"Nail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... plan. Then Ducks have wide flat beaks of various shapes, with a sort of nail bent over like a hook at the end, and all along each side is a double row of little teeth, to help them take their food. Their stiff, pointed wings are quite strong enough to lift their heavy bodies off the ground or water into the air, and keep up an even flight, ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... dear boy," said Captain Scraggs admiringly. "I apologize for my actions of a few minutes ago. I was unstrung. You're still mate o' th' American steamer Maggie, an' as such, welcome to th' ship. All I ask is that you nail up your property, Gib, an' remove it from th' dinin' room table. I want to remind you, however, Gib, that as shipmates me an' McGuffey don't stand for you shoulderin' any loss on them two cases o'—Oriental goods. We was t' share th' gains, if any, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... and baskets under the bed. If the lodgers had any underwear they could make use of these, but as Perrine had only what she was wearing, the nail at the head of the ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... though a few of them are just little thumb-nail icon-sized images placed at the ends of chapters. The rest are quite nice images, though shown here at only 30% of each linear dimension of those we found in our ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... other, through the portholes, as he sped, he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flack, busying themselves on deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all this; as he heard the hammers in the broken boats! far other hammers seemed driving a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the vane or flag was gone from the mainmast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... boar, rolls his eyes, gnashes his teeth, and rushes on his antagonist with the fury of a beast of prey. In the winter of 1840, a quarrel arose between two individuals about the sex, which led to a fight; the struggle was continued for a time with tooth and nail; when one of the parties at length got hold of his knife, and stabbed his adversary in the belly. The bowels protruded, yet the wounded man never desisted, until loss of blood and repeated stabs compelled him to yield the contest and his life. Gallantry seems to be the main cause of quarrels ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... He related how it screamed, how it followed him in the brush, how he took to his boat, how its eyes gleamed from the shore, and how he fired his rifle at them with fatal effect. His wife in the mean time took something from a drawer, and, as her husband finished his recital, she produced a toe-nail of the identical animal with marked ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... abstraction of blood from the part; and I thought, consequently, that if I could exhaust the blood from the extremity of a limb, the exhausted part might be operated upon without pain.... I tried the process on myself, and finding it succeed, the operation of removing the nail of the greta toe, was tried on a patient, quite painlessly, the patient looking on and feeling nothing. But the proceeding was too long and cumbersome to admit of introduction into practice generally, though it indicated an important principle ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... his rank and precedency to suffer any one else to lead the bride down the first dance; but she was not, I believe, much obliged to him for his politeness; it cost her the tail of her wedding-gown and a broken nail, and she continued lame during the remainder of the night. In making an apology to her for his want of dexterity, and assuring her that he was not so awkward in handling the enemies of his country in battle as in handling friends he esteemed ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... been stolen, Ben Grimes had borrowed an axe from him, on examining which afterwards he discovered that a small piece had been broken off on one side, and that Grimes acknowledged he had done it by striking a nail in a piece of wood he was chopping up. On hearing this the captain again summoned all hands aft, and ordered Andrews to bring his sugar cask. There in the head was found a piece of iron which exactly fitted the notch in the axe ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... only by a few rays filtered between the slats of the shutters, sat a young girl. Her hat was hung upon a nail above her head; one arm rested on a wretched white wood table; her head was bent forward in mournful resignation. On the other side of the table, her father was leaning back in his chair against the whitewashed wall, with folded arms, heightened color, and every sign of extreme disgust. ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... the very ones that I anticipated would go against it tooth and nail. And Mr. Glentworth—surely he ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... "Gary Motor," issue of March 8, page 144, you say: "There is no neutral line in the sense that polarity changes when Mr. Gary moves his piece of sheet iron with its attached shingle nail across the pole or near the pole of a magnet." "The most delicate instruments fail to detect such a change of polarity," etc. Mr. Gary's claim of a neutral line is of course absurd, but you are wrong in saying that the polarity does not change under the conditions ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... had a queer fad. He cultivated one of his finger-nails, that of the little finger of his left hand, with the greatest care. Just like a Chinese mandarin. At last the nail was fully a centimetre long, and made holes in all his gloves. Now, whenever a speck of dirt lodged in this nail, he was in the habit of removing it with his teeth. It wasn't exactly a nice thing to do; but, you see, he had a passion for that nail. I often said to him, 'My dear fellow, do keep ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... suspicions are already too well confirmed.' 