"Oyster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual remark, which I would not for the universe have it thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke except in monosyllables; but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to laugh, or even to smile, through the whole course ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... in a colander; pour over one cup cold water. Take up each oyster with the fingers to remove bits of shells, reserve the liquor. Heat to boiling point and strain through double cheese cloth, set aside. Scald milk with celery, remove celery and add strained oyster liquor ...
— Fifty-Two Sunday Dinners - A Book of Recipes • Elizabeth O. Hiller
... I know," the Gadfly answered, looking up with wide, innocent blue eyes. "And you s-s-swallowed everything whole; just as if it had been an oyster. It was very wrong; but oh, it w-w-was ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... up in tiers, like coffins at the morgue. Then Theobald's aunt, the baroness, called on me, in state. She came in that funny, old-fashioned, shallow landau of hers, where she looked for all the world like an oyster-on-the-half-shell, and spoke so pointedly of the danger of international marriages that I felt sure she was trying to shoo me away from my handsome and kingly Theobald Gustav—which made me quite calmly and solemnly tell her that I intended to take ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... was awakened by the quarrels of the drunkards. Oyster-shells would fly across the tables, cutting the heads of those they hit, and the uproar was terrible. Sometimes she saw, by the light of the smoky lamps, the knives glitter, and ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... perceptions. It is the composition of these, therefore, which forms the self. We can conceive a thinking being to have either many or few perceptions. Suppose the mind to be reduced even below the life of an oyster. Suppose it to have only one perception, as of thirst or hunger. Consider it in that situation. Do you conceive any thing but merely that perception? Have you any notion of self or substance? If not, the addition of other perceptions can never give ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... are the yellow-flowered centaury, the mountain centaury, the star thistle and the rough centaury: the first predominates. Here and there, amid their inextricable confusion, stands, like a chandelier with spreading, orange flowers for lights, the fierce Spanish oyster plant, whose spikes are strong as nails. Above it, towers the Illyrian cotton thistle, whose straight and solitary stalk soars to a height of three to six feet and ends in large pink tufts. Its armor hardly yields ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... Woman-with-the-squalling-brat will rush on the platform and head straight for me! Or, I have only to see the Remarkably Plain Person hesitating between two tables in a restaurant to know that she will invariably choose mine! (c) If there is a bad oyster—I get it! If a wasp flies into the garden seeking repose—I always look to it like a Chesterfield couch! If one day I have not shaved—my latest "pash" is sure to call! Should I invest my hard-earned savings in Government Stock ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... a commonplace that the entirely self-centred man—the Robinson Crusoe of a desert island of egoism—is unhappy. At least if he is not he belongs to a low intellectual and moral type: the proof being that all development above the level of the oyster and the slug has involved more or less surrender of the immediate claims of "number one" to some larger unity. Progress has always consisted, and still consists, in the widening of the ideal concept which appeals to our loyalty. Is it not Mr. Wells's endeavour in this very book ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... we wish to arrive at truth, always to take familiar instances, wherein the mind is not likely to be biassed by any elevated associations or favorite theories. Let us ask therefore, first, what kind of ideal form may be attributed to a limpet or an oyster, that is to say, whether all oysters do or do not come up to the entire notion or idea of an oyster. I apprehend that, although in respect of size, age, and kind of feeding, there may be some difference ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... one journal, or to extend it to several, is a question so very difficult of decision to a stranger, that I have finally resolved to send these papers to you, and ask you (mindful of the conversation we had on this head one day, in that renowned oyster-cellar) to resolve the point for me. You need feel no weighty sense of responsibility, my dear Felton, for whatever you do is sure to please me. If you see Sumner, take him into our councils. The only two things to be borne in mind are, first, that if ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... common plan, this plan representing the ideal Mollusc; but there are at the same time various groups of the Mollusca, and these groups admit of an arrangement in a given sequence. The principle adopted in this case is simply of the relative elaboration of the common type. The Oyster is built upon the same ground-plan as the Cuttle-fish; but this plan is carried out with much greater elaboration, and with many more complexities, in the latter than in the former: and in accordance with this, the ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... canal in a boat, and overhauled Charity in the gondolas. He was a singular compromise, in his vocation and his equipment, between the mendicant and corsair: I fear he would not have hesitated to assume the pirate altogether in lonelier waters; and had I been a heavily laden oyster-boat returning by night through some remote and dark canal, I would have steered clear of that truculent-looking craft, of which the crew must have fought with a desperation proportioned to the lack of legs and the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... precaution was taken to guard this institution from abuse. The senate and the ecclesia had first to determine by a special vote whether the safety of the state required such a step to be taken. If they decided in the affirmative, a day was fixed for the voting, and each citizen wrote upon a tile or oyster-shell [OSTRACON, whence the name OSTRACISM] the name of the person whom he wished to banish. The votes were then collected, And if it was found that 6000 had been recorded against any one person, he was obliged to withdraw from the city within ten days: if the number ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... Johan and me. We went first to the theater to see "Rip Van Winkle" played by Jefferson. It was delightful, though I cried my eyes out. From the theater we went to Mr. Corcoran's house for a roasted-in-the-shell oyster supper. Johan, who had never before attended such a feast, thought he had got loose among a lot of milkmaids and firemen, each with his bucket and pail, and when he saw the enormous pile of oysters brought ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... enemy seemed the more wonderful because the pearl-fishers of Pingaree were mild and peaceful in disposition and seldom quarreled even among themselves. Their only weapons were their oyster rakes; yet the fact remains that they drove their fierce enemies from Regos and ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... go to sea in a diving-bell!" said one, as the waves dashed over the pilot-house, and the little craft seemed buried in water. "Give me an oyster-scow!" cried another,—"any thing! only let it be wood, and something that will float over, instead of under the water!" Still she plunged on; and about 6:30 P.M., we made Cape Hatteras; in half an hour we ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... point of the trip comes when one changes at Jamaica, there boarding the 1:15 for Salamis. This is the train that on Saturdays takes back the two famous club cars, known to all travellers on the Oyster Bay route. Behind partly drawn blinds the luncheon tables are spread; one gets narrow glimpses of the great ones of the Island at their tiffin. This is a militant moment for the white-jacketed steward of the club car. On Saturdays there are always some strangers, unaccustomed to the ways ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... just allowing a glimpse of one little foot. Her feet had been charming, very small and highly arched. Then he remembered that that evening they had been to a concert in the town hall, and that afterward they had partaken of an oyster stew in a little restaurant. Then back his mind traveled to the problem of his own existence, his food and shelter and clothes. He dismissed the woman from his thought. He was concerned now with ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... sullenly out to sea, pursued by a harmless bullet from Jim's rifle. Poor Wordsworth dropped into the boat fainting from terror, exhaustion, and loss of blood, for, although he was unconscious of it all the time, in his convulsive grip, the sharp oyster-shells had cut his hands to the very bone. A good glass of grog and some hot tea—the bushman's infallible remedy—soon brought him round, but the scars on his hands and knees will accompany him to his grave. He afterwards ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... to 250 feet in height. While the men were preparing our tea, (for we had only that to boil,) M'Leay and I ascended the hills. The brush was so thick upon them, that we could not obtain a view of the distant interior. Their summits were covered with oyster-shells, in such abundance as entirely to preclude the idea of their having been brought to such a position by the natives. They were ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... open his lips," declared he to Mr. Burton. "What he's done with those diamonds we can't find out. He's mum as an oyster. I hoped we might tempt him into making a clean breast of the matter—but not he! He's too hardened a ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... paraded before us, about ten or fifteen yards in front of the cave, tack and tack, waiting only to serve one, if not both of us, as we should have served a shrimp or an oyster. We had no intention, however, in this, as in other instances, of "throwing ourselves on the mercy of the court." In vain did we look for relief from other quarters; the promontory above us was inaccessible; the tide was ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... with some of them it will be worth while to spend a little time. Every thinking man's experience assures him that he grows by overcoming. Emerson has finely said that we have occasion to thank our faults, by which he means limitations; and he has also reminded us that the oyster mends ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... would have small chance with his new friend. The opinion of Mrs. Basil was, that some new speculation, in some manner connected with the Crompton sale, had been entered into by the two men, and that Mr. Balfour would in the end secure the oyster, while Mr. Coe was left with the shell. But Harry had darker forebodings still; she was instinctively confident that there was enmity at work in the new-comer, as well as the readiness common to all speculators to overreach ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... might I suggest, sir, that your choice be a grilled undercut or something simple, bearing in mind the undoubted effects of shell-fish upon one's complexion?" The hard truth is that after even a very little lobster the Honourable George has a way of coming out in spots. A single oyster patty, too, will often spot him ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... division of Essex, England, on a creek opening from the east shore of the Colne estuary, the terminus of a branch from Colchester of the Great Eastern railway, 621/2 m. E.N.E. of London. Pop. of urban district (1901) 4501. The Colchester oyster beds are mainly in this part of the Colne, and the oyster fishery is the chief industry. Boat-building is carried on. This is also a favourite yachting centre. The church of All Saints, principally ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... was the daughter's husband all along, and he heard what the president said right there?" Nelly panted, stopping outside Miggleton's, in the light from the oyster-filled window. ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... the oyster did not absolutely replace bread and meat, it furnished an aliment in no whit less nutritive and in a condition capable of being absorbed in large quantities. But as this mollusk is of very easy digestion, it is somewhat dangerous in its use, to say ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... anchorage is north of the town. In channel between Sulu roadstead and Marongas is a pearl-oyster bed, which employs many boats. This is an important industry, pearls and pearl-shells being the chief articles in the export trade of the island. (U. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... Jack had been trying, with many grimaces, to force an oyster open with his knife. I laughed at his vain endeavours, and putting some on the fire, showed him them open of themselves. I had no taste for oysters myself; but as they are everywhere accounted ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... to get burned, one of these fine evenings, I won't answer for the consequences. Good-bye," said he, shaking Ellen's hand; "you needn't look sober about it; all you have to do is to let your Mamma be as much like an oyster as possible; you understand? Good-bye." And Dr. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Roosevelt's arguments which made a deep impression upon Bok was that no man had a right to devote his entire life to the making of money. "You are in a peculiar position," said the man of Oyster Bay one day to Bok; "you are in that happy position where you can make money and do good at the same time. A man wields a tremendous power for good or for evil who is welcomed into a million homes and read with confidence. That's fine, and is all right so far as it goes, and ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... Moscow Mental healing No general fondness for poetry; but many poems appealed to him Number of things I can remember that aren't so One could lose a dog in this bed," he declared Only dead men can tell the truth in this world Our alphabet is pure insanity Oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a man Patriotism that proposed to keep the Stars and Stripes clean Pier Political conscience into somebody else's keeping Poorest, clumsiest excuse of all the creatures Previous-engagement ...
— Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain • David Widger
... keep on in this way, I shall excite the mistrust of everyone I chance to meet," thought Tom, who wondered what he could have said that had caused this sudden change in the darky's behavior. "I have shut him up like an oyster, and not another thing can I get out of him. I shall be with him over half an hour longer, and then he can do what he pleases ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... be a fairly good cook, and I ventured to ask people to dinner in our little hall dining-room, a veritable box of a place. One day, feeling particularly ambitious to have my dinner a success, I made a bold attempt at oyster patties. With the confidence of youth and inexperience, I made the pastry, and it was a success; I took a can of Baltimore oysters, and did them up in a fashion that astonished myself, and when, after the soup, each guest was served with a hot oyster ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... more immediate object of the present Note, which is to show—what, when once pointed out, will, I think, readily be admitted, namely, that in the grotto formed of oyster shells, and lighted with a votive candle, to which on old St. James's day (5th August) the passer by is earnestly entreated to contribute by cries of, "Pray remember the Grotto!" we have a memorial of the world-renowned shrine of ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... another tribe that eats donkey-meat—a custom most revolting to the surrounding tribes that do not eat donkey. So who may say that it is nice to eat snails and frogs' legs and oysters, but disgusting to feed upon grubs and beetles, or that a raw oyster, hoof, horns, and tail, is less revolting than the sweet, clean meat of a ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... accosted by a reader of canoe books, and next day we inspected the oyster-beds, and a curious corn-mill driven by tide-water confined in a basin—one of the few mills worked by the power of the moon. Also we wandered over the new sea fortifications, which are built and hewed by our Government ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... (May those that have seen thee declare if I err) That not all the oysters in Britain contain A pearl pure as thou art. Let some one explain,— Who may know more than I of the intimate life Of the pearl with the oyster,—why yet in his wife, In despite of her beauty—and most when he felt His soul to the sense of her loveliness melt— Lord Alfred miss'd something he sought for: indeed, The more that he miss'd it the greater the need; Till it seem'd to himself he could willingly spare All ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... "Proceedings of the Zoological Society" 1883 pages 132-139). The intervals of lecturing and examining were chiefly filled by fishery business, from which, according to his usual custom when immersed in any investigation, he chose the subject, "Oysters and the Oyster Question," both for his Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution on May 11, and for his course to Working Men between January 8 and ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... washing-green, under her mulberry-tree. It commenced at four o'clock in the afternoon, and ended with dusk and the bats, and a gipsy fire, and roasting groats and potatoes in the hot ashes, in imitation of the freakish oyster supper which ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Monsieur Crapaud looked in no way ashamed of himself, and I regret to state that henceforward (with the partial humaneness of mankind in general), Monsieur the Viscount amused himself by catching the insects (which were only too plentiful) in an old oyster-shell, and then setting them at liberty on the stone for the benefit of his friend. As for him, all appeared to be fish that came to his net—spiders and beetles, slugs and snails from the damp corners, flies, and wood-lice found on turning up the large stone, disappeared ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... I have scarcely held speech with anyone but the Algonquin chief since we took to the water. Cassion has but given orders, and Chevet is mum as an oyster. I endeavored to find you in Montreal, but you were safely locked behind gray walls. That something was wrong I felt convinced, yet what it might be no one would tell me. I tried questioning the pere, but he only shook his head, and left ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... two-and-forty days; thou hast a knowledge of the French tongue," (which I picked up from a Huguenot emigrant from Languedoc, who was a Barber at Kingston, and taught me for well-nigh nothing), "and art cunning of Fence. Be the world thine Oyster, as the Playactor has it, and e'en open it with a Spadapoint." In this not unwholesome frame of mind I came out of the ship Gebrueder, and set foot on the Port with something like a Defiance of Fortune's scurvy ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... oysterman, who angrily tears it in pieces, for "time heals all wounds" literally in the case of these creatures, and even if the five arms are torn apart, five starfish, small of arm but with healthy stomachs, will soon be foraging on the oyster bed. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... they did," declared Old Tom, "and of course no gal of any spunk'll stand that. Then about that time come her own lover an' the trouble with HIM. After that she shut up like an oyster an' wouldn't have nothin' ter do with nobody fur a spell. Her heart jest seemed to turn bitter at ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... to der Breitmann came Ash he at table end, Dere's right goot fisch at Blankenberghe, Und oysters in Ostend. Denn to Ostland ve will reiten gaen, To Ostland o'er de sand, Dou und I mit pridle drawn For dere ish de oyster land. ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... wait upon and carve for us. She had each dish and its proper accompaniments brought by Rose to the side-table, where all was neatly divided into portions, and handed round, one dish at a time, hot from the fire. We had, first, ox-tail soup; second, fried soles; third, oyster pates; fourth, Maintenon cutlets and cauliflower; fifth, roast lamb and potato-ribbons; sixth, pheasant, with both bread-sauce and toast. Tartlets and creams followed, and a cream-cheese finished the repast; then we were left to our dessert ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... C., "has become of the little yellow crabs that floated in the o. f. oyster stew?" Junsaypa. We never found out what became of the little gold safety pins that ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... round begirt the palace, (As once a month they do the gallows,) As members gave the sign about, Set up their throats with hideous shout. 535 When tinkers bawl'd aloud to settle Church discipline, for patching kettle: No sow-gelder did blow his horn To geld a cat, but cry'd, Reform. The oyster-women lock'd their fish up, 540 And trudg'd away, to cry, No Bishop. The mouse-trap men laid save-alls by, And 'gainst Ev'l Counsellors did cry. Botchers left old cloaths in the lurch, And fell to turn and patch the Church. 545 ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... "An oyster is a garrulous bir-r-rd beside that same Neale O'Neil. I know as much about his past now as I did whin he kem to me—which same is jist nawthin' at all, ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... delighted if you are happier for my meddling and dropping down upon you. I'll keep your secrets too, you see;" and she confirmed her words by an emphatic little nod. "You can talk to me about people, big and little, with whom you have to do, just as serenely as if you were giving your confidence to an oyster. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... impatiently-the Captain rubbed his eyes, and began to pour out a glass of water; and dryly said he'd no choice, which was responded to by the rest. It was left to Master George, and he ordered a bountiful supply of grouse, partridges, oyster, and champagne of his favourite brand-none other. There was also a billiard-room, reading-room, a room for more important gambling, and a bar-room, up-stairs. All these were well filled with very well-dressed and very noisy people; the latter being a very convenient place, the ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... teaspoonful of white pepper, a medium sized onion, chopped, and a teaspoonful of minced parsley. Mix lightly together along with a teaspoonful of olive oil, six drops of tobasco sauce, a little Worcestershire sauce and a gill of vinegar. Put a teaspoonful of this mixture on each raw oyster just before taking to ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... Stratford-on-Avon, and the great mind that was growing there somehow found a means of reading them. Long, long before, when the printed page had not been dreamed of, the Grecian student, listening at the school, made his notes on oyster-shells and blade-bones. But here the will was wanting. There was no prejudice, for no people admired learning more than the village people, or gave it more willing precedence. It was simple indifference, which was mistaken for ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... originally, of my asking; but, as the learned are at open feud on the subject, it should not be passed by in silence. Its deviser is, more than likely, as undiscoverable as the name of the valiant antediluvian who first tasted an oyster. But the deductive character of the miscreant is another thing; and hereon there is a war between the philosophers. Mr. G. P. Marsh, as if he had actually spotted the wretched creature, passionately and categorically denounces him as 'some grammatical pretender.' 'But,' replies Mr. White, 'that ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... cold, and she desired to be away from the curious eyes and tedious voices of the passengers. Besides, she was extremely weary and drooping from lack of sleep. On the previous night she had graced the annual ball and oyster fry of the West Side Wholesale Fish Dealers' Assistants' Social Club No. 2, thus reducing her usual time of ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... has transmitted to the editor of L'Union Pharmaceutique the prospectus of an oyster dealer who, besides dealing in the ordinary bivalves, advertises specialties in medicinal oysters, such as "huitres ferrugineuses" and "huitres au goudron." The "huitres ferrugineuses" are recommended to anaemic persons, and the "huitres au goudron" are said to replace with advantage ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... are many things to be considered,' said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer, with the air of a Q.C. giving an opinion. 'Oyster patties or ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... Vestal Virgins, and some other priests and ladies nearly related to them partook. Before the dinner proper came sea-hedgehogs; fresh oysters as many as the guests wished; large mussels; sphondyli; fieldfares with asparagus; fattened fowls; oyster and mussel pasties; black and white sea-acorns; sphondyli again; glycimarides; sea-nettles; becaficoes; roe-ribs; boar's-ribs; fowls dressed with flour; becaficoes; purple shell-fish of two sorts. The dinner ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of his talking," I said. "He is as close as an oyster; and the facts may mean more to him than to us. He may be able to give a useful hint ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... be an oyster than a man, and rather be dead than either!" was the reply of Le Gardeur. "How soon, think you, will brandy kill a man, De Pean?" asked he abruptly, after ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... principal aim in making the communication was to elicit information. She knew Brinton perhaps better than any one else in the company. Couldn't she give him some "points"? Alas! she had no "points" to give, for, however expansive Brinton may have been under Cupid's influence, he was as close as an oyster in what related to his profession, as has already been said. There was but one course left for Rounders to pursue, which was to play a ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... that are to be canned are absolutely fresh, have not "soured" and contain no spoiled oysters. Oysters are opened by hand. All oysters should be rejected that have partly open shells, as this is a sign that the oyster is dead and consequently not fit ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... put them into Scollop Shells, or into the biggest Oyster shells with their own Liquor, and set them upon a Gridiron over Charcoals, and when you see they be boiled in the Liquor, put in some Butter, a few Crums of Bread, and a little Salt, then let them stand till they are very brown, ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... dragging in their nets—picturesque fellows with swarthy faces and suntanned legs of admirable outline, hauling slowly in files at interminable rope, which boys coiled lazily as it came in; or the oyster-dredgers, poised on the side of their boats over the blue water. At the foot of the sea-wall tumbled the tideless breakers; their drowsy music counselled enjoyment of the hour and carelessness of what ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... many an author. Failure often leads a man to success by arousing his latent energy, by firing a dormant purpose, by awakening powers which were sleeping. Men of mettle turn disappointments into helps as the oyster turns into pearl ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Yap and South Sea Islands"—steal out with nondescript cargoes of tinned salmon, gin, bolts of gaudy cotton stuff, women's hats, and Waterbury watches, to return, after a year, piled as high as to the eaves of the house with copra, or wallowing deep with the shells of the tortoise or the pearl oyster. To me, in my character of the Amateur Parisian, this island traffic, and even the island world, were beyond the bounds of curiosity, and how much more of knowledge. I stood there on the extreme shore of the West and of to-day. Seventeen hundred ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rather relieved if all images lapsed from his consciousness and he could luxuriate in sheer pleasure, dark and overwhelming. True, such bliss would be rather inhuman, and of the sort which we rashly assign to the oyster: but why should a radical and intrepid philosopher be ashamed of that? The condition of Bradley's Absolute—feeling in which all distinctions are transcended and merged—seems to be something of that kind; but ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... the Mayor and Bailiff, has thought proper the following regulations should be prohibited as following:—Nobody must not leave no dirt, nor any thing in that shape, before the doors nor shops. And all wheelbarrows, carts, dunghills, oyster-shells, cabbage-stalks, and other four-wheeled carriages, must be swept out of the streets. Any one who shall fail of offending in any article, shall be dealt ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... Queenborough, an ancient, but poor town of Kent, in the Isle of Sheppey, situated at the mouth of the river Medway. The chief employment of the inhabitants is oyster-dredging. Walker's Gazetteer, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... how to fulfil the oaths and promises which he made when under the dominion of folly, and having now grown wise and temperate, does not want to do as he did or to be as he was before. And so he runs away and is constrained to be a defaulter; the oyster-shell (In allusion to a game in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oyster-shell which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost.) has fallen with the other side uppermost—he changes pursuit into flight, while the other is compelled to follow him ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... been opened; and we had no oyster-knives—and couldn't have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and ate the mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and made up with capers. If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that Traddles would have made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... grave question, she was jostled by a man carrying a rocking-chair, and very nearly fell down stairs into an oyster-saloon. A minute more and she was back on Broadway, the very street, where Aunt Madge and Prudy were waiting for her, but so much lower down that she might as well have been in ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... ingenuous lads will some day be changed into frivolous members of Parliament?" Like some persons who, although case-hardened at home, overflow with sympathy towards distant objects, he cared less for the feelings of his neighbor close at hand than for the eel out of water or the oyster ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... coral rocks, not by insects, however, but by shellfish, which, fixing themselves as soon as hatched on the shells below or around them, extended slowly upward and sideways. As each of these creatures perished, the shell, about half the size of an oyster, was filled with the same sort of material as that of which its hexagonic walls were originally formed, drawn in by the surrounding and still living neighbours; and thus, in the course of centuries, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... are worse. You love to hear her say it. Well, call her in, and let her do it. She is making an oyster-shell cradle over there, with two of the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... dedicated to the kindly diet of corn—and fruit-eating men, but repainted, and launched on a fresh career of success by Daddy's successor; on the other, the gabled and bulging mass of the old Fishing-tackle House, with a lively fish and oyster traffic surging in the little alleys ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... night, as the two Rosemonters were about to walk past an open oyster saloon hard by the Capitol, John caught his fellow's arm. They stopped in a shadow. Two men coming from an opposite direction went into ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... do, for as the picture shows their ship was a very small affair when compared with the magnificent vessels of to-day, and was ill fitted to battle with the storms of the Atlantic. She was of about ten tons burden, or as large as an oyster sloop of to-day, and carried a crew of twenty-five men. A single mast was stepped amidships, and this supported the one large square sail which was all that ships of those days carried. Well forward of ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... as much. 'Twas all a mistake. So now don't you go and make a mistake into a misunderstanding. It was I made every word of the song out o' the face*—that about the back that never was bent, and the ancestors of the oyster, and all. He did not waste a word of it; upon my conscience, I wrote it all—though I'll engage you didn't think I could write a good thing. (Lord John turns away.) I'm telling you the truth, and not a word of a lie, and yet you won't ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... the Reader, and the young and innocent woman was dragged to the ground, stripped of her garments, paraded naked through the streets, and then torn limb from limb on the steps of the Cathedral. The still warm flesh was scraped from her bones with oyster-shells, and the bleeding fragments thrown into a furnace, so that not an atom of the beautiful virgin should escape destruction." The cruelty of man when spurred on by the mania ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... Hammond General Hospital with its extensive buildings, and a stockade and encampment for prisoners. The air is salubrious, the land fertile, a supply of excellent water brought from neighboring heights, and an extensive oyster-bed and a fine beach for bathing, add to its attractions. Believing the place well calculated to meet the wants of the Asylum, Miss Baker desired to secure the private property together with a grant from ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... for life in the scanty lambswool of a fellowship. But he had won for himself reputation as a clever speaker, as a man who had learned much that college tutors do not profess to teach, as a hard-headed, ready-witted fellow, who, having the world as an oyster before him, which it was necessary that he should open, would certainly find either a knife or a sword with which ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Dan, decidedly. "If a ship can float, it must be worth something. I'd try to fling a hawser about it somewhere, and haul it in and dry-dock it to find out what was wrong. I've seen an oyster boat, that was leaking at every seam, calked and patched and painted ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... and ordered an oyster stew, then glanced about him for possible centres of interest. There were many women present, gaudily attired, but they were not the elite of the half-world. Neither did the gentlemen who made life gay and care-free for the haughty ladies of the lower ten thousand patronize anything ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... devoured by an unappeasable curiosity as to the men who do act. I am not an actor, I am a spectator only. My sole occupation is sight-seeing. In a certain imperial idleness, I amuse myself with the world. Ambition! What do I care for ambition? The oyster with much pain produces its pearl. I take the pearl. Why should I produce one after this miserable, painful fashion? It would be but a flawed one, at best. These pearls I can pick up by the dozen. The production of them is going on all around me, and there will ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... supper. Some days before this event, he would appear in my study, and with divers delicate and tentative approaches, nearly always of the same tenor, he would say that he should like to ask my family to an oyster supper with him. "But you know," he would explain, "I haven't a house of my own to ask you to, and I should like to give you the supper here." When I had agreed to this suggestion with due gravity, he would inquire our engagements, and then say, as if a great load were off ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... fill these with thy oyster compote, and so set them in the ashes to roast?" inquired she. "Being many they can be laid at every man's ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... cried. "Father said I could have an egg for my supper. I'll have it dropped on toast. I couldn't have any of the Christmas dinner, except the oyster soup." ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... new in this. It has all been done before. But tell me, what is new? Does the aspiring and perspiring summer vaudeville artist flatter himself that his stuff is going big? Then does the stout man with the oyster-colored eyelids in the first row, left, turn his bullet head on his fat-creased neck to remark huskily to ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... [Footnote 26: Oyster shells were plentifully strewed on the sea-beach before the Caesareum. I may therefore prefer the literal sense, without rejecting the metaphorical version of tegulae, tiles, which is used by M. de Valois ignorant, and the assassins ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... the beach, were thrown into massive blocks, at high-water, completely surrounded by the flux of tide. The view inland was intercepted by hills and trees, the former assuming the same appearance as the one we were on, but higher. Our game-bag was thinly lined with small curlews, oyster-catchers, and sanderlings. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... great artistic epochs. It came upon France as a consequence of huge national aspiration, when nationhood was desired and disaster had joined men together in struggle, and sent them forth on reckless adventure. It has been said that art is decay, the pearl in the oyster; but such belief seems at variance with any reading of history. The Greek sculptors came after Salamis and Marathon; the Italian renaissance came when Italy was distracted with revolution and was divided into opposing ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... Collection, the unwritten history of civilisation in the stone, bronze, and iron tools which have brought the world to what it is now. This museum is perfectly unrivalled. I saw there the first section of kitchen-middens—that is, the refuse of oyster shells, fish-bones, and other stuff thrown out by the ancient inhabitants of the country after their meals; together with accumulations of rude stone implements, kelts, arrow-heads, and such like. Then there were the articles of the Bronze Age, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... "'Tis a curious life you Virginians lead," he said. "The embroidered suits and ruffles, the cosmetics and perfumes of Whitehall in the midst of oyster beds and tobacco fields, savage Indians ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the aspirations towards sentimental perfection of another popular author are infinitely preferable to these sardonic divings after the pearl of truth, whose lustre is eclipsed in the display of the diseased oyster. Much, in the present instance, perhaps all, the disagreeable effect of his subject is no doubt attributable to the absence of Mr. Thackeray's usual brilliancy of style. A few flashes, however, occur, such as the description ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... design to accept any more retainers for a long time to come. That occurrence had lifted him, as by the ears, from the proletariat into the capitalistic leisure class; and the map of the world had become but the portrait of his oyster. ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... being forever on the rush, never accomplishing anything, are common faults of both teacher and pupil. We call them mannerisms or tricks of personality. They are readily imitated by children. I once knew a young lawyer who had started life as an oyster dealer, whose power of imitation helped to make him responsive to both helpful and harmful influences. After being at the same table for two weeks with a talented man whom he admired, he acquired the latter's habit of constantly twitching his ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... drawn by four powerful tugs. Six hundred people inhabited this floating village and they stood on the decks of their migratory houses, going north with the spring, like the ducks, and hurrahed, and each tug screamed a salute. The oyster dredgers cheered and schooners changed their course ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... must smart right pert—however, I won't bore you with any details. Jim, I can remember that just at the start of it a waiter happened to be passing with a very large order on his tray, and for a while the air was literally crowded with oyster stews, Welsh rarebits, glasses, showers of booze, frogs' legs, and everything that wasn't chained down. When the smoke cleared away I was occupying my regular position in the center of the car track. They wouldn't let me in again, and the rest of the ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... dinner, and to long stories of the imposture and villany of the Italians. One of them chiefly bewailed himself that the day before, having unwisely eaten a dozen oysters without agreeing first with the oyster-man upon the price, he had been obliged to pay this scamp's extortionate demand to the full, since he was unable to restore him his property. We thought that something like this might have happened to an imprudent man in any country, but we did not the less join him ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... were a romancer, this mere anecdote probably would "rest, lovely pearl, in the brain, and slowly mature in the oyster," till it became a novel. Properly handled, the incident would make a very agreeable first chapter, with the aid of scenery, botany, climate, and remarks on the manners and customs of the red deer stolen from St. John, or the Stuarts d'Albanie. Then, probably, one would ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... another name; we never knew. Some one had christened him Mr. Baptiste long ago in the dim past, and it sufficed. No one had ever been known who had the temerity to ask him for another cognomen, for though he was a mild-mannered little man, he had an uncomfortable way of shutting up oyster-wise and looking disagreeable when approached concerning his ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... The street floor of one of my houses in Hanover street lets for an oyster-room. They keep a bar there, and sell liquor. Last night they had a grand row—a drunken fight, and one man was stabbed, it's ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... though for a time we partly relieved our necessities, yet in Maye followinge we weare forced (leavinge a small guarde of gentlemen & some others about the president at James Towne) to disperse the wholl Collony, some amongst the Salvadges but most to the Oyster Banks, where they lived uppon oysters for the space of nine weekes, with the allowance only of a pinte of Indian corne to each man for a week, & that allowance of corne continued to them but two weekes of the nine, which ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various
... in all), and I shall repossess myself of Lido, and I will rise earlier, and we will go and shake our livers over the beach, as heretofore, if you like—and we will make the Adriatic roar again with our hatred of that now empty oyster-shell, without its pearl, the city ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... any cause for alarm. At daylight the next morning every canoe in the island appeared to be afloat; some brought off pearls, as well as mother-of-pearl shells and cocoanuts, and others were seen paddling out to the water between the reefs where the oyster-beds existed. We carried on a brisk trade for a couple of hours or more. The natives selected the knives and hatchets and other articles they required, and handed over the pearls in exchange. As one party had disposed of their pearls, they were told they must get into their canoes ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... along the flank of Table Mountain,—a wandering trail through a tangled solitude that might have seemed virgin and unbroken but for a few oyster-cans, yeast-powder tins, and empty bottles that had been apparently stranded by the "first low wash" of pioneer waves. On the ragged trunk of an enormous pine hung a few tufts of gray hair caught from a passing grizzly, but in strange juxtaposition at its foot lay an empty bottle ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to say, there seemed to be some feeling of general discontent on this very trifling subject. When Aristides has been much too just the oyster-shells become numerous. It was said that the Duke had been guilty of pretentious love of virtue in taking Lord Earlybird out of his own path of life and forcing him to write K.G. after his name. There came out an article, of course in the "People's Banner," headed, "Our Prime ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... by dem words, and I don't want no tanks. Jes lub me, and come sometimes to see me ef you can, it's so hard livin' in dis yere place. I don't tink I'll bar it long. I wish I was a bird to fly away, or a oyster safe in de mud, and free to do ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... of Lord Stanley of Alderley. I had hardly seen them before; but they are fraternizing with me, in a much better than the Jacobin fashion; and one only feels ashamed at the enormity of some people's good-nature. I am in a little rural sort of lodging; and as comfortable as a solitary oyster can ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... was a pause, during which the fire roared, and the smoke flew over the wheelwright's long, low house at the edge of the fen. "I say," cried Dick, "you don't set oyster-catchers in the 'coy." ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... writes Capt. Billingsley, whose ship, the Vanguard, was then lying at Blackstakes, "I Sent two fishing Smacks with a Lieutenant and some Men, with orders to proceede along the Essex Coast, and downe as far as the Wallet, to the Naze, with directions to take all the men out of Oyster Vessels and others that were not Exempted. The project succeeded, and they are return'd with fourteen men, all fit, and but one has ever been in the Service. The coast was Alarm'd, and the country people came downe and fir'd from the Shore upon the Smacks, and no doubt but they doe still ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... and displays in a striking fashion his method of handling anatomical facts, and deducing from them the great underlying principles of construction. The shell-fish with which he dealt specially were those distinguished as cephalous, because, unlike creatures such as the oyster and mussel, they had something readily comparable with the head of vertebrates. He began by pointing out what problems he hoped to solve. The anatomy of many of the cephalous molluscs was known, but the relation of structures present in one ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... mockingly labelled dry goods elbowed bales of hay. Sometimes a weak cock-a-doodle-doo from a travelling chicken-coop announced the whereabouts of a helpless though still irrepressible rooster. Back yards had been visited, and oyster-cans, ash-barrels and unsightly kitchen debris brought to light. It was a mighty revolution where the dregs of society were no longer suppressed, but sailed in state on ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... 'An oyster may be cross'd in love,'—and why? Because he mopeth idly in his shell, And heaves a lonely subterraqueous sigh, Much as a monk may do within his cell: And a-propos of monks, their piety With sloth hath found it difficult to dwell; Those vegetables of the Catholic creed Are apt exceedingly ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... ways of peace, which are strewn with flowers, which flow with milk?"—The priest spread his hand open for Vittoria's, which she gave to his keeping, and he enclosed it softly, smoothing it with his palms, and retaining it as a worldly oyster between spiritual shells. "Why, my daughter, why, but because we do not bow to that Image daily, nightly, hourly, momently! We do not worship it that its seed may be sown in us. We do not cling to it, that in return ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... beche de mer[Fr], barbecue, beefsteak; beet root; blackberry, blancmange, bloater, bouilli[obs3], bouillon, breadfruit, chop suey [U.S.]; chowder, chupatty[obs3], clam, compote, damper, fish, , frumenty[obs3], grapes, hasty pudding, ice cream, lettuce, mango, mangosteen, mince pie, oatmeal, oyster, pineapple, porridge, porterhouse steak, salmis[obs3], sauerkraut, sea slug, sturgeon ("Albany beef"), succotash [U.S.], supawn [obs3][U.S.], trepang[obs3], vanilla, waffle, walnut. table, cuisine, bill of fare, menu, table d'hote[Fr], ordinary, entree. meal, repast, feed, spread; mess; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the served and the servant, the good and the bad, should be reciprocal; that that which is used is, or should be, as much advantaged in the using as is the user. I would ask them—what particular advantage it is to the oyster to be devoured? or what return can the earth make to the sun for his rays, constantly poured upon it? Some assert that every human being is unqualifiedly endowed by nature with the right of individual freedom. This ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... To plates of oyster soup. Let pap engage The gums of age And appetites that droop; We much prefer to ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... Englishman. Ah, how he rejoiced in this wider horizon of London, so thickly starred with music-halls, billiard-rooms, and restaurants! 'We are emancipated now,' was his cry: 'we have too much intellect to keep all those old laws;' and he swallowed the forbidden oyster in a fine spiritual glow, which somehow or other would not extend to bacon. That stuck more in his throat, and so was only taken in self-defence, to avoid the suspicions of a ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... that curious railroad by the Whitby Moor was so much the more curious, that you were balanced against a counter-weight of water, and that you did it like Blondin. But in these remote days the one inn of Whitby was up a back-yard, and oyster-shell grottoes were the only view from the best private room. Likewise, sir, I have posted to Whitby. "Pity the sorrows of a poor ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... to our mind, of the existence of this law of life, we instance the case of the mango-tree growing in the West India Islands, especially along the sea-shore, where it becomes the natural habitat of the oyster. It is the belief of some ignorant persons that the oyster climbs these trees and deposits its spawn or "spat" upon the extreme limbs of the same as they bend down toward the water. This is manifestly an error, and belongs to the same class of fallacies as the common impression that toads rain down ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... floors; preserved with great attention, in the cellar of Mr. Worthington, opposite the town prison. It was discovered in the year 1675, about four feet and a half under the surface of the earth, which beneath was found to consist of oyster shells to a considerable depth; it was sunk from its original portion on one side being considerably inclined from the level.—This pavement, which is an octagon three feet diameter, represents a Stag looking intently upon the modestly-inclined countenance of a figure ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... half-paralysed mollusc, he managed to get the edge of the axe between the shells, wriggled it about a little, and then, mastering the opposition offered by the singular creature within, he wrenched the two shells apart and used his knife to scrape out the flesh of the oyster, felt it well over and then thrust it into the bucket, which he half ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... fed and to keep from falling on their boneless little cocos! I might even have married Theobald Gustav von Brockdorff and turned into an embassy ball lizard and ascended into the old family landau of his aunt the baroness, to disport along the boulevards therein very much like an oyster on the half-shell. I might have done all that, and I might not. But it's all for the best, as the greatest pessimist who ever drew the breath of life once tried to teach in his Candide. And in my career, as I have already written, there ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... for a few days in shallow water where they may plump up or fatten, and they have found by experience that this fattening occurs more rapidly in dirty water. If the oysters are fattened in sewage-polluted water, the typhoid germs get inside the shell in the oyster liquor and are thus transmitted to those persons who eat the ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... specialists, is the result of a blend of the North Sea cod and the finest Whitstable native. The result is said to reproduce in a remarkable degree the succulent qualities of the original fish when eaten with oyster sauce, and caterers are sure to welcome the combination of these popular items in so ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... they both laughed; the secretary so vehemently, that in kicking up his feet, he kicked the apron open, and nearly started Cauliflower's brother into an oyster shop; not to mention Mr Bailey's receiving such a sudden swing, that he held on for a moment quite a young Fame, by ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... fresh water was always at hand, as well as cracked oyster shell. She also fed the chickens all scraps from the table, cutting all meat scraps fine with an old pair of scissors hung conveniently in ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... the Prince of the Peace is well known. Napoleon, who had undertaken to be arbiter between the father and son, thought the best way of settling the difference was to give the disputed throne to his brother Joseph, thus verifying the fable of the "Two Lawyers and the Oyster." The insurrection in Madrid on the 2d of May accelerated the fate of Ferdinand, who was accused of being the author of it; at least this suspicion fell on his friends ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... bay was still bordered by extensive marshes, with here and there the habitation of man located upon some slight elevation of the surface. Having rowed twenty-six miles, and being off the mouth of Murderkill Creek, a squall struck the canoe and forced it on to an oyster reef, upon the sharp shells of which she was rocked for several minutes by the shallow breakers. Fearing that the paper shell was badly cut, though it was still early in the afternoon, I ascended the creek of ominous name and associations to ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... oysters has been developed by eating the full-chested bi-valve of the Eastern seaboard and the deep-lunged, long-bodied product of the Louisiana bayous, the native oyster does not greatly appeal. A lot has been written and printed about the California oyster, but in my opinion he will always have considerable difficulty in living up to his press notices. It takes about a thousand of him to make a quart and about ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... the clothes, shivering all the while, but less from bodily chill than the bare idea of a polar atmosphere. It is too cold even for the thoughts to venture abroad. You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction, and drowsily conscious of nothing but delicious warmth, such as you now feel again. Ah! that idea has brought a hideous one in its train. You think ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... The oyster takes no exercise; I don't believe she really tries; And since she has no legs I don't see why she should, do you? Besides, she has a lot to do— She lays a million eggs. At any rate she doesn't stir; Her food ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... boasting—as young blades are apt to do of acquaintance with older roisterers. They think it makes them seem men of the world. And in his desire to vaunt his comradeship with Allan, John failed to see that Allardyce was scooping him out like an oyster. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... King's books. Some old sources of episcopal and monastic income seem to us curious. The bulk was, of course, derived from manors or estates, but we find also that the bishop was entitled to a share of the whales killed on the shores of his diocese and that the monks of the priory of St. Andrew owned oyster fisheries. Out of the estates assigned to them the monks had to make an annual contribution, in kind, called the Xenium, to the bishop's income, and this, due on St. Andrew's Day, was on several occasions a subject of dispute. In Henry VIII.'s ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... saved us from a serious disaster; the sea-fight reflected high honor on our seamen, but the retreat of the British land-forces was due to their commander and not their antagonists. Meanwhile a large British fleet in the Chesapeake had not achieved much glory by the destruction of local oyster-boats and the burning of a few farmers' houses, so an army was landed to strike a decisive blow. At Bladensburg [Footnote: See the "Capture of Washington," by Edward D. Ingraham (Philadelphia. 1849).] the five thousand British regulars, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... kindly; "and we are all prepared to acquit you of any responsibility for the advanced condition of wickedness to-day. Man has progressed since your time, my dear grandma, and the modern improvements in the science of crime are no more attributable to you than the invention of the telephone or the oyster cocktail is attributable to ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... own liquor until they curl, cut in small pieces. Chop brains and mix with oysters; two tablespoonfuls melted butter; a few drops onion juice; four tablespoonfuls bread crumbs; one-half cup cream. If too dry add a little of the oyster juice. ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... cabins had a fairy-like appearance in the subdued light of the many-coloured lamps, and we were all in the Christmas humour at once. The decorations did honour to him who had carried them out and to those who had given us the greater part of them — Mrs. Schroer, and the proprietor of the Oyster ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... it, and I could then understand why mariners sometimes ran ashore in such cases, especially in the night, supposing it to be far away, though they could see the land. Once since this, being in a large oyster-boat two or three hundred miles from here, in a dark night, when there was a thin veil of mist on land and water, we came so near to running on to the land before our skipper was aware of it, that the first warning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... oyster supper at Commodore Burghe's, and he hasn't got back yet," answered the man, as he took the bucket and passed it to ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... no other toll or duty than the Act prescribes, viz., every salt-fish vessel, for groundage, 8d. per day, and 20d. per voyage; a lobster boat 2d. per day groundage, and 13d. the voyage; every dogger boat, or smack with sea-fish, 2d. per day groundage, and 13d. the voyage; every oyster vessel, 2d. per day groundage, and a halfpenny per bushel metage. And that it should be lawful for any person who should buy fish in the said market to sell the same in any other market or place in London, or elsewhere, by retail." And ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... here and there, and turning everything upside down, there was the bailiff, Zimmer, standing before one of the tables, dressed in black, with a grave air and penetrating glance, and near him the secretary Roth, with his red wig, imposing countenance, and large ears, flat as oyster shells. They paid no attention to my entrance, and this circumstance altered my resolution at once. I sat down in a corner of the room behind the big cast-iron stove, in company with two or three of the neighbors, who had run hither to see ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian
... to breathe.' Even the overpraised citizens of Athens at the time of Pericles, who must have been in all their ways so like the Athenians of to-day, were not more instant in the Agora or diligent in writing patriots' names on oyster-shells than the noisy mob of half-breed patriots who in the sandy streets of Asuncion were ever agitating, always assembling, and doing everything within their power to show the world the perfect picture of a democratic State. Strange that such ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... oyster fork is the first used, and then one takes the next in order. Should one be in doubt, the rule is to glance at the hostess and adopt her method, whatever that ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... horn. I began life in a comfortable sort of a way; selling oysters out of a wheel-barrow, all clear grit, and didn't owe nobody nothing. Oysters went down slick enough for a while, but at last cellars was invented, and darn the oyster, no matter how nice it was pickled, could poor Dill sell; so I had to eat up capital and profits myself. Then the 'pepree-pot smoking' was sot up, and went ahead pretty considerable for a time; but a parcel of fellers ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... know him, or but imperfectly. His outside deceived you; at first it came near deceiving even me. But I seized a chance, when, owing to indignation against some wrong, he laid himself a little open; I seized that lucky chance, I say, to inspect his heart, and found it an inviting oyster in a forbidding shell. His outside is but put on. Ashamed of his own goodness, he treats mankind as those strange old uncles in romances do their nephews—snapping at them all the time and yet loving them as ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... big trough jes' like de trough for de pigs and dey has a big gourd and dey totes de gourd full of milk and dey breaks de bread in de milk. Den my mammy takes a gourd and fills it and gives it to us chillun. How's we eat it? We had oyster shells for spoons and de slaves comes in from de fields and dey hands is all dirty, and dey is hungry. Dey dips de dirty hands right in de trough and we can't eat none of it. De women wuks in de fields until dey has ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... lord, that to-day there are not such benefactors as were numerous formerly; and for whom it was as pleasant to cover service with gold as to swallow an oyster from Puteoli. No; my services are not small, but the gratitude of mankind is small. At times, when a valued slave escapes, who will find him, if not the only son of my father? When on the walls there are inscriptions against the divine Poppaea, who will indicate those who composed them? Who ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... go wrong nowhere in originating—he produces nothing unworthy except when he reproduces what he never could have entertained but for the pressure of acknowledged authority. Even such things, however, he has enclosed in pearls, as the oyster its incommoding sand-grains. ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... in which I have engaged, this year of Sunday travel occupies its own place, apart from all the rest. Whether I think of the church where the sails of the oyster-boats in the river almost flapped against the windows, or of the church where the railroad made the bells hum as the train rushed by above the roof, I recall a curious experience. On summer Sundays, in the gentle rain or the bright sunshine—either, deepening the idleness ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... At Oyster Point, Maryland, lived Paddy Dabney, who recognized Kidd from an old portrait on meeting him one evening in 1836. He was going home late from the tavern when a light in a pine thicket caused him to turn from the road. In a clearing among the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... spoke abruptly. "It isn't everybody who knows when to let a fellow be an oyster," he said, gratefully. "But I'm getting over the oyster mood now, and feel like talking. Do you know, you're going to leave an awful vacancy ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... sorry we can't invite the whole corps," said the Goat-mother. "It's very cold for them outside, but the fact is I haven't sufficient crockery. As it is, I am forced to make use of oyster shells and the flower pot, though it's ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... is undoubtedly the best of all, for it contains no magnesia, and it does contain a small quantity of phosphate of lime. In the vicinity of the sea-coast, and near the lines of railroads, oyster shells, clam shells, etc., can be cheaply procured. These may be prepared for use in the ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring |
