"Knot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tapering legs, but these sometimes have the flutings spiral instead of perpendicular, and the backs are either oval or rectangular, and ornamented with a carved riband which is represented as tied at the top in a lover's knot. Gobelins, Beauvais, and Aubusson tapestry are used for covering, the subjects being in harmony with the taste of the time. A sofa in this style, with settees at the ends, the frame elaborately carved with trophies of arrows ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... and daffodils ever since Christmas. I have lots of pets. We have nine cats. One is fourteen years old. And we have a shepherd dog that has a great deal of sense. I have three white hens—one top-knot, one plain, and one with pantalets. I have a chicken grave-yard, and we have funerals. The red and blue birds, wrens, jays, and woodpeckers, staid with us all winter. I found a nest of hatched partridge eggs, and the large ends were all picked round even, and opened ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... obliged," said she, her eye flashing quickly about the room before settling down upon the knot he ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... considered her image carefully when, lo and behold! the crystal was bright and clean as virgin silver and when he eyed her semblance in the glass he saw it pure as a white dove's. THen sent he forthright for the Kazi and witnesses and they knotted the knot and wrote the writ and the bride was duly throned. Presently the Prince took the Wazir his father-in-law into his own mansion, and to the young lady he sent a present of costly jewels and it was ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... A dangerous meaning in your riddle lurks. One knot is yet unsolved; that told, this strange And most mysterious drama ends. The name ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... tunics, with various embroideries and different coloured edgings, and armed with the usual pierced and gold-inlaid swords. To judge from the dignity of their appearance, they seemed one and all to be individuals of very great importance. Behind each of these great men stood a small knot of followers and attendants. ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... caution's voice, Ere de marriage knot you tie; It is [the devil],(25) mit shrews to splice, Dat nobody can deny, deny, Dat nobody ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... of the glade was a clump of bamboos. Dermot selected the biggest stem and hacked it down with his kukri. From the thicker end he cut off a length from immediately below a knot to about a foot above it, trimmed the edges and brought it to Noreen. It made a beautifully clean and polished pot, pale green ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... he was a piper's son, He learned to play when he was young, And all the tune that he could play Was, "Over the hills and far away," Over the hills, and a great way off, The wind will blow my top-knot off. ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... indignant denial, the crestfallen man exclaimed, "Well, Lor', lady, I made sure you did, you're so yaller complected" (I had shortly before recovered from an attack of jaundice). Now, it chanced that Peter, knowing my fondness for a pine-knot fire, had collected a quantity of knots, which he just then brought in, and, hearing the uncomplimentary remark of my soldier-friend, turned upon him with the utmost fury, and such a tirade of abuse as followed baffles alike my power to recall the words or to describe the rage which prompted ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... around an angle of the stone wall, and told him that the horse was gone. He was disconcerted, but not abased; maintaining that it was a new kind of knot that couldn't slip and that the horse must have chewed the halter through! He was less enthusiastic than I had ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... not greatly accustomed to having his rather fiery top-knot thus openly referred to in tones of evident admiration. It was a subject he naturally felt somewhat sensitive about, and in spite of the open honesty of the young girl's face, he could not help doubting for a moment ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... boys in the water looking on, and his courage rose; for Mealy was in the primary department of life, and had not yet learned that one must fight alone. He answered, "I did," with an emphasis on the "I," as he tugged at the last knot. The new boy had been looking Mealy over, and he replied quickly, ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... school, those whose rhetoric bloomed perennial in First Readers from which her grandfather's prose had long since faded. Amid that clamor of far-off enthusiasms she detected no controversial note. The little knot of Olympians held their views in common with an early-Christian promiscuity. They were continually proclaiming their admiration for each other, the public joining as chorus in this guileless antiphon of praise; and she discovered no traitor in ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... who cut the Gordian knot, and made one of his welcome disappearances, which lasted until David was ready to start in college. His savings, that he had accumulated by field work in the summers and a very successful poultry business for six years, netted ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... a window, or walking in a garden, or passing through the streets, or sauntering in any quiet place about the town, you will hear this game in progress in