'Pardon me, I have a pendulum which beats seconds.' 'Show it me.' The doctor brings down a silk thread to which an ivory ball is attached. Fixing the upper end to a nail, he draws the ball a little from the vertical, counts the number of oscillations, and shows that his pendulum beats seconds; he explains also how his profession, requiring him to feel pulses and count pulsations, he has no difficulty in mentally ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... peculiarities, the same as folks do, and the peculiar kink in this house wuz it hadn't a nail or a bit of iron in it anywhere from top to bottom—bolts and pegs made of ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... came, and he was lost sight of in Foreign Parts. Then Mrs. Saxham died, and the Captain—mentioned by Janellan with the ringing sniff that speaks volumes of disparagement—had turned her and her old man out of the Plas "without as much as that!"—here Janellan snapped her strong thumb-nail against her remaining front tooth—in recognition of their forty years ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... stay put. If I can convict certain corrupt members of the department, I'm going to nail brass-buttoned hides all over the front ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... plank and rope and nail, without the King his leave, After the custom of Portesmouth, but I will not suffer a thief. Nay, never lift up thy hand at me! There's no clean hands in the trade. Steal in measure,' quo' Brygandyne. 'There's measure in all ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... them sign; then he makes them forswear cream and baptism, makes them renounce Jesus Christ and his church; and, to give them a distinctive character and make them known for his own, he imprints on their bodies a certain mark with the nail of the little finger of one of his hands; this mark, or character, thus impressed, renders the part insensible to pain. They even pretend that he impresses this character in three different parts of the body, and at three different times. The demon does ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... captain of the ship, "I have only one eye; I have a right to be blind sometimes!" Then, putting the glass to his blind eye, in the mood that sports with bitterness, he exclaimed, "I really do not see the signal. Keep mine for closer battle flying! That's the way I answer such signals. Nail mine to that mast!" Admiral Graves disobeyed in like manner, and the other ships of the line also continued the action. The victory was soon complete, and Sir Hyde Parker heartily ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... wall, but, alas! it was still a long way from six o'clock. At last, however, while he was still reading, the clock did strike six. Margari instantly stood up in the middle of a sentence, marked the passage with his thumb-nail so as to know at what word to begin again on the following evening, turned down the ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... was his opening remark. "A good one can come mighty nigh holding a outfit together. Money ain't to be sneezed at, neither. Good wages paid on the nail run the cook a close second. How would you boys like to work ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... sure that a large dose of alcohol in shock puts a nail in the coffin of the patient."—DR. H. C. WOOD of ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... bear curious signs, such as footmarks of chickens, dogs, or pigs, which stept over them while still fresh, impressions of coins and medals, words or sentences scratched with a nail, etc. A bricklayer, who had perhaps seen better times in his youth, wrote on a tile the first ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... situation, sent, as was usual, to his godfathers, John London and Stephen Nail, for their protections. They went, but were refused admittance to him. At length he sent for Mr. Granville Sharp: the latter went, but they still refused access to the prisoner. He insisted, however, upon seeing him, and charged the keeper of the prison at his peril to deliver him up, till he ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... did nothing but laugh. "I've seen a few passages of arms," he said. "By Jove, you don't know what war is till you see two —— at it tooth and nail. Two—what, Lucy? Oh, I mean fine ladies; they have no mercy. Her Grace will set her claws into the fair countess. And ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... a lantern from a nail on the wall and lit it, and the Rat, looking round him, saw that they were in a sort of fore-court. A garden-seat stood on one side of the door, and on the other a roller; for the Mole, who was a tidy animal when at home, could not stand having ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... arranged. At the bottom was a seat on which he sat with the necessary space for him to stretch his legs when he placed them obliquely; under the seat, shut in by a lid, were a few provisions, and table utensils reduced to a simple pocket knife and metal mug; an overcoat and a rug hung from a nail, and the little lamp he used at nighttime was hooked onto ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... these men laid all the stress on a doctrine taught by Hus in his later years. As he lay in his gloomy dungeon near Constance, he had written letters contending that laymen should be permitted to take the wine at the Communion. For this doctrine the Utraquists now fought tooth and nail. They emblazoned the Cup on their banners. They were the aristocrats of the movement; they were led by the University dons; they were political rather than religious in their aims; they regarded Hus as a patriot; and, on the whole, they did not care much ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... seen in combination with these simple articles of furniture are few and somewhat rudely shaped. A jug with a long neck, an angular handle, and a pointed bottom, is common: it usually hangs from a nail or hook inserted into the tent-pole. Vases and bowls of a simple form occur, but are less frequent. The men are seen with knives in their hands, and appear sometimes to be preparing food for their meals; but the form of the knife ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... dejected-looking house, and as I raised the heavy latch of the massive door, my heart beat as if I were about to meet, after a long absence, an aged mother who wept for my return, or a much-loved sister. I took a key from its nail in the porter's lodge and began to climb the stair, which, viewed from below, looked more picturesque than inviting, particularly when one proposed to ascend to the very top. Fortunately, I am a mountaineer; I bounded up that wide ladder ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... views of Orgy, among savages in classic times in mediaeval Christianity its religious origin modern need of Oneida Community Ouled-Nail prostitution Ovarian irritation Ovid ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... of drinking supernaculum, consisted in turning down the cup upon the thumb-nail of the drinker after his pledge, when, if duly quaffed off, no drop of liquor ought ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... of Rob Roy proclivities; it believes in a fair fight and no favour. A sufficient supply of food it almost takes for granted, if only it can once gain a sufficient ground-space. But other plants are competing with it, tooth and nail (if plants may be permitted by courtesy those metaphorical adjuncts), for their share of the soil, like crofters or socialists; every spare inch of earth is permeated and pervaded with matted fibres; and ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... young man, hurriedly. "Remember who began. To be shot at wouldn't rile me so much—it's being threatened, don't you see, that was heavy on my chest. Last night is very far off though—and I will be hanged if I know what I meant exactly when I took the old thing from its nail. There. More I can't say till all's settled one way or another. Will ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... trail of the young man had abruptly ended, and all beyond was smooth, unbroken snow. The last footprints were as conspicuous as any in the line; the very nail-marks were distinctly visible. Mr. Ashmore looked upward, shading his eyes with his hat held between them and the lantern. The stars were shining; there was not a cloud in the sky; he was denied the explanation which had ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... paced over it. I struck it obliquely with my foot, where the surface lay dry and incoherent in the sun, and the sound elicited was a shrill, sonorous note, somewhat resembling that produced by a waxed thread, when tightened between the teeth and the hand, and tipped by the nail of the forefinger. I walked over it, striking it obliquely at each step, and with every blow the shrill note was repeated. My companions joined me; and we performed a concert, in which, if we could boast of but little variety in the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... so much like a boat that had sprung a single leak, as like one out of which every nail had been pulled and the joints left open to the ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... critical eyes, the gentleman prepared the food. Taking one of the auks, he twisted off its head, put his forefinger under the integuments of the neck, drew the skin down backwards, and the bird was skinned. Then he ran his long thumb-nail down the breast and sliced off a lump, which he presented to the lady with the off-hand air of one who should say, "If you don't want it ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... wheels to keep them on the rails. The first road of this kind in America was built at Boston in 1807. It was a very rude affair and was only used to carry dirt from the top of a hill to the harbor. The wooden rails soon wore out, so the next step was to nail strips of iron on top of them. Long lines of railroads of this kind were soon built. Both passengers and goods could be carried on them. Some of them were built by private persons or by companies. ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... split wooden slabs set upright in the ground, and nailed on to a wall-plate. You will first plant large posts at each of the corners, and one at either side every door, and four for the chimney. At the top of these you will set your wall- plates; to the wall-plates you will nail your slabs; on the inside of the slabs you will nail light rods of wood, and plaster them over with mud, having first, however, put up the roof and thatched it. Three or four men will have split the stuff and put up the hut in a fortnight. We will suppose ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... recently to be enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps as a carpenter was medically rejected because he had a hammer toe. If he had lost a nail we could ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... quinsy or he may have diphtheria, and the treatment is different. But oh! Grantley, I wish I had that Scotch-gray confidence in myself that you have. If you were a doctor you would tell a man he had typhoid, and he'd proceed to have it, even if he had only set out to have an ingrowing toe-nail. But my patients have a decided will of their own. There's young Ab Cowan—they sent for me last night to go out to see him. He has a bad attack of quinsy, but it is the strangest case I ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... him two or three books he had lent me. In the volume of Shelley I underlined with my nail the last two lines of a certain verse and put a mark in ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... about the woods, or in the churchyard reading the inscriptions on the tombstones, and thinking of this and that. Also, I was looking about for a nail from some corpse. I wanted a nail; it was a fancy of mine, a little whim. I had found a nice piece of birch-root that I wanted to carve to a pipe-bowl in the shape of a clenched fist; the thumb was to act as a lid, and I wanted a nail to set in, to make it specially lifelike. ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... footsteps, and at my pace. Ah! of course, echo. But why wasn't there an echo when I shouted?... I will go on quicker. I'm not a bit nervous, only the sooner I'm out of this, the better. At last a door. Thick, solid, iron-barred, and nail-studded door. Where's the handle? None. Yes, an iron knob. It won't be turned. It won't be twisted. It's locked; or, if not, fastened somehow. No; a faint light is admitted through the keyhole, and by putting my eye to it, I ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... and the crowd, some such little raft in the wreck, some occasional opportunity like that of Tuesday, has been present to me these two days as better than nothing. But if our friends are so accountable to this house of course there's no more to be said. And it's one more nail, thank God, in the coffin of our odious delay." He was but too glad without more ado to point the moral. "Now I hope you see we can't work ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... quite the best of the argument; and indeed I was determined not to give it up, till you acknowledged yourself vanquished; so to verse I go again, tooth and nail. ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... shoes, and put on an unparalleled pair of ankle-jacks, which he only wore on extraordinary occasions. The Captain being at length attired to his own complete satisfaction, and having glanced at himself from head to foot in a shaving-glass which he removed from a nail for that purpose, took up his knotted stick, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... with Willie Logan. John had replied "Yes, ma!" That was sufficient for Mrs. MacDermott, that and the testimony of John's discoloured eye, and she had beaten him with the leather tawse that was kept hanging from a nail at the side of the fireplace. "That my son should do the like of that!" she said over and over again until a cold fury of resentment against her had formed in his heart. It was true that he had pulled Aggie's hair much harder than he ought ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... phenomena, supernatural and divine. It must not however be understood that anything like a regular worship is paid to the sea by these people, any more than we should conclude that people in England worship witches when they nail a horseshoe on the threshold to prevent their approach, or break the bottoms of eggshells to hinder them from sailing in them. It is with the inhabitants of Lampong no more than a temporary sentiment of fear and respect, which a little familiarity soon effaces. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... come in; but he saw that cousin Margaret was there: and he had felt an unconquerable awe of cousin Margaret ever since the day of his conveying her over the ice. So he stood irresolutely watching, as nail after nail was driven into Fairy's hoof, casting glances ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... lap lies the slender, youthful figure of the dead Christ. The head falls back, and the limbs are relaxed in death. Suffering has left no trace on his face. The nail prints in hands and feet, and the scar in the side, are the only signs of his crucifixion. The delicately moulded body is ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Mrs. Jenkins lost a finger-nail by an injudicious use of the hammer. Bud sat down in the paint pot, and had to go to bed while his clothes were cleaned. In fact Lily Rose was the only one of the whole family circle to suffer no injury, but the Boarder guided her so tenderly ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... lift the door. My first effort was successless. Every inspiration was quicker and more difficult than the former. As my terror, so my strength and my exertions increased. Finally my trembling hand lighted on a nail that was imperfectly driven into the wood, and which, by affording me a firmer hold, enabled me at length to raise it, and to ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... select the locality in the fall, choosing a warm location on a southern slope, protected by a fence or building on the north and north-west. Set posts in the ground, nail two boards to these parallel to each other, one about a foot in height, and the other towards the south about four inches narrower; this will give the sashes resting on them the right slope to shed the rain and receive as much heat ...
— Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them • James John Howard Gregory
... taken some little thing from the household of his father-in-law, a knife, or other trifle? But thou hast felt about all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? Not so much as a needle or a nail." ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... our helpers been so many, we could never have made the place so beautiful. Before the general dancing begins there will be a double quadrille of honor, in which all those will take part who have driven a nail, papered or painted a wall, dug a spadeful of earth, or done any work in or ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... himself. He was a pedant, to the most extreme point, the greatest pedant I had met on earth, and with that had a vanity only befitting Alexander of Macedon. He was in love with every button on his coat, every nail on his fingers—absolutely in love with them, and he looked it! In his behaviour to me he was a perfect tyrant, he spoke very little to me, and if he chanced to glance at me he gave me a firm, majestically ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... we believe that every married man, who is at all attached to his wife from honorable motives, can, in the words of the elder Corneille, seek a rope and a nail; ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... much time for reflection. There is generally some work to keep him going. Rupert has a weakness for dropping things down the sinks. Last week, for a change, he drove a nail into a gas-pipe. And there are the bills to pay, and new things to order, and endless notes of inquiry and arrangements to be written. His evenings ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... strong closed vessel of metal in which liquids can be heated above their boiling points under pressure. Etymologically the word indicates a self-closing vessel ([Greek: autos], self, and clavis, key, or clavus, nail), in which the tightness of the joints is maintained by the internal pressure, but this characteristic is frequently wanting in the actual apparatus to which the name is applied. The prototype of the autoclave was the digester of Denis Papin, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... whatever kind it be, must work on its pivots with very little friction, and be capable of fine adjustment as regards balance. For the Rectilinear Harmonograph the form of lever pivot shown in Fig. 174 is very suitable. The spindle is a wire nail or piece of knitting needle sharpened at both ends; the bearings, two screws filed flat at the ends and notched ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... conscious that her brown hair was rough and untidy from running about the garden in the March wind, that her hands were not clean, and that there was an ugly rent in her blue checked apron where it had caught on a nail in the shed. ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... Taranne he knocked at the door of a small furnished lodging-house at the corner of that street and the Rue du Dragon, took a candlestick from a table, a key numbered 12 from a nail, and climbed the stairs without exciting other attention than a well-known lodger would returning home. The clock was striking ten as he closed the door of his room. He listened attentively to the strokes, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut—see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and kep' him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education and he could do 'most anything—and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... and praise my verses, still Thy long black thumb-nail marks them out for ill: A fellon take it, or some whitflaw come For to unslate or to untile that thumb! But cry thee mercy: exercise thy nails To scratch or claw, so that thy tongue not rails: Some numbers prurient are, and some of these ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... 1/2 inches, and the extent of the outstretched arms from 7 feet 2 inches to 7 feet 6 inches; the width of the face from 10 to 13 1/4 inches. The colour and length of the hair varied in different individuals, and in different parts of the same individual; some possessed a rudimentary nail on the great toe, others none at all; but they otherwise present no external differences on which to establish even ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... Twittenham, at John Robarts's Esq. This Gentleman has several Vines laid up against the side of his House, as full of Grapes as I have ever seen any; but at the bottom where they grow, the Ground is paved with Bricks for about ten or twelve foot from the Wall they are nail'd to. This Pavement, in the last wet Summer, kept the Roots from imbibing, or receiving too much Moisture, and therefore the Juices of the Vines were digested, and capable of producing Fruit this Year; whereas such Vines as were not growing in dry places ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... entered a co-operative grocery store, where she was going to give an order for a quarter's supplies. She was her mother's housekeeper, and had an