that they are a mere handful of raw German mercenaries, who would never stand a moment against the courage, the discipline, and the sense of right, which must animate the ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... of it, and preparing it for useful purposes. Monstrously defective as their farming was, still it was better than their neighbours'; for Mark had some practical knowledge of such matters, and Martin learned of him; whereas the other settlers who remained upon the putrid swamp (a mere handful, and those withered by disease), appeared to have wandered there with the idea that husbandry was the natural gift of all mankind. They helped each other after their own manner in these struggles, and in all others; but they ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... had returned in great numbers from Babylon. He assumed that Judah had been depopulated during the Babylonian exile, and that the only people left in Palestine were the heathen and the hated Samaritans. He also pictures the return of the exiles, not as that of a handful of courageous patriots, but of a vast company laden with rich gifts ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... loggia in front of the Foundling Hospital (Spedale degl' Innocenti), was selling efficacious pills, invented by a doctor of Salerno, warranted to prevent toothache and death by drowning; and not far off, against another pillar, a tumbler was showing off his tricks on a small platform; while a handful of 'prentices, despising the slack entertainment of guerilla stone-throwing, were having a private concentrated match of that favourite Florentine sport at the narrow entrance ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Deo is the god of the village land and boundaries, and is propitiated with a white goat. The Baigas who plough the fields have a ceremony called Bidri, which is performed before the breaking of the rains. A handful of each kind of grain sown is given by each cultivator to the priest, who mixes the grains together and sows a little beneath the tree where Thakur Deo lives. After this he returns a little to each cultivator, and he sows it in the centre of the land ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... the weapon in question for the performance of more than ought ever to be asked of it. Had the troops who attempted the charge been thoroughly disciplined and accustomed to the work, they could not have been checked by so small a number, and in five minutes more the little handful of riflemen would have been riddled with bayonets. On the other hand, nothing but the confidence inspired by the consciousness of the power they wielded could have enabled such a handful to hold their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... and boil until thick, stirring constantly. Take from the fire, and add the yolks of four eggs beaten [Page 126] smooth with the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoonful of butter, and a grating of nutmeg. Add the parboiled oysters, and a handful of button mushrooms. Reheat, pour over ...
— How to Cook Fish • Olive Green
... away, dog!" cried Mr. Brown, and, stooping, he gathered up a handful of snow from a corner of the side porch and threw it at the barking ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... with the daylight to help him, he extended his search and found a few spoonfuls of tea in a glass preserve jar, a handful of moldy potatoes in a gunny-sack and in a shed back of the kitchen a pile of cut wood. He breakfasted royally, finishing the remains of the cherries, built the fire up high and hot, and ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... tempest of the Reformation a handful of the sternest rebels were cast upon the bleak New England coast, and the fervor of that devotion which led them into the wilderness inspired them with the dream of reproducing the institutions of God's chosen people, a picture of which they believed was divinely preserved for their guidance ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... other good men, and have the church consecrated to the honour and glory of the holy King Olaf; and thereupon the Varings rushed into the plain. When the heathens saw them, they told their king that there was another troop of the Greek king's army come out upon the plain; but they were only a handful of people. The king says, "Who is that venerable man riding on a white horse at the head of the troop?" They replied, "We do not see him." There was so great a difference of numbers, that there were sixty heathens for every Christian man; but notwithstanding the Varings went boldly to the attack. ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... Bunny was given a handful of flat buttons of different sizes and colors to use for change. He placed them in his cash box. Sue also had other buttons to use as money in ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... are somewhat novel to a stranger. That a mere handful of men should be so near your city, and yet so isolated: that this village of a few hundred only, should retain its customs and language, intact, for generation after generation, within walking distance of Halifax, seems to me unaccountable. ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... a volley at 700 yards, and in their insane formation every bullet was almost sure to find two billets. The other companies kept advancing very slowly, using their dead comrades as cover, but they had absolutely no chance.... Yet what a pitiful handful we were against ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... who loved her dearly, thought to himself, 'Come! rather than let your wife die you shall fetch her some rampion, no matter the cost.' So at dusk he climbed over the wall into the witch's garden, and, hastily gathering a handful of rampion leaves, he returned with them to his wife. She made them into a salad, which tasted so good that her longing for the forbidden food was greater than ever. If she were to know any peace of mind, there was nothing for it but that her husband should climb over the garden ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... something, solaced himself with a cigarette, then squatted and joined the others in their frugal breakfast of coffee and chibeh—a handful of farinha mixed with water in a gourd. When it was finished McKay, who never smoked in the morning until he had eaten, filled a pipe ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... goody in the eyes of Sirenwood; and besides, she was reading some contemporary literature, which made it plain that any religious instruction was a most unjustifiable interference with the great law, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and so, when she met Anne with a handful of texts neatly written out in printing ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their trenches, your father led on his men, over the works, with too much eagerness, and was not supported for a time, as the enemy sprung a mine and made the ditch impassable, killing and wounding a great many of the advancing column. Bravely did he and his handful of Scots stand their ground, surrounded and overwhelmed by numbers; but they were dropping fast, for they fought hand to hand, and they were so pressed by the enemy, and hemmed in, that they could not fire, for ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... the letter which Joam gave him, and a handful of reis was the price of the commission he ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... left the others far behind. "We really ought to wait for the girls," said Nyoda, coming to a halt when she discovered that they were so far in the lead, and seating herself on a stone fence she helped herself to the blackberries which grew against it, and held out a handful to Sahwah. Opposite them was an old, tumble-down house, weatherbeaten and bare of paint, its empty window sashes gaping like eyeless sockets. The girls had named it the "Haunted House," and wove many a tale of mystery about it. Beside it was an apple orchard, its trees dying of old age, and under ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... he entered. Every day it was heavy, but to-day it was light. Every day its handle was short, but to-day long. Every day it was green gold; to-day red." The words of Rabbi Menachem. "Every day he offered half a pound in the morning, and half a pound in the evening, but to-day he added his handful. Every day it was fine; but to-day the finest of ...
— Hebrew Literature
... The rattle of stones diminished, then stopped. Webber continued to make his hooting call. Presently it was answered. Webber turned and nodded at Paula, smiling. He reached into the plastic container and drew forth a handful of brownish objects that smelled to Kieran like dried fruit. Webber tossed these out onto the sand. Now he made a different sound, a grunting and whuffling. There was a silence. Webber made the ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... have a handful of dried pease,' said the clown, who with his ass's head had got an ass's appetite. 'But, I pray, let none of your people disturb me, for I have ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... his axe and cut a few sticks from the root, then used his knife to make a sliver-fuzz of each; one piece, so resinous that it would not whittle, he smashed with the back of the axe into a lot of matchwood. With a handful of finely shredded birch bark he was now quite ready. A crack of the flint a blowing of the spark caught on the tinder from the box, a little flame that at once was magnified by the birch bark, and in a minute the pine splinters made a sputtering fire. Quonab ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... eight or ten-pound turkey cut the brown crust from slices of stale bread until you have as much as the inside of a pound loaf. Put into a suitable dish and pour tepid water over it; take up a handful at the time and squeeze it hard and dry with both hands, placing it as you go along in another dish; now when all is pressed dry, toss it all up lightly through your fingers; now add pepper and salt—about a tablespoonful—also powdered summer ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... refer only to England, but the same essential democracy of the Bible came to America and founded the new nation. It was a handful of Puritans turned Pilgrims who set out in the Mayflower to give their Bible ideas free field. In a dozen years (1628-40), under Laud's persecution, twenty thousand Englishmen fled to join those Pilgrims. And how ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... of the Proper Place until he found this toy gun. From the sack in his father's closet—forbidden—he deliberately abstracted a handful of bird-shot. Retiring to the woodshed, he set the spring in the gun, poured in what he considered to be about the proper quantity of shot, and solemnly discharged it at the high fence. The leaden pellets sprayed out and spattered harmlessly against the boards. Thrice Bobby ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... with great spirit. The French troops swept down upon them like an avalanche. For an instant they looked behind, but, finding no hope of escape in that direction, each man of them suddenly grasped up a handful of mud, and, dashing it over his nostrils, shouted "Death, to the garlic-eaters!" and rushed against the enemy with indescribable ferocity. Never before were such prodigies of valor performed on the field of battle. The French went down like stricken ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... wretch who was to get the land following like a slave behind his master. No, a thousand times, no! First let the fields sink into the depths of the earth and bury them all! Who was this intruder that he should have any right to his land? Had he brought from his own country a single handful of that soil? Had he crooked a single one of his fingers to pull up the roots ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... tongue:—"What man reposes buried under this stone? What hollow voice issues from this tomb? What is this sepulchre, from whence will spring the happiness of Greece? But what am I saying? Is it not the tomb of Marco Botzaris, who has been dead some months, and who, with a handful of brave men, precipitated himself upon the numerous ranks of the most formidable enemies of Greece? How dare I approach the sacred place where he reposes—I, who neither possess his heroism nor his virtues? However, in touching this tomb, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... bomb, at Nicky, at Nuddle, then at Mamise. Life was sweet here on this high steel crag, with the cheers of the crowds about the stands coming faintly up on the delicious breeze. He knew explosives. He had seen them work. He could see what that handful of lightning in Nicky's grasp would do to this ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... drawn. The best thing to say then, is 'See here, get this cork out without breaking the bottle. Take care!' Thereupon the Indian goes and fixes it as well as he can. Once I asked an old woman for some fire to light my cigar. There were many live coals on the ground remaining from a fire. She took a handful of earth in her palm, and atop of that placed a coal which she presented to me. In this way they do things that at times show sufficient ingenuity and skill, especially with bamboo and rattan. General Alava declared that their brains were in their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... Juliana, as she stopped to inhale the rich fragrance. "Moss roses! I do delight in them," twisting off a rich cluster of flowers and buds in token of her affection; "and I quite doat upon heliotrope," gathering a handful of flowers as she spoke. Then extending her hand towards a most luxuriant ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... I love and whom the MacDaniels will know) and myself stood by him and closed his eyes. He was without immediate friends, except a connection by marriage who has recently arrived, and who was with him at the last. I was glad that I was here to be with him and lay him decently in his coffin. The handful of Americans in Rome followed him last evening at dusk, close by twilight, and buried him in the Protestant graveyard, near the grave of Shelley's ashes and heart. The roses were in full blossom, as Shelley says ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... that the police hold it necessary to follow him with an escort that he may not be shot by his people. To avoid being so followed, Tyrrell keeps within doors and so intensifies his malady. The catastrophe comes when, on his boy's first spring search for wild flowers, the child brings him a handful of heather buds from the heather field. Their message is that the mountain will revert to waste again. Even in his "ideal domain" reality has asserted itself. His ideal world crumbles for the instant, and his reason with it, and forever. ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... cold water for an hour before using. It is hardly possible to give exact directions for making this blancmange, owing to the difficulty of accurately measuring the moss, but in general, a small handful will be ample for a quart of milk. Add the moss, when washed, to the milk, and cook in a double boiler until the milk has become thickened and glutinous. Add sugar to sweeten, flavor with vanilla or rose water, and strain ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... great varieties of usage—bending it round his back, forming an arch of it between his two hands, overweighting it on the ground till it reached nearly a semicircle; or perhaps it was hastily tucked under the arm whilst the sample-bag was pulled forth and a handful of corn poured into the palm, which, after criticism, was flung upon the floor, an issue of events perfectly well known to half-a-dozen acute town-bred fowls which had as usual crept into the building unobserved, and waited ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... out on her lap, as she spoke. "See! isn't there a quantity? I like moss 'cause it fills up. Violets are pretty enough, only you do have to pick 'em one at a time. Innocence comes up by the handful,—only mine's most ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... quickly toward him. He tapped Joel's knee. "We'll work up that way," he said quietly. "When we come to the island, you and I go ashore, and get them where they're hid beneath the rock; and we come back aboard with no one any wiser.... Rich. A double handful ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with a monogram that might have been either "B.K." or "B.L." On the third finger of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled cobra, much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of trifles he had picked out of the burrow at my feet, and, covering the face of the body with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I give the full list in the hope that it may lead to the identification of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... warned him that he should give his frenzy pause for counsel, that blind plans were commonly hurtful; that nothing could be done both cautiously and quickly at once; that headstrong efforts were the worst obstacle; and lastly, that it was unseemly to attack a handful with a host. Also, said he, the sagacious man was he who could bridle a raging spirit, and stop his frantic empetuosity in time. Thus the king forced the headlong rage of the young man to yield to reflection. But he could not wholly recall to self-control ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... not get far, for a foot send him sprawling, and by the time he was again on his feet four masked cadets had him by the hands and arms, so that he could not get away. He started to yell when of a sudden somebody threw a handful of dry flour into his wide ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... He caught the fellow at the office desk. In a corner the fellow had thrown a pile of shavings and saturated it with oil. As he ran away he threw a handful of lighted matches into the ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... for those painters who possess the power of giving to the low a force almost approaching to grandeur, and of augmenting the terrible by a mixture of the ludicrous. The sordid chamber, the damp walls, the high window, in which a handful of discoloured paper supplied the absence of many a pane; the single table of rough oak, the rush-bottomed and broken chair, the hearth unconscious of a fire, over which a mean bust of Milton held its tutelary sway; while the dull rushlight streamed ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... captain in the navy commanded. Before this settlement, called Port Egmont, there suddenly appeared, in June, 1770, a Spanish expedition, fitted out in Buenos Ayres, of five frigates and sixteen hundred soldiers. To such a force the handful of Englishmen could make no serious resistance; so after a few shots, exchanged for the honor of ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... an assumed lightness. "My dear, everyone in this instance only means the handful of people who live in this out-of-the-way village. Your name will not appear in the papers. And even if by chance it does, you will soon be changing it for mine. I think the best thing that can be done is for you to come with me to London next week and marry me. Then we can go to the ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... From Monsieur le Maire to cobbler and blacksmith, all were working very hard. A little ball that could be covered in one's fist is thrown out on the common by the winner of the last game. The players line up, each with a handful of larger wooden balls about the size and weight of those that are used in croquet. You try to roll or throw your balls near the little one that serves as goal. Simple, you exclaim. Yes, but not so simple as golf. For the hazard of the ground ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... little more like what other people's houses looked inside. The old crone did not like this either. She scowled, and was very cross, but the Master-maid did not trouble herself about that. She took out her chest of gold, and flung a handful of it or so into the fire, and the gold boiled up and poured out over the whole of the hut, until every part of it both inside and out was gilded. But when the gold began to bubble up the old hag grew so terrified that she fled as if the Evil One himself were pursuing ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... of the fatal plateau, pouring into our men a deadly fire, as they advance,—while over to our right and rear, at the same moment, are seen the fresh regiments of Early's Brigade coming out of the woods—deploying rapidly in several lines—with Stuart's handful of Rebel Cavalry, while Beckham's guns, in the same quarter, open an oblique enfilading reverse fire upon us, in a ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... his wife, who held toward him a handful of trailing arbutus, rue anemones, bloodroot, and dicentras. "I didn't know they were so pretty before," ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... tried to keep trim. Still, on the whole, Binks, harassed as he was by the dogs, was apt to thank his stars that Splutters and Shutters were not actually boys; such boys, for instance, as those of the captain at the Bunk across the bay, who were a sore handful, as any one could see for themselves, without the prompt testimony of ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... warriors?" he began, upon a pretty high key. "I call ye squaws! There is not a man among ye. Dogs would be the best name. You are poor Injins. A long time ago, the pale- faces came here in two or three little canoes. They were but a handful, and you were plentier than prairie wolves. Your bark could be heard throughout the land. Well, what did this handful of pale- faces? It drove your fathers before them, until they got all the best of the hunting-grounds. Not an Injin of you all, now, ever get down on the shores of the great salt ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper |
