"Pith" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of excellent pith,— Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,— Just read on his medal, "My country," ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... multiplied, but they had neither heart nor intellect, and could not worship, and so they withered up and disappeared in the waters. A third attempt followed: man was made of a tree called tzite, and woman of the pith of a reed; but these failed to think, speak, or worship, and were destroyed, all save a remnant which still exists as a race of small monkeys found ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... Brunai is sago flour. The sago palm is known to the natives under the name of rumbiah, the pith, after its first preliminary washing, is called lamantah (i.e., raw), and after its preparation for export by the Chinese, sagu. The botanical name is Metroxylon, M. Laevis being that of the variety the trunk of which is unprotected, and M. Rumphii that of the kind which ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... our day are employed not in producing anything new, but in summarizing, epitomizing, and, as far as possible, suppressing, what their predecessors produced. Criticisms are offered to us as substitutes for the works criticised; volumes are tapped that their sap and pith may be extracted; the analyst takes our labor upon himself and generously presents us with the fruits. Up to a certain point the process is unobjectionable, and we have reason to be grateful to those who are skilful in it. It used, however, to be thought that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... person and to his fortunes; that he was the author of many a striking saying, and the advocate of equity, of love, and of humility; that he may have disregarded the subtleties of the bigots for legal observance, and appealed rather to those noble conceptions of religion which constituted the pith and kernel of the teaching of the great prophets of his nation seven hundred years earlier; and that, in the last scenes of his career, he may have embodied the ideal sufferer of Isaiah, may be, as I think it is, extremely probable. But all this involves ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Spirit creates its oppo- [5] site, named matter,—are conclusions that destroy their premise and prove themselves invalid. Here is where Christian Science sticks to its text, and other systems of religion abandon their own logic. Here also is found the pith of the basal statement, the cardinal point in [10] Christian Science, that matter and evil (including all inharmony, sin, disease, death) are unreal. Mortals accept natural science, wherein no species ever pro- duces its opposite. Then why not accept divine Sci- ence on this ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... twenty-nine years later, won unenviable notoriety at the hanging of Ruth Blay. The circumstances are set forth by the late Albert Laighton in a spirited ballad, which is too long to quote in full. The following stanzas, however, give the pith of ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... pare them, and cut out the lines of white pith, which are on three sides; cut them in slices about half an inch thick; to six cucumbers, put one onion, sliced fine; then sprinkle them with salt, placing the fruit in layers, with salt between;—next morning, press the ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... brother, shall forgive a dunce. But should thy soul, form'd in some luckless hour, Vile interest scorn, nor madly grasp at power; 30 Should love of fame, in every noble mind A brave disease, with love of virtue join'd, Spur thee to deeds of pith, where courage, tried In Reason's court, is amply justified: Or, fond of knowledge, and averse to strife, Shouldst thou prefer the calmer walk of life; Shouldst thou, by pale and sickly study led, Pursue coy ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... ruffians—ex-captains of free companies and such marauders—were daily offering their services; there was no lack of them, and they had done but little. How should Parma, seeing this obscures undersized, thin-bearded, runaway clerk before him, expect pith and energy from him? He thought him quite unfit for an enterprise of moment, and declared as much to his secret councillors ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the apostrophes to Barto left it one of the ironical, veiled Republican, semi-socialistic ballads of the time, which were sung about the streets for the sharpness and pith of the couplets, and not from a perception of the double edge down ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... come over Safdar Khan. Certainly Shere Ali was wearing the dress of one of the Sahibs. A man passed carrying a lantern, and the light, feeble though it was, threw into outline against the darkness a pith helmet and a very English figure. Certainly, too, Shere Ali spoke the Pushtu tongue with a slight hesitation, and an unfamiliar accent. He seemed to ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... carved a little wooden image in trousers and coat, nicely whitewashed, and stuck up on that old ju-ju tree down there by the swamp. I saw it when I was down there this morning. Of course, it mayn't be intended to be a likeness of you, skipper, but it's got a pith helmet on, which the up-country nigger doesn't generally add to portraits of himself; and moreover, it's wearing a neat torpedo beard on the end of its chin, ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... sighted in the offing from Wei-hai-wei, apparently practising evolutions. But on the following day they all returned to Port Arthur, and anchored in the roadstead, under the guns of the batteries. The pith of the Akashi's report, therefore, was that there were two Russian ships—the new cruiser Variag, and the gunboat Korietz—at Chemulpo, four cruisers and an armed merchantman at Vladivostock, while the remainder of the Russian ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... in a minute. It would bear torsion through four revolutions or 1440 deg., and yet, when released, return accurately to its position; probably it would have borne considerably more than this without injury. The repelled ball was of pith, gilt, and was 0.3 of an inch in diameter. The horizontal stem or lever supporting it was of shell-lac, according to Coulomb's direction, the arm carrying the ball being 2.4 inches long, and the other only 1.2 inches: to this was attached the vane, also described by Coulomb, ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... circumscribed my thoughts and my studies; and, if I can bring it to a perfection before I die, I shall reckon I have well employed the poor remains of an unfortunate life. This indeed is more than I can justly expect, from a quill worn to the pith in the service of the state, in pros and cons upon popish plots, and meal tubs, and exclusion bills, and passive obedience, and addresses of lives and fortunes, and prerogative, and property and liberty ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... tubes of iron,—the ice seals the surface, past all gnawing out; and yet, amid the quietly flowing water, where snow and wind never penetrate, these warm-blooded, air-breathing muskrats live the winter through, with only the trout and eels for company. Their food is the bark and pith of certain plants; their air is what leaks through the house of sticks, or what may collect at the melting-place of ice ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... feet; they had oars as well. He "carried sail," while they spread not a "rag." The wind chanced to blow directly down-stream, and the broad wings of the bird, held out from his body, and half extended, caught the very pith of the breeze on their double concave surfaces, and carried him through the water with the velocity of an arrow. Do you think that he was not aware of this advantage when he started ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... company marched along, always facing Fuji, they began singing a weird chant. When the motors drew nearer the tourists saw that each man wore a huge mushroom hat made of lightest pith and from his neck hung a piece of ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... neighbor was estimated in trillions, not billions, and that our little system, even with its new additions, was a child's handbreadth on the plane of the sky. He had brought along a small book called The Pith of Astronomy—a fascinating little volume—and he read from it about the great tempest of fire in the sun, where the waves of flame roll up two thousand miles high, though the sun itself is such a tiny star in the deeps of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... saw Judge Barbour, who, though president of the Convention, as the house was in committee, engaged in the debate, fairly reel in his seat from one of Judge Marshall's massy blows, which he returned presently with right good will; but Tazewell, if I may use a figure which presented the pith of the argument of one side, and which was frequently used by both,—Tazewell fairly "sunk the boat" under the Chief Justice. The views of Tazewell prevailed; and in such a contest, in which all were kingly, and in which the combatants were magis ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... from sailing until our pith helmets arrived on the 26th, when, at 10 o'clock on a clear moonlight night, we steamed away escorted by two T.B.Ds. The Bay was crossed in calm weather. Gibraltar passed on the 30th and Malta reached on the 2nd June. Our clothing, consisting of the ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... palmetto, which grew in abundance around the wall, he trimmed it with his knife into the desired shape and size. Laying the piece, thus prepared, upon a large stone, he pounded one side of it lustily with a piece of rock. A few minutes sufficed to pound out the pith and leave ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... compasses were curiously formed. The Chinese used a magnetised needle, which they placed in a bit of rush or pith, which was floated in a basin of water, and thus allowed to move freely and turn towards the poles. They also made needles in the form of iron fish. An Arabian author of the thirteenth century thus writes:—"I heard it said that the captains in the Indian seas substitute ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... king may make a belted knight, A marquis, duke and a' that, But an honest man's aboon his might Gude faith he mauna fa' that! For a' that and a' that, Their dignities and a' that, The pith o' sense and pride o' worth Are higher ranks than ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... extracts are given from letters of distinguished contemporaries who knew the orator. Colonel T.W. Higginson writes thus: "I have hardly heard his equal, in grasp upon an audience, in dramatic presentation, in striking at the pith of an ethical question, and in single [signal] illustrations and examples." Another writes, in reference to the impromptu speech delivered at the meeting at Rochester on the death of Lincoln: "I have heard Webster and Clay in their best ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... freedom of banishment. We were going to say (but it might sound vainglorious), where do things read so well as in notes? but we will put the question in another form:—Where do you so well test an author's learning and knowledge of his subject?—where do you find the pith of his most elaborate researches?—where do his most original suggestions escape?—where do you meet with the details that fix your attention at the time and cling to your memory for ever?—where do both writer and reader luxuriate ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... but slowly. I have got to a crossing place, I suppose; the present book, SAINT IVES, is nothing; it is in no style in particular, a tissue of adventures, the central character not very well done, no philosophic pith under the yarn; and, in short, if people will read it, that's all I ask; and if they won't, damn them! I like doing it though; and if you ask me why! - after that I am on WEIR OF HERMISTON and HEATHERCAT, two Scotch stories, which will either be something different, or I shall ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... components. Steel helmets could be worn only in winter. In many of the native regiments the British officers wore tasselled pugrees, and long tunics that were really shirts, and an adaption of the native custom of wearing the shirt-tails outside the trousers. The Gurkhas were supplied with pith helmets. It was generally claimed that this was unnecessary, but the authorities felt that coming from a cold, high climate