incredible knowledge of groceries, as well as a severely practical mind: she stuck her finger-nail into butter, tasted cheeses off the blade of a knife, ran her hands through currants, nibbled biscuits, discussed brands of burgundy and desiccated soups—Laura meanwhile looking on, from a high, uncomfortable ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... his neighbors were quick to respond to the tribute offered him before the distinguished men present. He rose, gaunt and grizzled in his shirt sleeves, but what he said was brief and as square-cut and to the point as any nail he had ever driven. I saw the Governor and father exchange glances and I noticed when the Governor responded to his call he was much less ornate of speech than usual and much more universal. They all spoke, from Nickols along the ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... assist us to understand the characters; they are a very important portion of the writer's method. None of our great writers ever had this double instrument: and Thackeray has used it with consummate effect. The sketches in Vanity Fair and in Punch, especially the minor thumb-nail drolleries, are delightful—true caricatures—real portraits of character. It is true they are ill drawn, often impossible, crude, and almost childish in their incorrectness and artlessness. But they have in them the soul of a great caricaturist. They have the Hogarthian ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... bait but are captured by cutting a hole in the ice and dropping in a piece of ivory carved in the shape of a small fish. When the fish rises to examine this visitor, it is secured with a spear. The Eskimo fish spear has a central shaft with a sharp piece of steel, usually an old nail, set in the end. On each side is a piece of deer antler pointing downward, lashed onto the shaft with a fine line, and sharp nails, pointing inward, are set in the two fragments of antler. When this spear ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... head, stopped short, less I think, from human respect, than from one of those movements of profound surprise which affect the limbs, creep down the length of the spine, and cease only in the sole of the feet, to nail you to the ground. I have often produced effects of this nature, a sort of animal magnetism which becomes enormously powerful when the relations are reciprocally precise. But, my dear fellow, this was not stupefaction, nor was she a common girl. Morally speaking, her face seemed to say: 'What, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... monitress went to bed, her sponge, nail-brush, tooth-brush, and cake of soap were missing, and it was only after a long search that she found them at the bottom of her emptied water-jug. On the next evening it was impossible for her to strike a light, owing to the fact that both her candle and matches ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... you may rely upon my giving you nothing, which does not admit of literal substantiation. Among other letters which I have, are several from "George Clymer," (whom you mention in your note,) which hit the nail on the head. ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... studio, and taking from its nail a small oil painting, brought it over and laid it on the board beside my paper. It was a fascinating little picture, painted with that exquisite minutiae and development of detail that a newer school was then ridiculing: as though Art had but one note ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... took some water, washed himself with the white powder, and in an instant was young and handsome as ever. Militrisa at once knew him, fell at his feet, and began to beg for pardon. But Bova ordered Tervis to take her and nail her up in a cask, and roll her into the sea. Then he called together the princes and boyars and announced to them that he was Bova Korolevich, the rightful heir to the throne of his father Guidon, returned from foreign lands, and required of them the ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... good carpenters to go to the country." The Sunday papers gave a lurid account of the sentiment of the Carpenters' Union and its sympathetic attitude toward the striking hoisters. The forecast was that there would not be a nail driven if the strike were not settled by Tuesday night. It seemed that I had not moved a day too soon. On Monday thirty-seven carpenters applied at my office. Most of them had union tickets and were not considered. Thirteen, however, ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... then away at full speed between wooded banks and green islands, to the nail works dam, where the air rang to the clatter of big hammers and pitchy black smoke was vomited ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... "You just nail a seat in that surrey over there, while I chase out my two 'prospects.' We sell on commission and I've ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... any in this world: even as if one should cut off the limbs from his perishable body with knives of brass, or still worse; down there the pain for that deed shall be as hard as any in this world: even as if one should nail his perishable body with nails of brass, or still worse; down there the pain for that deed shall be as hard as any in this world: even as if one should by force throw his perishable body headlong down a precipice a hundred times the height of a man, or still worse; ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... collection. The hostess presided in a black serge golf skirt, a business woman's white shirt-waist, and stout walking boots, her hair brushed flat and tidily back and fastened as though for riding, her face and hands redolent of soap. No powder, not a nail manicured. Had she been a girl earning her living, she could not have been more suitably dressed, but her millions and her palace background demand that her clothes be at least moderately ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... been brought, he would have another go, the whole family, including the girl and the charwoman, standing round in a semi-circle, ready to help. Two people would have to hold the chair, and a third would help him up on it, and hold him there, and a fourth would hand him a nail, and a fifth would pass him up the hammer, and he would take hold of the nail, and ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... stayed there till he'd got the lay of that cartwheel. Aw, yes, though—thinking, thinking, thinking constant—that's me when I'm in bed. But it isn't the lying awake I'm minding. Och, no; it's the wakening up again. That's like nothing in the world but a rusty nail going driving into your skull afore a blacksmith's seven-pound sledge. Good ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... was now open, he inserted his thumb nail into the crease of the large knife, and opened the blade. Then he extended out his hand, and offered the open knife ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... was a wonder, and is a wonder still to me. No amount of mechanical skill, though the Yankee has made machines that almost think, and altogether do, for him, has superseded or exhausted his natural tact, expediency, and invention. With string and nail in his pocket, I would defy the horses of Phoebus to get away from a Yankee, or his chariot to get out of gear; and if Phaeton had only been a Vermonter, the deserts of Ethiopia might to this day have been covered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... showed no mercy. One of them carried two great nails, such as those portrayed in pictures of the Crucifixion; the other bore a mallet: the first placed a nail upright over one of the old man's eyes; the other struck it with the hammer, and drove it into his head. The throat was pierced in the same way with the second nail; and thus the guilty soul, stained throughout its career with ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... it tooth and nail," observed David in an amused tone. "I should have stopped to listen to them, only this fellow was so sick of the discussion. What a ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... that Lopez was doing well in the world,—in a profession of the working of which Mr. Wharton himself knew absolutely nothing. He had a large fortune at his own bestowal,—intended for his daughter,—which would have been forthcoming at the moment and paid down on the nail, had she married Arthur Fletcher. The very way in which the money should be invested and tied up and made to be safe and comfortable to the Fletcher-cum-Wharton interests generally, had been fully settled among them. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... expectantly. On the wall, just opposite his bed, was a large illuminated card hanging by a string from a nail—"A Busy Day is a Happy Day." That had not been there the day before. Brightly-coloured roses and forget-me-nots and honeysuckle twined round all the words. William hastily thought over the three aunts staying in the house, and put it down to ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... hurry tore his nail by letting the falls run through his hand too fast. I was binding it up, the boat making for the poor fellow faster than any swimmer could have done. How it was that he did not lay hold of the buoy, or sank so soon, I can't say; the great mistake was not jumping overboard at once. This is a gloomy ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the ordinance of 1787, carried to its last analysis, applied in its broadest sense. It drove the last nail in the coffin of slavery, and blighted the fondest hope of the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... care of him. Three days later, he was at a wedding, singing like a thrush, leaping like a kid, and frisking about in the old-fashioned way. On leaving a marriage-feast, he would go and dig a grave and nail up a coffin. He performed those duties devoutly, and although they seemed to have no effect on his merry humor, he retained a melancholy impression which hastened the return of his attacks. His wife, a paralytic, had not ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... Jerry heartily. "I was just the same at your age. I used to scamp at school and shirk at college until I found myself so far behind fellows I despised that I was ashamed. Then I went after them tooth and nail until I caught them ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... outer surface with a potsherd; not with the sharp fractured edge but with the blunt side of the rim; and thus the leaf is reduced to rags. In this manner a stratum of coarse longitudinal fiber is disclosed, and the operator, placing her thumb-nail beneath it, lifts it up, and draws it away in a compact strip; after which she scrapes again until a second fine layer of fiber is laid bare. Then, turning the leaf round, she scrapes its back, which now lies upwards, down to the layer of fiber, which she seizes with her hand ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... this question it had to go unanswered, and instead he waited in silence while the Irishwoman took her key from a nail in the wall, and set off across her garden, which was only one degree less untidy than the doctor's, to open ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... possible that one of his size could pass, and showed so great an inclination to go through a hole in the open-work fire-board that I hastily covered it up. After a while he tested the matting and carefully investigated, by light taps of his bill, each separate nail. His step was heavy, and he did not hop, but ran around with a droll little patter of the feet, like ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... ordered Monsoor to arrange a stake in the ground, with a large nail driven in the top at right angles to form a rocket-stand. I now asked Kabba Rega if he would like to see ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... was upon the floor, and high screened doors opened on to the north verandah. Zu Pfeiffer sprawled in a swing chair before the office desk placed at an oblique angle to the wall, encumbered with books and papers. After tapping reflectively on a book cover with a polished nail zu Pfeiffer's hand sharply struck the bell. Instantly a corporal appeared at the farther door and stood as if petrified, black hand to black temple. Zu Pfeiffer snapped instructions in Kiswahili without removing his cigar. The man grunted, shot his hand away at right angles ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... very great influence on the climate of the world. Besides, why should we be surprised that the nature of man should change? Does not everything change? Is not change the law of nature? My skin changes every year, my hair never belongs to me a month, the nail on my hand is only a passing possession. I doubt whether a man at fifty is the same material being that he ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... fury, Getz drew her a few steps to the closet where his strap hung, and jerking it from its nail, ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... treatment of moral taints I will use the following comparison. Suppose our brain is a plank in which are driven nails which represent the ideas, habits, and instincts, which determine our actions. If we find that there exists in a subject a bad idea, a bad habit, a bad instinct,—as it were, a bad nail, we take another which is the good idea, habit, or instinct, place it on top of the bad one and give a tap with a hammer—in other words we make a suggestion. The new nail will be driven in perhaps a fraction of an inch, while the old one ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... picture of the legs and feet of a hen. We see that the legs are covered with scales, and that each foot has four toes, three pointing forward and one back. Each toe has a long, sharp, and strong nail. ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... ways. I dunno," said Pliny, impartially. "Anyhow, Abner he lets on public and constant that he's a-goin' to nail Asa's hide to the barn door.... It's one good, healthy hate ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... on his clothes, and descended, taking his horn- lantern from a nail in the passage, and lighting it before opening the door. The rays fell on the form of a tall, dark man in cavalry accoutrements and wearing a sword. He was pale with fatigue and covered with mud, though the weather ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... tome and would lose myself in it by the hour he could not understand it. I was preparing for the law. He could see no advantage to be derived from this digging into speculation. He was practical and unless he could drive a nail into a thing or at least dig into its chemical elements it was ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... Borromee, "you will denounce me when you wake!" and, rising, he made a furious blow with his dagger on the back of his companion, thinking to pierce him through and nail him to the table. But he had not reckoned on the shirt of mail which Chicot had carried away from the priory. The dagger broke upon it like glass, and for the second time Chicot ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... a half high, in pencil. This small sketch should determine, first, the general balance of the page; second, the inter-relations and spacings of the various lines and words and their relative importance and sizes. From this thumb-nail sketch the design should be drawn out at full size in pencil, and much more carefully. In this redrawing the separate letter shapes and their harmonious relations to each other should be determined, and such deviations made from the smaller sketch as seem to benefit the effect. [202] Some draughtsmen ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... view; and whilst the "Intrepid" and "Assistance," with the "Prince Albert," communicated with the natives of Cape York, the "Pioneer" pushed on, and soon passed the brigs, who, although they knew full well that the late arrivals from England had letters for them, were to be seen pushing tooth and nail, to ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... wide and a man appeared in the light. A rush of frost, turned to vapor by the heat of the room, swirled about him to his knees and poured on across the floor, growing thinner and thinner, and perishing a dozen feet from the stove. Taking the wisp broom from its nail inside the door, the newcomer brushed the snow from his moccasins and high German socks. He would have appeared a large man had not a huge French-Canadian stepped up to him from the bar and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London |