a score of wine- shops at once; and looking over any vineyard walk, or turning almost any corner, will come upon a knot of players in full cry. It is observable that most men have a propensity to throw out some particular number oftener than another; and the vigilance with which two sharp-eyed players will mutually endeavour to detect this weakness, and adapt their game to it, is very ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... that this Cryptosporella is related to the black knot of the plum is an interesting feature; and that it attacks the growing canes during the growing season and fruit during the fall and winter. He suggests the treatment of removing all the infected branches during the fall and winter. I would add to that, complete eradication ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... entreaty in her manner, and before their owner had time to refuse or comply, the scorched hands were taken possession of, the red blisters covered with a cool bandage, and the frown of pain smoothed out of Warwick's forehead by the prospect of relief. As she tied the last knot, Sylvia glanced up with a look that mutely asked pardon for past waywardness, and expressed gratitude for past help; then, as if her heart were set at rest, she was gone before her ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... on their elbows, began to make splashing movements, by way of casting off the clammy infernal covering that weighed them down. The paralysis of cold was passing away from the knot of sufferers, though the light no longer made any progress over the great irregular marsh of the lower plain. The desolation proceeded, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... the Christmas carol, and their ample boards groaned under the weight of hospitality. Even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season with green decorations of bay and holly—the cheerful fire glanced its rays through the lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the latch, and join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth, beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... was too good a soldier to force a sentry, and rode off therefore to the Guides' camp to lay the matter before the commanding officer. The rest was naturally all cordiality and good feeling, and an invitation to lunch; while the Guides' subaltern galloped off and cut the Gordian knot. ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... was arranged to take place within a week of Captain Paget's expressly declared wish. It was to be solemnised at a church near Knightsbridge, and again at a Catholic chapel in the neighbourhood of Sloane-street; by which double ceremonial a knot would be tied that no legal quibble could hereafter loosen. Charlotte was just sufficiently recovered to obtain permission to be present at the ceremonial, after some little exercise of her persuasive powers with the medical practitioner to whose care Dr. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... two sheaves of water flying upward in silver dust, then a great stone bridge, and at the further end a square building with statues in front of it, and an iron gateway where carriages were standing, people passing through and a knot of police officers. That was the place. She made her way bravely through the crowd as far as a high ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... few moments later the courtly Winslow, armed cap-a-pie and carrying a haversack of gifts at his back, strode down the hill, and across the brook to a point where a knot of dusky warriors awaited him, and with them passed out of sight, leaving his comrades to an hour of ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... spear. And as he went there met him in the middle of the wood his mother, but habited as a Spartan virgin, for she had hung a bow from her shoulders after the fashion of a huntress, and her hair was loose, and her tunic short to the knees, and her garments gathered in a knot upon her breast. Then first the false huntress spake: "If perchance ye have seen one of my sisters wandering hereabouts, make known to me the place. She is girded with a quiver, and is clothed with the skin of a spotted lynx, or, maybe, she hunts a wild boar with horn ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... His love and compassion for all that err and all that offend, how many difficulties, both within and without us, would they relieve! How many depressed minds should we console! How many troubles in society should we compose! How many enmities soften! How many a knot of mystery and misunderstanding would be untied by a single word, spoken in simple and confiding truth! How many a rough path would be made smooth, and how many a crooked path be made straight! Very many places, now solitary, would be made glad; very ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... a measure is desirable in any event, it is especially desirable at this time, in view of the fact that our present governmental contract for ocean mail with the American Line will expire in 1905. Our ocean mail act was passed in 1891. In 1895 our 20-knot transatlantic mail line was equal to any foreign line. Since then the Germans have put on 23-knot, steamers, and the British have contracted for 24-knot steamers. Our service should equal the best. If it does not, the commercial public ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... North, but are not of greater width than Coventry Street, or St. Martin's Lane; and, being unlighted by gas, it is difficult at night, should it prove rainy and dark, to keep out of the gutters. At the point where four streets meet, you may generally observe a well, and around this well a knot of idlers, men and women, congregate and gossip, leaning against its palings; but the respectable portion of the inhabitants are never to be found in the streets, although they may be seen, on summer evenings, walking on the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... before the ball that beat him, All ends up, went down to meet him, Tie him up in a knot, defeat him Once and for ever, He told his mates that he wished, when hoary Time put an end to his famous story, To trudge with his old brown ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... been long or short, it was perhaps minutes, perhaps only seconds, ere he awoke to find himself observed, and saw the captain sitting up and watching him over the break of the poop, a strange blindness as of fever in his eyes, a haggard knot of corrugations on his brow. Cain saw himself in a mirror. For a flash they looked upon each other, and then glanced guiltily aside; and Carthew fled from the eye of his accomplice, and ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... this herself, and evidently enjoyed her triumph with a frank and girlish pleasure. She had conquered her audience before opening her lips. She is of rather tall stature, a figure slight but perfectly modeled, her well-shaped head dressed Greek fashion with the simple knot behind, her arms, which the Greek costume displayed to the shoulder, long, white, and of a roundness seldom attained so early in life, her walk and all her attitudes consummately graceful and expressive. A more general form of disparagement is that which pretends to account for all Miss ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... that ill-kept, ill-smelling garden. Handbills and ribbon streamers of every hue flaunted gaily among the leaves; natural flowers competed unsuccessfully for an existence with odds and ends of millinery. You discovered a knot of ribbon adorning a green tuft; the dahlia admired afar proved on a nearer view to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Eagle Feather. "Done last night when all dark. Indians at corn dance and maybe sleepy. No hear some one come up soft to Eagle Feather's barn and take out horse. Have to cut rope 'cause Indian tie knot white man find too much hard to ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope
... dear; so glad. If only you'll always feel like that about me..." She stopped, hardly knowing what she said, and aghast at the idea that her own hands should have retied the knot she imagined to be broken. But she saw he had something more to say; something hard to get out, but absolutely necessary to express. He caught her hands, pulled her close, and, with his forehead drawn into its whimsical smiling wrinkles, "Look ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... and her deep eyes are filled with a curious, deprecating light. A broad black ribbon is fastened about her waist, and a knot at her throat. She looks so small, so lovely, that he gathers her in ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... knot of servants were gossiping in frightened whispers with a couple of large, rather bovine country constables who, bareheaded, without their helmets, which they held under ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... car to a stop, and had thrown open the door, alighting on the crossing, while a little knot of curious people ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... moat where the victims of the night had been tossed unburied, had been dispersed by threat of arms; the sentinels nodded at their posts—scarce knowing whose power they were upholding, nor by what name men called their masters. Here and there throughout the city, a little knot of the graver burghers might be found lingering to discuss the situation in attitudes of helpless dejection, and scattering with their problems all unsolved. They were too insignificant to dread, and for the moment the ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... form or color is beyond art, true and beautiful, being fresh from God; there are countless purpled vines creeping out from the earth under that grass; the air trembles with the pure spring healing and light; the gray-barked old elms wrestle, and knot their roots underground, clutching down at the very thews and sinews of the earth, and overhead unfold their shivering delicate leaves fresh in the sunlight to catch the patter of the summer rain when it comes. It is sure to come. Winter and summer, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... his words and repeated these things for his own purposes, the Queen following behind. When they were come to the corridor-end, there he found, as he had thought, a knot of lords and gentlemen, babbling with their ears ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... mean," the young man said, with a thoughtful knot between his brows. "I'm not wanted myself, at present, in the short stories; but in the last dozen or so where I had an engagement I certainly didn't meet you; and it is pleasant to be paired off in a story with a heroine who has the ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... things glittering in the light of torches. He sprang behind the great table against the window and seized the heavy-leaden sandarach. The French scullions knew, tho' he had no French, that he would cleave one of their skulls, and they stood, a knot of seven—four men and three maids—in blue hoods, in the centre of ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... umpire, and a little knot of boys on the bank waved red banners and cheered delightedly. Then ball and bat came together and the runner was speeding toward first. But the hit had been weak and long before he reached the bag the ball was snuggling in ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... River and Moonlight were married—not after the simple Indian fashion, but with the assistance of a real pale-faced missionary, who was brought from a distance of nearly three hundred miles, from a pale-face pioneer settlement, for the express purpose of tying that knot along with several other knots of the same kind, and doing what in him lay to establish and strengthen the good work which ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... Shaddai was holy, and that his Son Emmanuel was holy; yea, he knew it by woeful experience; for, for his iniquity and sin was Diabolus cast from the highest orbs. Wherefore what more rational than for him to conclude, that thus for sin it might fare with Mansoul. But fearing also lest this knot should break, he bethinks himself of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... on, for each man is doing his best with soap, water, razor, brush, and garments, to make himself spruce. Salamander is there, before a circular looking-glass three inches in diameter in the lid of a soap-box, making a complicated mess of a neck-tie in futile attempts to produce the sailor's knot. Blondin is there, before a similar glass, carefully scraping the bristles round a frostbite on his chin with a blunt razor. Henri Coppet, having already dressed, is smoking his pipe and quizzing Marcelle Dumont—who is also shaving—one of his chief jokes being an ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... asked the Earl of Argyle to give him his daughter in marriage, in order that he might strengthen his alliance with the Ulster Scots. It is true that she had been already married to his rival, O'Donel; but that was a small difficulty in his way. The knot was tied, but he had no hesitation in cutting it with his sword. 'The countess' was well educated for her time. She was also a Protestant, and the government had hopes that her influence would ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... and surprised his intent gaze: she flushed slightly, the gloves were twisted into a knot, but her eyes were unwavering—they held an appeal to his understanding, his sympathy, not to be mistaken. It was evident that that gaze cost her an effort. She was, Gordon remembered, a diffident girl. His resentment evaporated.... He speculated upon her ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... gravestone shapes that meet My forward-straining view? Or forms that cross a window-blind In circle, knot, and queue: Gay forms, that cross and whirl and wind To ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... and lashed fast with rope-yarns. Pawing, clawing, blaspheming, he was conquered and bound, inch by inch, and drawn to where the inexorable shears lay like a pair of gigantic dividers on the snow. Red Bill adjusted the noose, placing the hangman's knot properly under the left ear. Mr. Taylor and Lawson tailed onto the running-guy, ready at the word to elevate the gallows. Bill lingered, contemplating his work with ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... and bent his bow, "Just watch this famous shot; See that old willow by the brook— I'll hit the middle knot." Swift flew the arrow through the air, Madge watched it eager-eyed; But, oh! for Harry's gallant vaunt, The wayward dart ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... what is done in this Terrestriall starre The same is done in every Orb beside. Each flaming Circle that we see from farre Is but a knot in Psyches garment tide. From that lax shadow cast throughout the wide And endlesse world, that low'st projection Of universall life each thing's deriv'd What e're appeareth in corporeall fashion; For body's but this spirit, fixt, grosse ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... strong in Shoal-water Bay, the rate seldom exceeding one knot; but they stir up the soft mud at the bottom., and make the water thick, as in Keppel Bay. I am not able to speak very accurately of the rise in the tide; but it may be reckoned at twelve or fourteen feet at the neaps, and from ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... you can see a dozen or twenty men being oiled and rubbed down by barbers or by friends, and a great deal of oil is used in the hair. After a man is grown he allows his hair to grow long and wears it in a knot at the back of his head. Some Hindus have an abundance of hair, of which they are very proud, and upon which they spend ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... it was time, for a knot of bats just then detached itself from the main body and flew full-face towards me. My shot caught the middle one on the snout, and as I swung the squirt to left and right, it disabled four or ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... lives, but not all escaped unhurt. The "spraggly" forms of two or three of those nearest to him showed dark against the moon-lit sky before they limped off, and, joining their fellows, gathered in a little knot at a distance from their fractious pupil, and discussed his merits with great freedom. They voted him an ill-natured brute, a stupid dolt—in short, a perfect donkey. Scarcely had they arrived at this unanimous conclusion, when—pop! pop! bang! bang!—four loud reports, and four little ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... further prospect, than of present popularity and present profit. When his plays had been acted, his hope was at an end; he solicited no addition of honour from the reader. He therefore made no scruple to repeat the same jests in many dialogues, or to entangle different plots by the same knot of perplexity, which may be at least forgiven him, by those who recollect, that of Congreve's four comedies, two are concluded by a marriage in a mask, by a deception, which perhaps never happened, and which, whether likely or not, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... cute little thing, you! See, my mouth's the same way, too. Feels like a knot. Gee! you cute little thing, you—all ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... arguing. I was too lazy to go and explain the matter, and writing was not my forte. Besides, I didn't want to thwart my mother in her plans, or hurt her feelings; and so the long and the short of it is, I solved the difficulty and cut the knot by crossing quietly over to Norway. I wrote a short note to my mother, making no allusion to her project, and since then I've been gradually working my way down to the bottom of the map of Europe, and here ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... the dreamer explained to him his sad and mournful fate, and why he had come there forsooth, under the impulse of a dream, he had set out thither, and was expecting God as if by a wonder, to unravel this more than Gordian knot. The mendicant answered "Good Heaven! are you so mad and foolish as to rely on a dream, which is emptier than nothing, and journey hither? I should betake myself to Dort, to dig up a treasure buried under such a tree in such a man's garden (now this garden had belonged to the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... knot of people there was, in a hotel parlor; and while the blooming Miranda, now Mrs. Morris, was taking her share of talk very well with the ladies, Ham was every bit as busy with a couple ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... is suicidal. There will be high speed boats for use as transports and a wise government will assist steamship companies in paying for them, as the English Government is now doing in the cases of the Lusitania and Mauretania, twenty-five knot boats; but no steamship company will put them out ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... to make this Irish question a Gordian-knot which no man can untie, and but few would dare to cut. The past extravagance of the landlords, absenteeism, rack-renting, injustice of all kinds; the past jealousy of England and her over-shadowing ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... command.' 'Cousin,' said the king, 'drink we to our good friends the Huguenots.' 'It is well said, sir,' answered the duke. 'And to our good barricaders,' said the king; 'let us not forget them.' Whereupon the duke began to laugh a little," adds L'Estoile, "but a sort of laugh that did not go beyond the knot of the throat, being dissatisfied at the novel union the king was pleased to make of the Huguenots with the barricaders." What must have to some extent reassured the Duke of Guise was, that a Te Deum was celebrated at Notre-Dame for the King of Navarre's exclusion from all right to the crown, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... it is forbidden by reliable testimony. The characteristic of Marcion's teaching is just this, that as soon as we seek to raise his ideas from the sphere of practical considerations to that of a consistent theory, we come upon a tangled knot of contradictions. The theoretic contradictions are explained by the different interests which here cross each other in Marcion. In the first place, he was consciously dependent on the Pauline theology, and was resolved ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... position. On either side of the path we continually passed pieces of rubber vine cut into lengths of some two feet or so, and on the top one or two leaves plaited together, or a piece of bush rope tied into a knot, which indicated whose property ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... fact of so many treacherous ledges and reefs to be navigated safely in a four-knot tide that was agitating the half-dozen "guests" at Mis' Shannon's boarding-house. It need hardly be said that Mis' Shannon was a widow, but her distinction lay in being called mis' instead ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... care was to knot his end of the rope swiftly around Grace's body, above the waist, adjusting the coils so that considerable of the strain would come under the shoulders, where it ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... the mud is too deep for teams, farmers go by on horseback, with their horses' tails tied into a knot to keep them out of the mud. They have come to town to learn the price of wheat, corn or hogs, to bargain for some article of farm use, or perhaps to pay the interest on their mortgages. Many of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... this mad uproar. A party of worshippers, in the first place, rebelled against it; these had been standing with veiled heads, near the statue of Serapis, muttering exorcisms after a Magian and howling lamentably at intervals; then a preacher, who had succeeded in collecting a little knot of listeners, bid the trumpeters cease; and finally, a party of actors and singers, who had assembled in the outer hall to perform a satira play, tried to stop them, though they themselves were making such ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had other things to think about, and had already dismissed the little incident from my mind, when at the bottom of the Rue Blanche I came upon a knot of gaffers, men and women, who were talking and gesticulating very excitedly outside the door of a cook-shop. At first I did not take much notice of what was said: my eyes were glued to the front of the shop, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... for a nose and two cairn-gorms[14] for eyes. To the human observer, he is decidedly well-looking; but to the ladies of his race he seems abhorrent. A thorough elaborate gentleman, of the plume and sword-knot order, he was born with the nice sense of gallantry to women. He took at their hands the most outrageous treatment; I have heard him bleating like a sheep, I have seen him streaming blood, and his ear tattered like a regimental banner; and yet he would scorn ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this, I gently let my left hand glide down the rock and bring up the sash on that side. This I placed in my mouth, gently changed hands and hauled up the right end of the sash, then, after many attempts, with my mouth and right hand I managed to tie a knot in it so as to form the sash into a short endless band. This I dropped down, and putting my foot in the loop, had a somewhat ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... the usual amount of bad talk on both sides, and we were pleased to see our man slowly get the better of the New York plug-ugly. After several sharp rounds they closed, and still Payne was ahead, but in an evil moment he spied a pine knot at his feet, which he thought he could reach, and end the fight by cracking Donnelly's head with it. Donnelly took instant advantage of the movement to get it, threw Payne heavily, and fell upon him. His crowd rushed in to finish our man by clubbing him over the head. We sailed in ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... not say the right thing to them we are all done for,' said the Russian at my elbow. The knot of men with the stretcher had stopped too, half-way to the steamer, as if petrified. I saw the man on the stretcher sit up, lank and with an uplifted arm, above the shoulders of the bearers. 'Let us hope that the man who can talk so well of love in general will find some particular reason ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... slowly, and at each little shock I felt that the four hands holding me above had come to a knot. I tried to remember the number of knots, for it seemed to me that ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... supper. Then Skrymer fell asleep and snored tremendously. When Thor took the provision-sack and was to open it, then happened what seems incredible, but still it must be told,—that he could not get one knot loosened, nor could he stir a single end of the strings so that it was looser than before. When he saw that all his efforts were in vain he became wroth, seized his hammer Mjolner with both his hands, stepped ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... you would don your black jacket and brown trousers, knot your gayest kerchief around your neck, and with your guitar in hand you would hasten forth to enjoy the fun that prevails in every street of every town in Spain on Christmas Eve, or, as it is known ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... been so much captivated with the manner of Florence as he had been struck with her beauty, and now, seeing her apparently engaged with another, he rose and quietly moved away. He was soon one of a knot of men who were conversing on the absorbing topics of the day; and as by degrees the exciting subject brought out his natural eloquence and masculine sense, the talkers became listeners, the knot widened into a circle, and he himself was unconsciously ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... first to notice it, and tearing out a handkerchief which was up her sleeve, she rolled it into a bandage roughly, whirled over to Diavolo, and tied it round his head, covering his right eye, and leaving a great knot and two long ends sticking up like rabbit's ears amongst his fair hair, and a pointed flap hanging down ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... into a naughty little knot. There were awkward corners to be negotiated in these questions. She avoided them by boldly striking for ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... more words she might say before the time she allowed herself had expired, and she found courage to go on, striving to explain to the shifting knot of people that the battle which now threatened civilisation was the terrible and final fight between Order and Disorder and that, under inexorable laws which could never change, order meant life and survival; disorder chaos and ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... arrangement, but it presents the curious anomaly of a poor peasant living in a one-story house with a three-story wife. According to the prevailing style of architecture in well-wooded countries, these women ought to wear their hair shingled; but they generally tie it up in a knot behind, or cover it with a fancy-colored handkerchief, on the presumption, I suppose, that they look less barbarous in that way than they would with shingled heads. You may suspect me of story-telling, but upon my word I think three-story women are extravagant enough without adding ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... am coming with a train," said the darning-needle, drawing a long thread after her; but there was no knot ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Bower, With it's peacock hedges of yew, One could never find the flower Unless one was given the clue; So take the key of the wicket, Who would follow my fancy free, By formal knot and clipt thicket, And smooth greensward so fair ...
— A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden • Walter Crane
... were too lazy to search for knots, split the wood into small sticks, each about the size of a goose quill, and, standing three or four in a vessel filled with sand, gained as much in the way of light as might be had from one pine knot. ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... comrade with an air of satisfaction. He later produced an extensive handkerchief from his pocket. He folded it into a manner of bandage and soused water from the other canteen upon the middle of it. This crude arrangement he bound over the youth's head, tying the ends in a queer knot at the back ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... She has turned quickly in speaking, her hand clutching a little knot of bell buttons hanging by a chain at the front of her dress. She has turned just in time to catch a warning glance in Uncle Jack's twinkling eyes, and to see a grim smile lurking under the gray moustache of the gentleman with the Loyal Legion button who is leading away the tall young ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... confession very prettily and simply, and, with quaint, childish earnestness, drew the sketch-book away close to her own side of the table. Miss Halcombe cut the knot of the little embarrassment forthwith, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... that he had. He treated me now confessedly as a cipher. The prince, the princess, my grandfather, and me—he had gathered us together, he said. I heard from him that the prince, assisted by him in the part of an adviser, saw no way of cutting the knot but by a marriage. All were at hand for a settlement of the terms:—Providence and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the sunny room, her pretty dimpled arms bared to above the elbow, her lovely cheeks (because of much stooping over the fire) brighter even than the roses after which she had been named, her golden hair done up in a trig, tight knot (as Aunt Hedwig had taught her was the proper way for hair to be arranged while cooking was going on), and over her tidy print gown a great white apron, fashioned in an ancient German shape, as ...
— An Idyl Of The East Side - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... was not all; a whitish haze cleared up; to the northward there was a spanking felucca, with her long lanteen sails brailed up, and sweeping about in the very centre of a knot of dull sailing merchant vessels, four of which, by their altered courses, had evidently been taken possession of. Reversing the good old adage, first come first served, we turned our attention to the last appearance. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... The last line alludes to a charming custom of which mention is made in the most ancient Japanese literature. Lovers, ere parting, were wont to tie each other's inner girdle (himo) and pledge themselves to leave the knot untouched until the time of their next meeting. This poem is said to have been composed in the seventh year of Y[o]r[o],—A.D. 723,—eleven hundred ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... usury? A. 1. It dissolveth the knot and fellowship of mankind. 2. It hardeneth man's heart. 3. It maketh men unnaturall, and bereaveth them of charity, and love to their dearest friends. 4. It breedeth misery and provoketh the wrath of God from heaven. 5. It consumeth rich men, it eateth up the poore, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... and graceful. She wore that morning a short gray-velvet coat over white linen. Her thick brown hair was gathered into a low knot and her fine white skin had a touch of artificial color. Her eyes were a clear blue. She was really very lovely, but I felt that the gray coat deadened her—that if she had not worn it she would not have needed that touch of ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... defence of Iyeyasu's head. The victory won, he called for his helmet, which he put on, carefully tying the strings. As all looked on with surprise at this strange action, he, with a smile, repeated to them an old Japanese proverb, "After victory, knot the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot: he sees it, and bends to ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... skirts of her dress looped up with convolvulus flowers—the one with her hair fastened in a sort of Venus knot behind; she has just been dancing with that perfumed piece of a man they call Mr. Ladywell—it is he with the high eyebrows arched like a girl's.' He added, with a wrinkled smile, 'I cannot for my life see anybody answering ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... to an end as he arrived, and, after they had seated their partners, red-faced perspiring young punchers swelled the knot around the door. ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... themselves. Untruth became Truth. A large part of what was once my old world was again mine. To me, at last my mind seemed to have found itself, for the gigantic web of false beliefs in which it had been all but hopelessly enmeshed I now immediately recognized as a snare of delusions. That the Gordian knot of mental torture should be cut and swept away by the mere glance of a willing eye is like a miracle. Not a few patients, however, suffering from certain forms of mental disorder, regain a high degree ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... me for at least five minutes. Impatience began to master me, when he appeared, laughing, and flourishing a knot of red ribbon, which I had observed ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke |
