"Pickaxe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yield, which will never yield, as they exist only on paper; quarries which as yet know not pickaxe or powder; untilled, sandy moors, which they survey with a gesture, saying, 'We begin here, and we go way over yonder, to the devil.' It's the same with the forests,—one whole densely wooded slope of Monte-Rotondo, which belongs to us, it seems, but which it is not practicable ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... was his trail, and the way that they came, And yonder, no doubt, he was bagging his game. When Jones drops his pickaxe, and Thompson says "Shoo!" And both of 'em points to a cage of bamboo Hanging down from a tree, with a label that swung Conspicuous, with letters in some foreign tongue, Which, when freely translated, the same did appear Was the Chinese for saying, "A White Man is here!" And ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... steel pickaxe working all alone. It was so hard and sharp that when it struck a rock it went into ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... very deep canal, some workman struck his pickaxe against timbers that were black with age, and nearly as hard as stone. These, on being brought up, showed that they were the ribs of an ancient boat. Learned men say that there was once a river here, which long since dried up. All the pieces of the boat were recovered, and, under the skilful hands ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... little teeth, which served For pickaxe and for spade, She gnawed right through the gothic door, ...
— The Mouse and the Christmas Cake • Anonymous
... his arch enemy, the huntsman. The thick breath of the hounds make hot the air within his hole. The sound of their voices is close upon his ears. His breast is nearly bursting with the violence of that effort which at last has brought him to his retreat. And then pickaxe and mattock are plied above his head, and nearer and more near to him press his foes,—his double foes, human and canine,—till at last a huge hand grasps him, and he is dragged forth among his enemies. Almost as soon as his eyes have seen the ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... baggage-train is to quarter itself. Being in an enemy's country it is not enough simply to post sentries. A trench must be dug and a palisade erected round the camp, and for that purpose every soldier on the march has carried a couple of sharpened stakes and a sort of small pickaxe. It may therefore be readily understood that Scius is heavily laden. Besides the weight of his body-armour and his shield, pike, and sword, his orthodox burden is about ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... entire party proceeded in the direction of the gully, or cleft, upon their arrival at which preparations were at once made for a possible sojourn of a few days; and while those preparations were being made, Earle and Dick, carrying a pickaxe and shovel, as well as their rifles, started to climb the cleft, bent upon examining the spot where the emeralds had been found, and, if possible, settling the question as to whether or not a mine ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... with a pickaxe," said Beale later, "so help me three men and a boy you might. It's a rum go. My lord 'e says there's some woman been writing letters to 'im this long time saying she'd got 'old of 'is long-lost nephew or cousin or something, and a-wanting to get money ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... pickaxe and a spade, a spade, For and a shrouding sheet; O, a pit of clay for to be made For such ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... fished up the old Colonel from the depths of his engineer's office, and had torn him away from his squares and compasses. Poor old fellow! His souvenirs of activity went as far back as the Crimea and Sebastopol. Since that time he had not even seen a pickaxe glisten in the sun, and, behold, they asked this worthy man to return to the trench, and to powder his despatches with earth ploughed up by bombs, like Junot at Toulon in the ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... put me in mind that I wanted many things notwithstanding all that I had amassed together; and of these, ink was one; as also a spade, pickaxe, and shovel, to dig or remove the earth; needles, pins, and thread; as for linen, I soon learned to want that ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... oviform stone implement which had been found on the granite moors of North Cornwall, and apparently had been used as a pickaxe in mining. The following notice shows that such implements were used by the ancient miners in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... long period; for the caves are so many and so large that, even with modern appliances, it would have needed thousands of men for many decades to excavate them in the hard agglomerate of sand and pebbles. The excavation had been made, however, not with powder and dynamite, but with chisel and pickaxe; the caves must therefore have been the work of thousands of years. There was only one people who could here have expended upon such a work sufficient strength for a sufficient time—the Egyptian. This most ancient ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... shivering little ones watch wistfully the ever-dwindling sack of maize, as day by day two or three handfuls are ground between the stones of the hand-mill and kneaded into a thick unwholesome dough, the only food of the poorer peasants in the winter. But now every man who could handle pickaxe and bore, and sledge-hammer and spade, was out upon the road from dawn to dark, and every Saturday night each man took home a silver scudo in his pocket; and where people are sober and do not drink their wages, a silver scudo goes a long way further than nothing. Yet many a lean and swarthy fellow ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... then finding it necessary to send him back again. He built many castles, and, while fortifying that of Dernwath, was entreated by some of the Irish to allow them to work for hire. Glad to encourage any commencement of industry, he took a pickaxe to show them how to work; when one of them, seizing the moment when he bent forward to strike with it, cleft his head with an axe, and killed him on the spot. His less worthy nephew and namesake succeeded to his Irish estates, and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... brought them out all my store of tools, and gave every man a digging-spade, a shovel, and a rake, for we had no barrows or ploughs; and to every separate place a pickaxe, a crow, a broad axe, and a saw; always appointing, that as often as any were broken or worn out, they should be supplied without grudging out of the general stores that I left behind. Nails, staples, hinges, hammers, chisels, knives, scissors, and all sorts of ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... the desired effect at the right height when seen from below. The district lying between Tanis and Bubastis is thickly studded with monuments built or embellished by the Amenemhaits and Usirtasens: wherever the pickaxe is applied, whether at Fakus or Tell-Nebesheh, remains of them are brought to light—statues, stelae, tables of offerings, and fragments of dedicatory or historical inscriptions. While carrying on works in the temple of Phtah at Memphis, the attention of these Pharaohs was ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... thick mustache, were already getting gray. He had one-of those finely-developed heads which appear made to be struck on a medal, piercing eyes, a serious mouth, the physiognomy of a clever man of the military school. He was one of those engineers who began by handling the hammer and pickaxe, like generals who first act as common soldiers. Besides mental power, he also possessed great manual dexterity. His muscles exhibited remarkable proofs of tenacity. A man of action as well as a man of thought, all he did was without effort to one ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne |
