"Rag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... choir of St. Paul's took up the headless body of the prelate and conveyed it to St. Paul's, but, on being informed that he died under sentence, the body was brought to St. Clement's beyond the Temple, but was ejected; so that the naked corpse, with a rag given by the charity of a woman, was laid on the spot called 'Le Lawles Cherche,' and without any grave, lay there with those of his two esquires, without office of priest or clerk. His house was attacked, the gates burned, quantities of jewels ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... Paris was waking up; the bakers were standing at their doors, and boys in their shirt-sleeves, with their eyes swollen with sleep, were taking down the shutters of the wine-shops. A cloud of dust, raised by the street-sweepers, hung in the distance; the rag-pickers wandered about, peering among the rubbish; the noisy milk-carts jolted along at a gallop, and workmen were proceeding to their daily toil, with hunches of bread in their hands. The morning air was very chilly; nevertheless, Chupin seated himself on a bench across the boulevard, at ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... a hail-storm of metaphor and epigram constantly dissolving in impalpable mist of mere words has he assaulted The History of an Attraction (CHATTO AND WINDUS) that the poor thing, atomised, vaporised and analysed to the bone, lies limp and lifeless between the covers, with hardly a decent rag of incident or story to cover it. And there one might perhaps be content to let it rest, but for the fact that Anita, the lady of the "Attraction," is worthy of a better fate. The principal man of the book, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... Atlantic for the first time cannot approach Sandy Hook Bar with so completely blank a mind as he would wish. So, at least, I found. It is not so much that the recent American invasion of London music-halls has bitten into one's brain a very definite taste of a jerking, vital, bizarre 'rag-time' civilisation. But the various and vivid comments of friends to whom the news of a traveller's departure is broken excite and predispose the imagination. That so many people who have been there should have such different and decided opinions ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... of this proprietor of silver boxes, this wearer of strange and brilliant garments, became slightly intensified as he pointed to the fallen sleeve, a rag of red and snow, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... about that albatross, father. I allowed you to suppose that I left it as it fell, but in reality I raised it to the deck of the canoe, and then perceived a piece of rag wound round one of its legs. This I removed, and, to my utter astonishment, saw English words written on it, which I plainly made out to be: 'Save an unfortunate Englishwoman from the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the landing of a great steamer, with splashing of spray as real as if seen from the dock. To those who enjoy music it furnishes band concerts, orchestra, bell-ringing, quartettes, solos, plantation melodies, rag-time tunes and women whistlers. ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... battle stood a Vandal bunting rag, Proudly to the breeze 'twas floating in defiance to our flag; And our Southern boys knew well that, to bring that bunting down, They would meet the angel death in his sternest, maddest frown; But it could not gallant Armstrong, dauntless Vollmer, or brave Lynch, Though ten thousand deaths confronted, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... dissyplin', say I; I'll take orders from a man wot ain't afraid o' nothin', wot hates the red rag we knows of, wot won't send me where he won't go himself. Fightin' and prize money, he 's our man. Besides, wot's the use o' kickin', we got to do it; we're bound by them articles of war we signed," continued this deep-sea philosopher. "Now, pass me my can o' grog, Tom, ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... alarm) Hey! Hey! I don't care about the k'mono, but I want the towel. I can't dry myself on a piece of soap and a wet wash-rag. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... with him he was doomed. He could do nothing for himself. I beheld him lying on a wooden bedstead without any bedding, with his head on a bundle of dirty rags, lent to him out of charity by an old rag-picker, who happened to live in the basement of the house. There he was, uncovered, burning with fever, and there was not even a jug in the room for the water to quench his thirst with. There was nothing whatever—just that bedstead and the ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... measuring the quantity with his eye—for it was an evidence of a hunter's skill to be able to get the proper quantity for the ball. Then he put the charge into the barrel. Placing a little greased linsey rag, about half an inch square, over the muzzle, he laid a small lead bullet on it, and with the ramrod began to push the ball into ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... suddenly, her eyes sparkling with a new idea. "Give me that old red rag we use for a duster, Mollie, and I'll go and ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... pleasant, with rag rugs on the painted floor and crisp, worn curtains. The table and chairs were cream-color, and the table wore an embroidered flour-sack cover. Grandpa pottered with a loose door-latch until Grandma wrung the suds from her hands and cried fiercely, "What's the use doing ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... wood; another voice answered, nearer, and the whole soul of Gregg turned to the stallion. Grey Molly was blown, she stood now with hanging head and her flanks sunk in alarmingly at every breath, but even fresh from the pasture she was not a rag, not a straw compared to ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... "you're tired—more than you've ever been in your life. You'll feel like a rag by to-morrow, and then I hope you'll take a good rest. But to-day, while you are still way up, I want to talk about your ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... the ears over Fashoda. A French expedition came out of French Africa into the Sudan, where Kitchener's army was in possession after having freed Egypt from the power of the Madhi's wild Sudanese. French and British both claimed the same place; and for some years Fashoda was like a red rag to a bull when mentioned to Frenchmen; for Kitchener had got there first. Luckily he had fought for France in 1870, spoke French like a Frenchman, and soon made friends with the French on the spot. More luckily still, ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... Kid's conception of time was extremely sketchy and had no connection whatever with the calendar. "I'm going to keep Silver in the little corral and let him sleep in the box stall where his leg got well that time he broke it. I 'member when he had a rag tied on it and teased for sugar. And the Countess has got to quit a kickin' every time I need sugar for my string. Ain't she, Daddy Chip? She's got to let us men alone or there'll ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... might, unnoticed, have shifted a little and blown them towards the shore. As he glanced around, him he gave a shout. Following almost in their track, and some fifty yards away, was a large galley; running before the wind, with a rag of sail set on ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... every corner of the room, took up the rag-carpet rugs and shook them, moved every chair and the big chest of drawers and the wash-stand, pulled the covers and the pillows and the mattress off the bed and threw them on the floor. When she had finished the room looked as if the big ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... lived in a mud hut somewhere about the barren hill now consecrated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The attempt to make out that it was Saint Thomas, or the Wandering Jew who here had an interview with the Virgin Mary, and that the old rag on which the picture is painted is really a part of the cloak of Saint Thomas, is, by a very verbose proclamation of the Archbishop of Mexico, dated 25th March, 1795, pronounced a damnable heresy. I have in my possession a copy of this precious document, bearing ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... in that damp cellar with hardly a rag to his poor dear back!" said Mrs. Bhaer, in a low tone to her husband, who was looking at the boy with a skillful pair of eyes that marked the thin temples and feverish lips, as well as the hoarse voice and frequent fits of coughing ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... morning I crossed the road as usual with my thermometer, and found a strip of pink calico hanging from the brambles by the mouth of Scarlet's Well. I had seen the pattern before on a gown worn by one of the villager's wives, and knew the rag was a votive offering, hung there because her child, who has been ailing all the winter, is now strong enough to go out into the sunshine. As I bent the bramble carefully aside, before stooping over the ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark. Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm, In that Indian paper—made his seniors squirm, Quoted office scandals, wrote the tactless truth— Was there ever known a more misguided youth? When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game, Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame; When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore, Boanerges ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... up and shake out the reefs, sir," he said coolly to his mate, for it was a standing rule of the captain's to seem calmest when he was in the greatest rage. "Turn them up, sir, and show every rag that will draw, from the truck to the lower studding-sail boom, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... some of the women were there—a young married woman, two big girls, and six or seven children. It was a hard frost and their sleeping accommodation was just as in the summer-time—bundles of straw and old rugs placed in or against little half-open canvas and rag shelters; but they all appeared remarkably well, and some of the children were standing on the hard frozen ground with bare feet. They assured me that they were all well, that they hadn't caught colds and didn't mind the cold. I remarked ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... moment did she count upon the ordinary romantic denouement of such a situation. The idea came involuntarily into her mind. Into the mind of what woman of her upbringing would not the idea come? But she banished it savagely. Who was she, waste rag of a woman, to attract a man? And even had she retained the vivid beauty and plenitude of her maidenhood, it would have been just the same. Elodie Figasso had never sold herself. No. All that side of things was out of the question. She wished, however, ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... MILLED away one, two, right and left—like a little hero as he is, with all his dear mother's spirit in him. First came a crack which sent a long dusky white hat—that looked damp and deep like a well, and had a long black crape-rag twisted round it—first came a crack which sent this white hat spinning over the gentleman's cab and scattered among the crowd a vast number of things which the cabman kept in it,—such as a ball of string, a piece of candle, a comb, a whip-lash, a little warbler, a slice of bacon, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had reached the bank of the stream. In he plunged, splashing and cursing, and seized the struggling puppy; then waded back, the waters surging about his waist, and Red Wull, limp as a wet rag, in his hand. The little man's hair was dripping, for his cap was gone; his clothes clung to him, exposing the miserableness of his figure; and his eyes blazed like hot ashes in ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... slowly round and round, singing slowly rude rhymes describing marriage—and not over decent some of these rhymes are. She has no toys—not one in twenty such girls ever have a doll; or, if they do, it is but some stick dressed in a rag. Poor things! they need no artificial dolls; so soon as ever they can lift it, they are trusted with the real baby. Her parents probably do not mean to be unkind, and use makes this treatment bearable, but to an outsider it seems unnecessarily rough, and even brutal. Her mother shouts at ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... sure of it!" he exclaimed suddenly. "One of them is waving his handkerchief, or a bit of rag of some sort. It must ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Chinamen aboard the Keying devoutly believed that their good ship would turn up, quite safe, at the desired port, if they only tied red rags enough upon the mast, rudder, and cable. Somehow they did not succeed. Perhaps they ran short of rag; at any rate they hadn't enough on board to keep them above water; and to the bottom they would undoubtedly have gone but for the skill and coolness of a dozen English sailors, who brought them over the ocean in safety. Well, if there be any one thing in the world that this extraordinary craft ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the rain and wind at all times. It was quite a diversion to the Lady of Shalott to see how many different ways of doing a disagreeable thing seemed to be practicable to that scuttle. Besides the bed on which the Lady of Shalott lay, there was a stove in the palace, two chairs, a very ragged rag-mat, a shelf with two notched cups and plates upon it, one pewter teaspoon, and a looking-glass. On washing-days Sary Jane climbed upon the chair and hung her clothes out through the scuttle on the roof; or else she ran a little rope from one ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... Clapboards, indeed, there were still, and shingles; but doors and windows had long since been removed—by man or Time,—and through the open spaces you could see here a cupboard door, and there a stairway, and there a bit of partition wall with its faded high-coloured paper. No remnant of furniture—no rag of old clothes or calico; but in the dooryard a few garden flowers still struggled to keep their place, among daisies, thistles and burdocks. The little field was bordered with woodland, and human voice or face ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Phillpotts mentions in one of his Cornish stories exactly this conception. Rags were offered. "Just a rag tored off a petticoat or some such thing. They hanged 'em up around about on the thorn bushes, to shaw as they'd 'a' done more for the good saint if they'd ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... pretty," she insisted after Catharine had powdered her face and neck and had wiped off her silky skin with the chamois rag. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... chance to talk about it—and when you've got to live—you don't possess your soul, neither in patience nor in peace, but any devil that likes possesses you and does what it likes with you, while you fridge yourself and fray yourself out like a worn rag." ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... and Sue turned to walk back toward Toby they saw a funny sight. The little Shetland pony started to come toward them, and in his mouth was a white rag. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... quarter of a mile away. For mercy's sake, pretty gentleman, spare a mouthful of that prickly whisky-and-soda you are lifting to your lips. There's a white man a few hundred miles off, dying on my lap of thirst—thirst that you cure with a rag dipped in lukewarm water while you hold him down with the one hand, and he thinks he is cursing you aloud, but he isn't, because his tongue is outside his mouth and he can't get it back. Thank you, my noble captain!' For naturally one tips ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... an old white skirt and an old shirt waist, both dirty, and a pair of tennis shoes that were white once but are gray now, where they aren't black. And I've got a pink chiffon rag tied round my hair." ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... to do a little stock-taking." With that, from every pocket he produced French notes of all denominations, in all stages of decay, and heaped them upon the table. "Now, this one," he added, gingerly extracting a filthy and dilapidated rag, "is a particularly interesting specimen. Apparently, upon close inspection, merely a valuable security, worth, to be exact, a shade under twopence-half-penny, it is in reality a talisman. Whosoever touches it, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... know," Larry growled. "Look, Sam, as science columnist for that rag you work for you probably come in touch with a ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... laid her flat upon the foaming sea. At first the very violence of the wind kept the waves down, but they gradually rose until the ship was tossed on their crests and engulfed in their hollows like a cork. As the force of the gale increased sail was further reduced, until nothing but a mere rag was left and even this at last was split and blown to ribbons. Inky clouds soon obscured the sky, and, as night descended on the wild scene, the darkness became so intense that nothing could be seen except the pale gleam of foaming billows as they flashed past over the bulwarks. In the midst of the ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... with the dissolution of the boiling unctuous steams that issued out below, and therefore are not onely glutted, that is, can dissolve no more then what they are already acting upon, but they carry up with them abundance of unctuous and sooty particles, which meeting with that rag of the Week, that is plentifully fill'd with Oyl, and onely spends it as fast as it evaporates, and not at all by dissolution or burning, by means of these steamy parts of the filterated Oyl issuing out at the sides of this ragg, and being inclos'd with an air that is already satiated and ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... a church mouse, yet the moment he stepped ashore he made it fly by the handful and squandered it, as the saying went, like an ass. When he was sober, which was seldom enough provided he could obtain drink, he possessed scarcely a rag to his back; but when he was drunk he was himself the first to acknowledge that he had "too many cloths in the wind." According to his own showing, his wishes in life were limited to three: "An island of tobacco, a river of rum, and—more rum;" but according to those who knew him better than he knew ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... that Billy had laid his cunning plans to this very end. Emmy Lou understood nothing of all this. She only pitied Billy. And presently, when public attention had become diverted, she proffered him the hospitality of a grimy little slate rag. When Billy returned the rag there was something in it—something wrapped in a beautiful, glazed, shining bronze paper. It was a candy kiss. One paid five cents for six of them ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... that you meet with Who are always full of gloom, And they chew the rag forever 'Bout the darkness of their doom; But as through the world we journey, There's a joy that none may tell When we meet the pleasant people Who ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... a long time before their child was born. When he was just a little infant, he worried and cried a great deal. He continued to do this, seemingly never to be satisfied, until finally the parents imagined that he wanted tobacco; and sure enough he did. The mother tied a small amount in a rag and gave it to her baby to suck, and immediately he became quiet and contented. So, from that time she gave him tobacco to stop his crying. As he grew, the quantity he used gradually increased until, when he was in his teens, he spent much of his money for tobacco. He went without many of ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... of water, I saw ripples on it and bubbles of air rising. Suddenly there appeared the head of a great bull-hippopotamus which, having caught sight of our rag barricade, either above or below water, had risen to the surface to see what it might be. I put a bullet from an eight-bore rifle through its brain, whereon it sank, as I guessed, stone dead to the bottom of the channel, thus helping to increase the ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... it receive this name because its invariable stupidity suggests those other worthless commodities "rag" and "bob-tail," which, outside of theatres, are generally associated ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... hunters poured volley after volley of lead into the forest. Suddenly a white rag tied to a stick was thrust out ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... you mean; for a step-father he seems to prove to merry England. But do you really believe that an old man down in Italy can make a bit of rag conquer by saying a few prayers at it? If I am to believe in a magic flag, give me Harold Hardraade's Landcyda, at least, with Harold and ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... with a handkerchief already a wet rag; Farrow, not daring to interfere, nibbled his chin strap; Bates scowled with relief. But the Inspector, after a ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... is good enough for her!" Miranda groaned to Jane. "She'll ride with the rag-sack-and-bottle peddler just as quick as she would with the minister; she always sets beside the St. Vitus' dance young one at Sabbath school; and she's forever riggin' and onriggin' that dirty Simpson baby! She reminds me of a puppy that'll always go to ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to which to trace the motive forces of a man's life; but if we add to them a third, found where the truth about a man not infrequently lies, in the rag-bag of his enemies, our materials will be nearly complete. "Dale hates his fellow-human- beings," wrote some anonymous scribbler, and, even expressed thus baldly, the statement is not wholly false. ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... quietly, the terribly diminished crew lay down as they stood by the guns, in readiness to repel another attack, should it be attempted. The next morning one of the French eighty gun ships got under way, and, with merely a rag of canvas shown, and her boats rowing ahead and sounding to find a channel through the reefs, gradually made ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... of it. One reads of Ottoline's movements in every rag one picks up. [Walking over to the right.] She's the biggest chasseuse of ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... intricate byways of narrow streets and in the lengthy thoroughfares. Wherever there was "matter to be heard and learned," in back streets behind Holborn, in Borough courts and passages, in city wharfs or alleys, about the poorer lodging-houses, in prisons, workhouses, ragged-schools, police-courts, rag-shops, chandlers' shops, and all sorts of markets for the poor, he carried his keen observation and untiring study. "I was among the Italian Boys from 12 to 2 this morning," says one of his letters. "I ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... bureau from the keepin'-room chamber for seven dollars. It was worth fifteen; the auction-man said so himself. But to kind of match that, her daughter-in-law, she giv' thirty cents a yard for that rag-carpet in your room, and it didn't cost but fifty when it was new, and that was twelve years ago next November! So I guess we come out pretty even with the Doolittle family, after all!" added ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... and urged the claims of suffering humanity. Roe replied by asking, When charity was like a top? It was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified silence. Roe then said, "When it begins to hum." Doe then—and not till then—struck Roe, and his head happening to hit a bound volume of the Monthly Rag-bag and Stolen Miscellany, intense mortification ensued, with a fatal result. The chief laid down his notions of the law to his brother justices, who unanimously replied, "Jest so." The chief rejoined, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Rosalie Breeze and oh "cursed spite!" Isabel Boylston—"Is-a-bel," as she pronounced it,—roomed together and squabbled incessantly. At least, Rosalie did the squabbling, Is-a-bel affected the superior, self-righteous air which acted upon Rosalie's peppery temper as a red rag upon a bull. It was Miss Sturgis, of course, who had advised placing them together. Isabel was a great favorite of Miss Sturgis, and Rosalie ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... written lines so bad that a king alone could have been the author of them. These lines, which were published in the official gazette, have been handed down to us by one of those indiscreet persons who suffer no follies of the past to be lost. Such persons are the rag-pickers of history. ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... minuteness which contrasted oddly with the brief, hurried entries further on. He found himself, as he had anticipated, in a society composed of some of the most heterogeneous elements. Stillwater, viewed from a certain point, was a sort of microcosm, a little international rag-fair to which nearly every country on earth had contributed one of its shabby human products. "I am moving," wrote Mr. Taggett, "in an atmosphere in which any crime is possible. I give myself seven days at the outside to light upon the traces of Shackford's murder. I ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... The best fuel is afforded by a green little bush about the size of common heath, which has the useful property of burning while fresh and green. It was very surprising to see the Gauchos, in the midst of rain and everything soaking wet, with nothing more than a tinder-box and a piece of rag, immediately make a fire. They sought beneath the tufts of grass and bushes for a few dry twigs, and these they rubbed into fibres; then surrounding them with coarser twigs, something like a bird's nest, they put the rag with its spark of fire in the middle and covered ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... waved good-bye to hide A sigh that he converted to a laugh. He seemed to hang rather than stand there, half Ghost-like, half like a beggar's rag, clean wrung And useless on the brier where it has hung Long years a-washing by sun ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... things are like. A yard square of tough paper backed by indestructible calico—one might as well try to devour a child's rag book. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... if appealing only to practical interest, inevitably calls forth the empathic imagination of the more gifted artists; but these marvellously drawn figures are all huddled together or scattered as out of a rag-bag; and, what is still more significant, they lack that insistence on the feet which not only suggests ground beneath them but, in so doing, furnishes a horizontal by which to start, measure and take the bearings ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... make mud pies many a day and put them on de chicken coop, in de sun, to dry. Her had two dolls; deir names was Dorcas and Priscilla. When de pies got dry, she'd take them under de big oak tree, fetch out de dolls and talk a whole lot of child mother talk 'bout de pies, to de Dorcas and Priscilla rag dolls. It was big fun for her tho' and I can hear her laugh right now lak she did when she mince 'round over them dolls and pies. Dere was some poor folks livin' close by and she'd send me over to 'vite deir chillun over to play wid her. They was name Marshall. Say they come from Virginny ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... and his four stout sons set off on an autumn night for the meeting of patriots at a house on the Wissahickon,—a meeting that bodes no good to the British encamped in Philadelphia, let the red-coats laugh as they will at the rag-tag and bob-tail that are joining the army of Mr. Washington in the wilds of the Skippack. The farmer sighs as he thinks that his younger son alone should be missing from the company, and wonders for the thousandth time what has become of the boy. They sit by a rock that juts into the road ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... kept me sober, 'tis past my understanding why I was not as drunk as he. Be that as it may, I was near as quarrelsome, and would as soon have worshipped the golden calf as saluted that rag. I flung back some reply, and he lugged out and came at me with a spring like a wild beast; and his men below, seeing us fall out, made a rush for the poop with knives and cutlasses drawn. Betwixt them all I should soon have been in slivers had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reached Las Vistillas and watched some rag-dealers sorting out their materials after emptying the contents of their sacks upon the ground. He sat down for a while in the sun. With his eyes narrowed to a slit he could make out the arches of the Almudena church just above a wall; beyond rose the Royal ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... the saddle, like a wet rag, and the Indian girl was slipping from his arms to the ground when Ted seized her and transferred her to ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... the body of the old coach lay on the ground, and four pigs were shut up inside it. I wonder if these were the first that had ever been there? That point could not certainly be determined; but that it had been a real state coach everything bore witness, even to the damask rag that hung down from the roof; everything spoke ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... struggled, and yelled piteously for the Lady Prioress; then dragging her up, he exclaimed, "Since thou didst not heed me, now thou shalt come off naked as thou art; better the devil should not have a rag to catch ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... greater is the pleasure in the game; for the imagination delights in the exercise of itself. A wax doll, sent from Paris, with flaxen hair and eyes that open and shut, is laid away, when the mere novelty of it is exhausted, in theatric chest, and the little girl is fondling again her first baby of rag and string. A real steel sword and tin helmet are soon cast aside, and the boy is back again among the toys of his own making. That impulse to creation which all men feel, the impulse which makes the artist, is especially active in a child; his games are his art. With a ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... blushed painfully, and Mose flushed sympathetically. He could not understand the mystery, and ignored her confusion as far as possible. The room was shabby and well worn. A rag carpet covered the floor. The white plastered walls had pictures cut from newspapers and magazines pinned upon them to break the monotony. The floor was littered also with toys, clothing, and tools, which the baby had pulled about, but the room wrought powerfully upon the boy's heart, giving ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... beautiful paint or in beautiful sound, he was anathema, to be cast into outer darkness where there is gnashing of teeth—the doctrine of art for art's sake which the advanced young leaders of the new generation assure me is hopelessly out of date. Pretence of any kind was as the red rag; "bleat" was the unpardonable sin; the man who was "human" was the man to be praised. I would not pretend to say who invented this meaning for the word "human." Perhaps Louis Stevenson. As far back as 1880, in a letter from Davos describing the people "in a kind of damned hotel" where ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... flintlock rifle; it is a fearful and wonderful process; it takes him at least two minutes; he does not seem to know on which particular part of his wonderful paraphernalia to find the slugs, the powder, or the patching, and he finishes by tearing a piece of rag off a by-standing villager to place over the powder in the pan. While he is doing all this, and especially when ramming home the bullet, he looks at me as though expecting me to come and pat him approvingly on the shoulder. When they ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... to produce any rag-eared, stub-tailed, eager-eyed, collarless yellow cub. Nor did the mess-call raise his shrill bark in the vicinity of the cook's tent. The ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... much to do to establish the exact line between Lord Aberdeen's observations and objections, Lady Cowley has no less difficulty in keeping a nice balance between dignity and popularity," as "the Embassy is besieged by all sets and all parties; the tag and rag, because pushing is a part of their nature; the juste milieu [how the very phrase recalls a whole forgotten world!] because they consider the English Embassy as their property; the noble Faubourg because they are tired of ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... slowly the mist cleared and the objects about him assumed natural form. He was in a room of some size—not the one in which he had been attacked he felt sure—fitted up with a long table, and a number of chairs. There was no other furniture; the walls were bare, and only a small rag rug partially covered the floor. At first he perceived no other occupants; only as, painfully, he finally twisted his head to the right, his eyes distinguished two men seated against the wall. The sight of their faces restored instantly his memory of ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... better say no more, lest I might change my mind. Sure, 'tis sorry I may be to-night when I'm facing the cold winds on the lonely roads that I exchanged my fine warm coat for an old threadbare garment that a rag man wouldn't give a child ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... Scotsman, who had been addressed in Paris as "Dick the Ranter"; the third was "Roaring John," into whose face Dan had emptied the contents of his duck-gun three days before. The ruffian had his mouth all bound in a bloody rag, so I hugged myself with the knowledge that he had been well hit; but he was in nowise depressed; and, although the gun had stopped his speech, he smacked Paolo on the back when he greeted him, and the others soon had their faces in the ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Bourke; a barracks for blacklegs brought up from Sydney to take the place of Union shearers on strike; and the new Governor, on his inevitable visit to Bourke, was banqueted at the Imperial Hotel. The editor of the local "capitalistic rag" stayed there; the pastoralists' member was elected mostly by dark ways and means devised at the Imperial Hotel, and one of its managers had stood as a dummy candidate to split the Labour vote; the management of the ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... to one of his works and critics reviled it, Wagner's usual method of reply was to produce something still more advanced. Thus, when "Tannhaeuser" proved caviar to the public, and seemed to affect the critics like a red rag waved before a bull, he promptly sat down and wrote and composed "Lohengrin." But how should he, an exile, secure its production? There it lay a mute score. As he turned its pages, the notes looked out at him appealingly for a hearing. It was like a homesick child ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... rag and wipe your face and hands, and give it to the others and let them use it, too. Put those plates upon the table." We immediately obeyed orders, and took our seats again around the fire. "One of you go and pull that straw out of the corner and get ready to go to bed." We all lay down on the straw, ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... said Haynerd meekly. "I really am trying to be decent, you know. But when I think of Ames it's like a red rag to a bull!" ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... bare toleration by law? The reason of my doubt is, because I have been so very idle as to read above fifty pamphlets, written by as many Presbyterian divines, loudly disclaiming this idol Toleration, some of them calling it (I know not how properly) a rag of Popery, and all agreeing it was to establish iniquity by law. Now, I would be glad to know when and where their successors have renounced this doctrine, and before what witnesses. Because, methinks I should be loth to see my poor titular bishop ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... attempt to gain possession of the paper. He therefore sent for an old woman who hobbled around on crutches, selling old clothes; he had noticed her in the streets of Berlin among a crowd of other rag-pickers, and in age and costume she seemed to him to correspond fairly well to the woman described to him by the Elector of Saxony. On the supposition that Kohlhaas probably had not fixed very deeply in mind the features of the old gipsy, of whom he had had but a fleeting vision as she ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... you hear, but something uttered in the midst of my isolation, and arriving strangely changed and travel-worn down the long curve of your own individual circumambient atmosphere. I may say Bob, but heaven alone knows what the goose hears. And you may be sure that a red rag is, to a bull, something far more mysterious and complicated ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... made soft. Quinces do not need to stand overnight in sugar—rather heat the sugar, and put it in the liquid they have been boiled in, after skimming out the fruit. It should be cooked without sugar till a fork easily pierces it, but not until it begins to rag. ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... and, arter cutting his uniform into pieces, stuffed it into the fireplace and pulled the dampers out. He burnt up 'is boots and socks and everything else, and they all three laughed as though it was the best joke in the world. Then Mr. Alfredi took his coat off and, dipping a piece of rag into a basin of stuff wot George 'ad fetched, did Rupert a ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... it; entirely dead, perfectly dead, as dead as any other new person in the cemetery; dead in abundant time to get into that week's SAGAMORE, too, and only shut out by an accident; an accident which could not happen to a metropolitan journal, but which happens easily to a poor little village rag like the SAGAMORE. On this occasion, just as the editorial page was being locked up, a gratis quart of strawberry ice-water arrived from Hostetter's Ladies and Gents Ice-Cream Parlors, and the stickful of rather chilly regret over Tilbury's translation ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... to the ground, but again he arose overthrowing others, never quitting hold of his hurle, and, whenever he got a free space, grasping that weapon like a war-mace in both hands, he struck down his foes. The skirts of his mantle were torn, only a rag remained round his shoulders, fastened by the brooch; he was covered with blood, his own and his enemies', and his eyes were like burning fire. Then Conall Carna being enraged ran towards the boys, meaning to rebuke their cowardice and with his strong hands hurl ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... keep what he had. He was always buying, and living large; but that can't last for ever. I saw him first at a muster. I was then just eighteen, and went out with the rest, for the first time. Maybe, 'squire, I didn't take the rag off the bush that day. I belonged to Captain Williams's troop, called the 'Bush-Whackers.' We were all fine-looking fellows, though I say it myself. I was no chicken, I tell you. From that day, Mark Forrester wrote ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... credible that a man who possessed miraculous power should not, in this supreme moment, use it to deliver Himself? Did not 'Physician, heal Thyself,' come in properly there? Would any of the most besotted followers of this pretender retain a rag of belief in His Messiahship if He was crucified? Could it be possible that, if there was a God at all, He should leave a man that really trusted in Him, not to say who was really His Son, to die thus? A cracked mirror gives a distorted image. The facts were seen, but their relation was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... apology—"Condescend wholly to pardon. Deign to have pity on the ignorance shown. With fear and respect...." Looking into O'Iwa's face he was overcome by his feelings. Bursting with laughter he fled to the front of the shop to stuff the dust rag into his mouth in mistake for a towel. This slight error restored his equanimity. The banto[u] looked after him with some fellow feeling and much anger. "He is half idiot. Condescend to disregard his rude speech and manner. After all he is but a kozo[u].... What can this Jibei ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... three o'clock I cried, "Print off," and turned to go, when there crept to my chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled—this rag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he was come back. "Can you give me a drink?" he whimpered. "For the Lord's ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... once this mornin'. It's clean enough," Grandpa protested, but in vain. He was planted in a chair, and Grandma Keeler, with rag and soap and a basin of water, attacked the old gentleman vigorously, much as I have seen cruel mothers wash the faces of their earth-begrimed infants. He only gave expression to such ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... mothers and nurses, "bearing" from morning till night the humors of four or five discontented children, who are screaming and playing pranks with their metal plates and rag dolls? They seem to say: "Children are like this," and a benevolent compassion takes the place of the natural reaction of impatience. Of such persons we say: "How good they are! ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... column struck upon his beaver, thence spreading on all sides. His carefully starched collar became instantly as limp as a rag, while his coat suffered ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... recognised the voice of Bennet Ma., known—strictly out of earshot—as Scab Major. Is any school, at any period, quite free of the type? It sounded more like a rough than an ill-natured rag; but the whimpering unseen victim seemed to have no kick in him: and Roy could only sit there wondering helplessly what people were made of who found it amusing to hurt and frighten other people, who had ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Does not the one nature preclude the other? I fear so. In order to attack unconcernedly that which lies nearest to us, we must be unable to see beyond, like the bull charging at the red cloak. He would not do it, if behind the red rag, he saw the man with the sword, and behind the man with the sword the thousand spectators who will not leave the arena till the sharp steel has pierced his heart. He who sees or divines behind the nearest objects their distant causes, paralyzed by the vision of the endless chain of cause ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... projecting rock or point that could give shelter to lurking foe, and all the time the brown muzzles of the carbines were trained low along the stream bed. No shot could now be thrown away at frowsy turban or flaunting rag along the cliffs. The rush was the one thing they had to dread and drive back. It was God's mercy the Apache dared not ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King |