they would be as much affected by the Mesopotamian sun as were Europeans. The presence of the Indian troops brought about unusual additions to ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... remark I could never forget as coming from him. He said that he "had lived a very full and varied life, and had no interest in remarks about morals." "Remarks about morals" are, nevertheless, in essence, the pith of all the books to which he referred, as those to which he turned in preference to the Edinburgh Edition of R. L. Stevenson's works. The moral element is implicit in the drama, and it is implicit there because it is implicit in life itself, or so the great common-sense conceives it ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... space between the wharf and the buildings, and, giving the convalescents instructions to arm themselves at once and to stand by to show themselves when called upon, I entered my own quarters and hastily shifted from my uniform into a somewhat soiled suit of "whites" and a pith hat that had doubtless once been the property of one of the former inhabitants of the place—and which I had appropriated in view of some such contingency as the present—and otherwise made such preparations as ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... hand on the pommel and resigned her left foot; Mr. Talboys put his hand under that foot and heaved her smoothly into the saddle. "That is clever," thought simple David; "that chap has got more pith in his arm than one would think." They cantered away, and left him looking sadly after them. It seemed so hard that another man should have her sweet foot in his hand, should lift her whole glorious person, and smooth her sacred dress, and he stand by helpless; ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... well known, the concept of the cell arose first in botany. Robert Hooke discovered cells in cork and pith in 1667, and his discovery was followed up by Grew and Malpighi in 1671, and by Leeuenhoek in 1695. But they did not conceive the cell as a living, independent, structural unit. They were interested in the physiology of the plant as a whole, how it lived and nourished itself, and they studied cells ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... ants' nests, made of clay as big as a bushel. The ants themselves, by which the nests were inhabited, were small, and their bodies white. Upon another species of the gum trees, was found a small black ant, which perforated all the twigs, and, having worked out the pith, occupied the pipe in which it had been contained. Notwithstanding this, the parts in which these insects, to an amazing number, had formed a lodgment, bore leaves and flowers, and appeared to be entirely in a flourishing state. Butterflies were found in such multitudes, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... life followed, and during these years the rapid growth tells of good seasons as well as good soil. This rapid growth also shows that there could not have been any crowding neighbors to share the sun and the soil. The tree had grown evenly in all quarters, and the pith of the tree was in the centre. But had one tree grown close, on that quarter the old pine would have grown slower than the others and would have been thinner, and the pith would thus have been ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... betel, the sago, and the gno or gomati, are the four favorite palms of the Dyaks. In their simple mode of life, these four trees supply them many necessaries and luxuries. The sago furnishes food; and after the pith has been extracted, the outer part forms a rough covering for the rougher floor, on which the farmer sleeps. The leaf of the sago is preferable for the roofing of houses to the nibong. The gomati, or gno, gives the black fibre which enables the owner ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Panama grass, which he had sewn as a lining to an ordinary wide-awake. I regret I have had no opportunity of trying this combination, but can easily believe that the touch of the cool, smooth grass, to the wet brow, would be more agreeable than that of any other material. I need hardly mention Pith hats (to be bought under the Opera Colonnade, Pall Mall), Indian topees, and English hunting-caps, as having severally many merits. A muslin turban twisted into a rope and rolled round the hat is a common plan to keep ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... be almost seen by the naked eye; if with a penknife the remaining rudiment of the last year's leaf, and of the new bud in its bosom, be cut away slice by slice. The seven ribs of the last year's leaf will be seen to have arisen from the pith in seven distinct points making a curve; and the new bud to have been produced in their centre, and to have pierced the alburnum and cortex, and grown without the assistance of a mother. A similar process may be seen on dissecting ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... gone thus far on the road of concession, I take the liberty, in no unfriendly and polemical spirit, of asking you quite frankly what good you think can be done by resolutions of this character? I am not now referring to the resolution against myself. That is a matter of very minor importance. The pith of the whole business is in resolution number one, a resolution evidently framed with great care by the clever men who are engineering the present agitation in the Colony. Now, that resolution asks for two things—a termination of the war, and the restoration of the ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... task—to demonstrate the contradictions, the superficiality, the inadequateness, of the teaching of Rousseau, Voltaire, or Diderot. But it is well also, and in a historical student it is not only well, but the very pith and marrow of criticism, to search for that 'adaptation,' to use M. Taine's very proper expression, which gave to the word of these teachers its mighty power and far-spreading acceptance. Is it not as true of Rousseau and Voltaire, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 8: France in the Eighteenth Century • John Morley
... under-ripe oranges of all rind and pith, slice them into a dish, season with a little cayenne pepper, add the rind of one minced, the juice of one lemon and a tablespoonful of oil if ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... your brothers life Fals into forfeit: he arrests him on it, And followes close the rigor of the Statute To make him an example: all hope is gone, Vnlesse you haue the grace, by your faire praier To soften Angelo: And that's my pith of businesse 'Twixt you, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... o' the Lord wi' auld Sanny Grame!" she resumed to herself, as she lifted her head. "He's stickit nae mair, but a chosen trumpet at last! Foul fa' 'im for a wearifu' cratur for a' that! He has nowther balm o' grace nor pith o' damnation. ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... to ennoble every heart by moral aspirations, to indoctrinate every individual with an unequivocal theory of life, to inspire every member of the nation with lofty ideals. Their work did not fail to leave its traces. Slowly but deeply idealism entered into the very pith and marrow of the national consciousness. This consciousness gained in strength and amplitude century by century, showing itself particularly in the latter part of the first period, after the crisis known as "the Babylonian Exile." Thanks to the exertions of the Soferim (Scribes), ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... was bred in a bangalow wood, And bangalow pith was the principal food His mother served out ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... spent in overhauling his Belgian uniform, removing from it every vestige of evidence that might indicate its military purposes. From a heterogeneous collection of loot, Achmet Zek procured a pith helmet and a European saddle, and from his black slaves and followers a party of porters, askaris and tent boys to make up a modest safari for a big game hunter. At the head of this party Werper ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... article issue was joined, the flag of truce still flying during the debate. The very pith of the thing was the act of amnesty and oblivion. Yet so eager were now the majority of the boys for their amusement, that had it not been for the noble firmness of Saint Albans, the leaders, with poor Pilgarlick, would have ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... bit, Mrs. Blyth," said Zack, "you haven't heard the best of my notion yet: all the pith and marrow of it has got to come. The bracelet I mean to give her is one that she will prize to the day of her death, or she's not the affectionate, warm-hearted girl I take her for. What do you think of a bracelet that reminds her of you and Valentine, and jolly old Peck ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... are all mine; Well, I would trade the pack For one sweet year in which to shine Again as 'Mrs. Jack.' That gave to life a core, a pith, Not found ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of Egypt, though not altogether peculiar to it, were the papyrus and the lotus—the Cyperus papyrus and Nymphaea lotus of botanists. The papyrus was a tall smooth reed, with a large triangular stalk containing a delicate pith, out of which the Egyptians manufactured their paper. The fabric was excellent, as is shown by its continuance to the present day, and by the fact that the Greeks and Romans, after long trial, preferred it to parchment. ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... quickness of thought, a handful of a certain herb, broke a young palma christi across her knee, and took out the delicate, fleshy substance found under the bark of that tree. Returning to the stranger, she filled the wound with the pith, overlaid it with herbs, and bound it with the handkerchief. The whole was the work of an instant, and so rapid and decided were Canondah's movements, that Rosa's neckerchief was tied round the leg of the stranger before the blush ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... rejoined; "these four Latin words, which have a cabalistic sound, not unlike the croaking of certain batrachians, and might have been borrowed, one would say, from the 'Comedy of the Frogs,' by one Aristophanes, an Athenian poet, contain the very pith and marrow of all theories of love and lovemaking; they would make a capital rule to regulate everybody's conduct—of the virile as well ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... a remarkable discovery: you write two or three words on a paper; he takes it with him into a room, and turns a machine inclosed in a cylindrical case, at the top of which is an electrometer, a small fine pith ball; a wire connects with a similar cylinder and electrometer in a distant apartment; and his wife, by remarking the corresponding motions of the ball, writes down the words they indicate; from ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... magnificent limbs, striding down from the heights carolling a song, to enter the bastardly-civilised city of Tangier, so, it would seem, Chidley descended on to the city of Sydney. Having written a book in which to contain the pith of his message, he proceeded to clothe himself in a sort of scanty bathing dress, to lecture the public in the most fashionable streets of the city, and to sell his book to ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... suffocating in the damp inclosure, as the discarded pith began to fill the opening. Tiny apertures let in just enough air, but Piang was panting and dripping with sweat. As he struggled on toward the hole, he could feel the water under him, as it swayed the log ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... patched up, nothing fragmentary. The rhymes are easy and good, the words choice and proper, the meaning clear and intelligible, the melodies lovely and hearty, and in summa all is so rare and majestic, so full of pith and power, so cheering and comforting, that, in sooth, you will not find his ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... from all terrestrial bonds," she continued, not exactly remarking the pith of his last observation; "from bonds quasi- terrestrial and quasi-celestial. The full-formed limbs of the present age, running with quick streams of generous blood, will no longer bear the ligatures which past times have woven for the decrepit. Look down ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... [S']ami-tree is pregnant with fire.' The legend is, that the goddess Parvati, being one day under the influence of love, reposed on a trunk of this tree, whereby a sympathetic warmth was generated in the pith or interior of the wood, which ever after broke into a sacred flame on the ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... they ingender a-dust cholor, or melancholly humours, by reason that they bee burned and dry. And therefore great estates the which be [orig. the] chollerick of nature, cause the crustes aboue and beneath to be chipped away; wherfore the pith or crumme should be chosen, the which is of a greater nourishment then the crust." Regimen Sanitatis Salerni, ed. 1634, p. 71. Fr. chapplis, bread-chippings. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... had been taught to hold As full of pith and gravity, he took As 'twere, 'twixt thumb and finger of his wit— Rubbed off their gloss, until they seemed to me, All, as he ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... "Interest, pith, force, and charm—Mr. Parker's new story possesses all these qualities.... Almost bare of synthetical decoration, his paragraphs are stirring because they are real. We read at times—as we have read the great ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... Silent. Shag-eared, military, hirsute ruffians, ex-captains of free companies and such marauders, were daily offering their services; there was no lack of them, and they had done but little. How should Parma, seeing this obscure, undersized, thin-bearded, runaway clerk before him, expect pith and energy from him? He thought him quite unfit for an enterprise of moment, and declared as much to his secret councillors and to ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... water, whereof some that were seare and rotten, and some that of purpose were broken off, fell into the water and were all turned into stone. Of these, boughs, or parts of the tree, I brought into London, which, when I had broken into pieces, therein might be seen that the pith and all the rest was turned into stones, still remaining the same shape and fashion that they were of before they were in the water." Similarly, Sir John Maundeville notices the "Dead Sea fruit"—fruit found ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... thought it vastly pretty that the people were walking under their bows and cabbin windows and climbing of their sides like mermen, but I, being a plain, blunt man, had no joy in such idlenesse, deeming it better that in these times of pith and enterprise they should be more seemly employed. My Lord, because of one or two misadventures by reason of the slipperiness of the ice, was fain to go by London Bridge, which we did; my Lord as suited his ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... culture skims over that like a bird, never touching it with the tip of a wing. What she brings home is the freshness and brightness of life. She touches everything so daintily, she hits off a character in a sentence, she gives the pith of a dialogue without tediousness, she mimics without vulgarity; her narration sparkles, but it does n't sting. The picture of her day is full of vivacity, and it gives new value and freshness to common things. If we could only have on the stage such actresses ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... common pith ball of your high school physics days? An accumulation of positive electricity repels an accumulation of negative—if indeed we can correctly use 'accumulation' for a negativity—and it is my idea that the earth is the container of a gigantic accumulation of this meta—or hyper-electricity which ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... two horsemen jogged into view, ambling over the sand-hills whose red-hot edge met a shimmering sky some little distance beyond the station pines. Both wore pith helmets and fluttering buff dust-coats, but both had hot black legs, the pair in gaiters being remarkable for their length. The homestead trio, their red necks chafed by the unaccustomed collar, gathered grimly ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... to angelic beings, by interpreting Mariolatry in all its charm and pathos, and by rousing deep sympathy with our Lord in His Passion, painting lent efficient aid to piety. Yet painting had to omit the very pith and kernel of Christianity as conceived by devout, uncompromising purists. Nor did it do what the Church would have desired. Instead of riveting the fetters of ecclesiastical authority, instead of enforcing mysticism and asceticism, it really ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... at daybreak, and making my toilet by tightening my belt and putting on my mud-spattered pith helmet, I went down to the water's edge to try to find some means of communicating with the ship. During my absence at the front there had evidently been strong winds and heavy seas, for the strip of beach was covered ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... this fleet majestical, Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow: Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy, And leave your England, as dead midnight still, Guarded with grandsires, babies and old women, Or passed or not arrived to pith and puissance; For who is he, whose chin is but enriched With one appearing hair, that will not follow These culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France? Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege: Behold the ordnance on their carriages, With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur. Suppose ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... often as possible" is the interviewer's watchword,—"cut to the bone," as the reporters express it. Much of what a man says in conversation is prolix. In that part of the interview that is dull or wordy, give the pith of what is said in one or two brief sentences, then fall into direct quotation again when his words become interesting. As a rule, however, it is well as far as possible to quote his exact language all through the interview, since the interest ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... was appointed editor of the "Echoes," and invited to dine at Mme. Walter's. The "Echoes" were, M. Walter said, the very pith of the paper. Everything and everybody should be remembered, all countries, all professions, Paris and the provinces, the army, the arts, the clergy, the schools, the rulers, and the courtiers. The man at the head of that department should be wide awake, always on his guard, ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... storm 'tis useless to think of the sailor on his slippery shrouds; but the "outland eerie cattle" he teaches his feres to care for in the drifting snow. In what jocund strains he celebrates their amusements, their recreations, their festivals, passionately pursued with all their pith by a people in the business of life grave and determined as if it left no hours for play! Gait, dress, domicile, furniture, throughout all his poetry, are Scottish as their dialect; and sometimes, in the pride of his heart, he rejoices by such nationality ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... Tuned, from Bocafoli's stark-naked psalms, To Plara's sonnets spoilt by toying with, 'As knops that stud some almug to the pith 'Pricked for gum, wry thence, and crinkled worse 'Than pursed eyelids of a river-horse 'Sunning himself o' the slime when whirrs the ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... of gelatin, and is of two kinds,—animal glue and fish glue. Animal glue is made of bones and trimmings, cuttings and fleshings from hides and skins of animals. Sinews, feet, tails, snouts, ears, and horn pith are also largely used. Cattle, calves, goats, pigs, horses, and rabbits, ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... perceived a plant with large pointed leaves, which I knew to be the karata. I pointed out to the boys its beautiful red flowers; the leaves are an excellent application to wounds, and thread is made from the filaments, and the pith of the stem is used by ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... immense leaves form one of the most useful articles in these lands, supplying the place of bamboo, to which for many purposes they are superior. They are twelve or fifteen feet long, and, when very fine, as thick in the lower part as a man's leg. They are very light, consisting entirely of a firm pith covered with a hard thin rind or bark. Entire houses are built of these; they form admirable roofing-poles for thatch; split and well-supported, they do for flooring; and when chosen of equal size, and pegged together side by side ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... of faith makes connections. It ties our God and our need and our action into one knot. This is the pith of this whole story. Jesus' one effort in His tactful patient wooing is to get Martha up to the point of ordering that stone aside. He got her faith into touch with the gravestone of her sore need. Her faith and her action connected. That told her expectancy. ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... George might think it right to come up. The Dean would of course ask at the hotel on the following day, and would go to the police office. He believed, he said, that no permanent injury had been done. Then came, perhaps, the pith of his letter. He trusted that Lord George would agree with him in thinking that Mary had better remain with him in town during the two or three days of his necessarily prolonged sojourn. This was put in the form of a request; but was put in a manner intended to show ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... shed in such considerable quantities. When the development of the feather is complete, growth gradually ceases, the proximal part of the feather remains tubular and does not split, and the vascular tissue within dies, shrivels, and dries up, forming the pith of the quill When the papilla recommences to grow the old feather is pushed out, and this process causes the moult. It would appear, therefore, that the feather must have been evolved, not by a continuous modification from the scale but by a development of a new kind between the scales. ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... wood, river, stars and sea, Goes most disconsolate. A babble now, A huge and wind-swelled babble, fills the place Of that great adoration which of old Man had for Woman. In these days no more Is love the pith and marrow of Man's fate. Thou who in early years feelest awake To finest impulses from nature's breath, And in thy walk hearest such sounds of truth As on the common ear strike without heed, Beware of men around thee! Men are foul With avarice, ambition and deceit; The worst of all, ambition. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... day, when the gentlemen were gone out, after the usual time spent in the writing of letters, the reading of newspapers, and desultory conversation. We sat silent for two or three minutes. She was busy with her work, and I was running over the columns of a paper from which I had extracted all the pith some twenty minutes before. It was a moment of painful embarrassment to me, and I thought it must be infinitely more so to her; but it seems I was mistaken. She was the first to speak; and, smiling with ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... about on the sea, would Tsz-lu, I wonder, be my follower there?" That disciple was delighted at hearing the suggestion; whereupon the Master continued, "He surpasses me in his love of deeds of daring. But he does not in the least grasp the pith of my remark." ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... called Pauloma and Astika are the root; the part called Sambhava is the trunk; the books called Sabha and Aranya are the roosting perches; the books called Arani is the knitting knots; the books called Virata and Udyoga the pith; the book named Bhishma, the main branch; the book called Drona, the leaves; the book called Karna, the fair flowers; the book named Salya, their sweet smell; the books entitled Stri and Aishika, the refreshing shade; the book called ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... the fiery pith, The compact nucleus, 'round which systems grow; Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, And whirls impregnate with the ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... our friend said, but the above was the pith of his discourse. I believe that neither my young messmate nor I ever forgot what he said. By following his advice, we have found a comfort, a joy, a strength, which we should never otherwise have ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... Trinidad is a smiling, peaceful spot of great tropical beauty; it is one of the fairest places in the West Indies. At every hour of the year the harbor of Port of Spain holds open its arms to vessels of every draught. A governor in a pith helmet, a cricket club, a bishop in gaiters, and a botanical garden go to make it a prosperous and contented colony. But the little derelict Trinidad, in latitude 20 degrees 30 minutes south, and longitude 29 ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... more or less current use. Among such words are carpos fruit, pericarpion seed vessel pericarp, and metra, the word used by him for the central core of any stem whether formed of wood, pith, or other substance. It is from the usage of Theophrastus that the exact definition of fruit and pericarp has come down to us.[18] We may easily discern also the purpose for which he introduces into botany the term metra, a word meaning primarily the womb, and the vacancy in the ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... scholars.... I do not believe, however, that these complaints are made of your own free will, but rather at the instigation of certain priests and monks, whose desire is to keep the truth unknown." This sentence with which he closed contains the pith of the entire letter. The monarch felt that in the coming contest the opposing parties were to be the Church and State. He endeavored, therefore, by every means to win the Dalesmen to his side. Letters were despatched to Dalarne from various portions ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... Under whose heavy sense your brother's life 65 Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it; And follows close the rigour of the statute, To make him an example. All hope is gone, Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer To soften Angelo: and that's my pith of business 70 'Twixt you ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... years. The air there is burning, and would be almost unfit to breathe, if frequent rains did not fall and refresh the atmosphere. The natural productions are extremely valuable. In the first rank must be placed the sago-tree, of which the pith called sago takes, with yams, the place of cereals throughout Malacca. As soon as the tree is cut down, the pith is extracted, which is then grated, passed through a sieve, and afterwards cut up in the form of small rolls, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... beautiful arch of social amenities which vaults the temple of Christian virtues. Lest you should take umbrage at my frankness, which ought to assure you of my interest in your happiness and improvement, permit me to remind you of the oriental definition of a faithful friend, that has more pith ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... wholesome life in any age, but particularly amidst confused affairs and shifting standards. Genuineness is not mere simplicity, for that may lack vitality, and genuineness does not. We expect what we call genuine to have pith and strength of fiber. Genuineness is a quality which we sometimes mean to include when we speak of individuality. Individuality is lost the moment you submit to passing modes or fashions, the creations ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... devotes to that important question, which the Enquirer says is the real question, and which many of your speakers doubtless here say is the real question, precisely eleven lines—one short paragraph. And the pith of that paragraph is contained in these two lines: "I am sorry that what I have to say on that subject for publication I must reserve for some ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... whether it is irrigated or not, whether it grows on bottoms or on hill slopes, in dry or in damp regions, everywhere the cane seems to thrive, and undoubtedly it is the one product of the islands which succeeds. A worm, which pierces the cane near the ground and eats out the pith, has of late, I am told, done some damage, and in some parts the rat has proved troublesome. But these evils do not anywhere endanger or ruin the crop, as the blight has ruined the coffee culture and discouraged other agricultural ventures. The sugar product of the islands has constantly ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... does our new god Pan (As did he of the reeds by the river), To take all the pith from the heart of a man, To make him a sheep—though a tiger in spring,— A cruel, remorseless, poor, cowardly thing, With ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... finer spirits of the University generally. He had the gift which enables a man, sitting perhaps after dinner in a mixed society of his college contemporaries, to lead the way imperceptibly from the casual subjects of the hour—the river, the dons, the schools—to arguments "of great pith and moment," discussions that search the moral and intellectual powers of the men concerned to the utmost, without exciting distrust or any but an argumentative opposition, Edward Hallin could do this without a pose, without a false note, nay, rather by the natural force of a boyish ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 1. Seeds suspended in their pods. Stars discovered by Mr. Herschel. Destruction and resuscitation of all things. 351. 2. Seeds within seeds, and bulbs within bulbs. Picture on the retina of the eye. Concentric strata of the earth. The great seed. 381. 3. The root, pith, lobes, plume, calyx, coral, sap, blood, leaves respire and absorb light. The crocodile in its egg. 409. XI. Opening of the flower. The petals, style, anthers, prolific dust. Transmutation of the silkworm. 441. XII. 1. Leaf-buds changed into flower-buds by ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... ships, crowded with troops, set sail. Ribaut was gone, and with him the pith and sinew of the colony. The miserable remnant watched his receding sails with dreary foreboding, a foreboding which seemed but too just, when, on the next day, a storm, more violent than the Indians had ever known, howled through the forest and lashed the ocean into fury, Most forlorn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... took no notice, and just grew and grew; there it stood fresh and green in winter and summer, and all who saw it said, 'What a beautiful tree!' And at Christmas-time it was the first to be cut down. The axe went deep into the pith; the tree fell to the ground with a groan; it felt bruised and faint. It could not think of happiness, it was sad at leaving its home, the spot where it had sprung up; it knew, too, that it would never see again its dear old companions, or the little shrubs and flowers, perhaps not even ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... it. His lecture shall be somtimes by way of talke and sometimes by booke: his tutor may now and then supply him with the same Author, as an end and motive of his institution: sometimes giving him the pith and substance of it ready chewed. And if of himselfe he be not so throughly acquainted with bookes, that hee may readily find so many notable discourses as are in them to effect his purpose, it shall not be amisse that some learned man bee appointed to keepe ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... for the intrusion. The joint-grass of soggy pastures produces edible, nut-flavored tubers, called by the Indians taboose. The common reed of the ultramontane marshes (here Phragmites vulgaris), a very stately, whispering reed, light and strong for shafts or arrows, affords sweet sap and pith which ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... more than this, but this is the pith of it. I knelt down, and swore that I would strive, to the utmost in my power, to do as he bade me; and he put his hands on my head, and bade me go in peace; and I tell you, I mean to prove to him that his words ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... your 'Rodde' of a fair staff even of a six foot long or more, as ye list, of hazel, willow, or 'aspe' (ash?), and 'beke hym in an ovyn when ye bake, and let him cool and dry a four weeks or more.' The pith is taken out of him with a hot iron, and a yard of white hazel is similarly treated, also a fair shoot of blackthorn or crabtree for a top. The butt is bound with hoops of iron, the top is accommodated with a noose, a hair line is looped ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... sing-song, turned with a skip, and was gone. I stood where she left me, with my hair on end. In those days folk still believed in witches and trembled at a curse; and this one, falling so pat, like a wayside omen, to arrest me ere I carried out my purpose, took the pith out of my legs. ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... weapon used for pething (pithing) cattle; that is, killing them by piercing the spinal cord (pith, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... cut in the latest fashion, with his cockle-shell of a boat, which he managed as well on salt water as on fresh, sculling with his arms bare, a cigarette in his mouth, a monocle in his eye, and a pith-helmet, such as is worn in India. The young ladies used to gather on the sands to watch him as he struck the water with the broad blade of his scull, near enough for them to see and to admire his nautical ability. They thought all his jokes amusing, and they delighted ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... which men have made with the kindling of words from abstract conceptions,—go out. For however otherwise a man may be distinguished—unless there be in him a spirit of love, devotion, and self-sacrifice, we feel he lacks the very pith and beauty of manhood; and though he may be a great performer with his pen as one plays well on a musical instrument, a Great Being ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... Shinto worship be placed upon the kamidana, are set two quaintly shaped jars for the offerings of sake; two small vases, to contain sprays of the sacred plant sakaki, or offerings of flowers; and a small lamp, shaped like a tiny saucer, where a wick of rush-pith floats in rape-seed oil. Strictly speaking, all these utensils, except the flower-vases, should be made of unglazed red earthenware, such as we find described in the early chapters of the Kojiki: and still at Shinto festivals in Izumo, when ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... something final about this. And Gudrun seems like the end, to me. I don't know—but she seems so soft, her skin like silk, her arms heavy and soft. And it withers my consciousness, somehow, it burns the pith of my mind.' He went on a few paces, staring ahead, his eyes fixed, looking like a mask used in ghastly religions of the barbarians. 'It blasts your soul's eye,' he said, 'and leaves you sightless. Yet you WANT to be sightless, you WANT to be ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... established rules and etiquettes of strategy were abandoned. It was only by such rapidity of motion as should utterly transcend the suspicion of his adversaries, that he could hope to concentrate the whole pith and energy of a small force upon some one point of a much greater force opposed to it, and thus rob them (according to his own favourite phrase) of the victory. To effect such rapid marches, it was necessary that the soldiery should make up their ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... photograph of his car hit by a shell outside Messines. I have spoken of the simplicity and directness of Mr. COLEMAN'S style; he himself describes his book as a plain tale. It has, indeed, that kind of plainness which in dealing with enterprises of great pith and moment has a peculiar brilliancy of its own. The account, for instance, of the Cambrai—Le Cateau battle, with all its vicissitudes, is extraordinarily graphic and interesting, and the story of the charge of some fifty men of the 9th Lancers against more than twice their number ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... now raise it, but you may still catch the worms by laying under the bees a narrow shingle, a stick of elder split in two lengthwise, and the pith scraped out, or anything else that will afford them protection from the bees, and where they may spin their cocoons. These should be removed every few days, and the worms destroyed, and the trap put back. Do not neglect it till they change to the moth, and you have ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... universal honour. Jasmin, he continued, is what Burns was to the Scottish peasantry; only he received his honours in his lifetime. The comparison with Burns, however, was not appropriate. Burns had more pith, vigour, variety, and passion, than Jasmin who was more of a descriptive writer. In some respects Jasmin resembled Allan Ramsay, a barber and periwig-maker, like himself, whose Gentle Shepherd met with as great a success as Jasmin's Franconnette. Jasmin, however, was the greater poet ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles |
