"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and you run... and run past the wild, wild towers... and trees in the gardens tugging at their feet and little frightened dolls shut up in the shops crying... and crying... because no one stops... you spin like a penny thrown out in the street. Then the man clutches her by the hair.... He always clutches her by the hair.... His eyes stick out like spears. You see her pulled-back face and her black, black eyes lit up by the glare.... Then everything ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... it to me, and I will give you twenty bundles of English lace, for we English can spin cheaper than ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... giddiness; and come to years once, there drops a son by th' sword in his Mistresses quarrel, a great joy to his parents: A Daughter ripe too, grows high and lusty in her blood, must have a heating, runs away with a supple ham'd Servingman: his twenty Nobles spent, takes to a trade, and learns to spin mens hair off; there's another, and most are of this nature, ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... efforts to learn to spin before I played Margaret. My instructor was Mr. Albert Fleming, who, at the suggestion of Ruskin, had recently revived hand-spinning and hand-weaving in the North of England. I had always hated that obviously "property" spinning-wheel in the opera, and Margaret's unmarketable ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... any appearance of a lecture; yet the Press insist upon any entertainment given by men of my class being a lecture. I am a bit of an amateur conjurer, and I thoroughly believe were I to appear on the platform on a bicycle or on an acrobat's globe, and keep three balls in the air with one hand and spin a plate on a stick with the other, and at the same time retail some stories, the notice in the Press on the following morning would begin: "Mr. Harry Furniss gave an instructive lecture last ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... York State seemed to be everywhere on automobiles, even outnumbering the yellow of Ontario. One had the impression that every American motor-owner within gasolene radius had decided that he would take his Sunday spin to Niagara Falls, and on to the Canadian side of the Falls ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... grouching, Jack," he said. "Only I wanted to see what you had in mind. If it's just a flying trip you're after, well and good. I'm with you. The plane is limbered up since I worked it over, and yesterday's little spin gave me a taste for more, too. But if you are really intent on getting at the bottom of this mystery, I have a proposal, too. What's the matter with our hunting up the Secret Service men? Maybe they would be ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... and lifted the brandy decanter. "And she'll take it better from you; she'll have to take it from you. She's proud. You can take her out for a row to-morrow morning—look here, take her out in the motor-launch if you like. I meant to have a spin in it myself; but ...
— The Choice - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... Miss Stevens," he said with a cheerful self-confidence which was beautiful to behold. "I have come over to take you a little spin, if ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... a day while the season lasts; I catch 'em as far as the Braisne. In harvest time, I glean; in winter, I spin." ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... his hand pressed hard against his side. "Maybe I am," he gasped, "but I 'm mighty near all in just now. Say, that was a lively spin, and it's got to be an eat and ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... on him—"can cut cross-country and get home!" There was nothing in Boyd's clothing or equipment to suggest that he had been a part of the now scattered raiders. "If the Yankees stop you," Drew continued, "you can spin them a tale about riding out to see the fight. And Major Forbes's name ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... heaved anchor, the chain clanking and chattering in a hawsepipe. Her exhaust spat smoky, gaseous fumes. A bell clanged. She moved slowly ahead, toward the river's mouth, a hundred yards to one side of it. Then the brown web of the seine began to spin out over the stern. She crossed the mouth of the Solomon, holding as close in as her draft permitted, and kept on straight till her seine was paid out to the end. Then she stopped, lying still in dead ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... sufficingness of very small holdings, their owners neither buying nor selling, making their little crops and stock almost completely supply their needs. Thus on a field or two, enough flax is grown with which to spin linen for home use, enough wheat and Indian corn for the year's bread-making, maize being mixed with wheaten flour; again, pigs and poultry are reared for domestic consumption—expenditure being reduced to the minimum. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... young men, I suppose," sighed Mitchell tolerantly. "Tell you what. Archibald's going for a spin over to East New York. I'll just 'phone him to drop by on his way and take us along. Fresh air'll do ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... leap across the intervening space and stand beside his father. Coiloo's hand was at Sax's neck. He unfastened the string of the luringa and stood up, still hidden from sight. Slowly he whirled the thin slab of wood round his head, hitting it on the ground once or twice to make it spin. The thing gave out a droning sound. The crowd of yelling fiends around the corpse became suddenly quiet. The droning increased to a loud ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... a farmer, and the stirring life of a farmer's daughter in a new country, fell to her lot. To spin the garments she wore, to make cheese and butter, were parts of her education, while to lend a hand at out-door labor, perhaps helped her to acquire that vigor of body and brain for which she has since ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... bits o' gray which Natur' didn't put up in the sky, but which somehow came from the hand o' man, I kin spin the tale jest ez it is. That's smoke up thar. It can't come from any kind o' a forest fire, 'cause it's early spring an' the woods are too green to burn. Thar ain't no white people in these parts 'cept ourselves ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the fearful creature began to spin round and round, and its would-be victim realized somewhat of its enormous muscular strength, for wiry and in hard training as he was, he was dragged with it, rolled over and over in the wreathings ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... forest, "I am afraid that the last two visits have been rather a strain. We must find something a little less serious; but I am going to fill up all your time. You had got too much taken up with your psychology, and we must not live too much on theory, and spin problems, like the spider, out of our own insides; but we will not spend too much time in trudging over this country, though it is well worth it. Did you ever see anything more beautiful than those pine-trees on the slope ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... now impossible to stand without holding fast to something that would not give. Harriet had never seen a boat roll so fast. From side to side it lurched, plunging at the same time, both with almost incredible speed. Her own head was beginning to spin. Tommy's face was pale. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... everlasting snows lay at his feet, and the world in all its beauty was stretched out like a map below him; and he longed to go forth to partake of its abundance, and to make for himself a name among men. Then came the Norns, who spin the thread, and weave the woof, of every man's life; and they held in their hands the web of his own destiny. And Urd, the Past, sat on the tops of the eastern mountains, where the sun begins to rise at dawn; while Verdanda, the Present, stood in the western sea, ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... win," mumbled Madame d'Ambre. "She has lost her head and staked on so many chances that if one wins she must lose much more on the others. It is absurd. Watch her this time, and next spin I will tell you what to ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... corner, and there, in a whitewashed passage, is a machinery belt industriously turning on its wheels. You would think the engine had grown there of its own accord, like a cellar fungus, and would soon spin itself out and fill the vaults from end to end with its mysterious labours. In truth, it is only some gear of the steam ventilator; and you will find the engineers at hand, and may step out of their door into the sunlight. For all this while, you have not been descending ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to sea Every lady in this land Great A, little a Hark, hark Sing a song of sixpence Hickory, dickory dock Hot-cross buns! How does my lady's garden grow? Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree-top Some little mice sat in a barn to spin If all the world were apple-pie If wishes were horses I have a little sister Mother Goose WHO STOLE THE BIRD'S NEST? Lydia Maria Child RHYMES. I saw a ship a-sailing Jack and Jill went up the hill Little Bo-peep Little boy blue Little girl, little girl Little Jack Horner sat in the ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... top," said my Bumble Bee as I imparted also my joy to him. "Say, if that kid is eight years old and is going to walk all right, we must see to it that she starts in with a good dancing teacher as soon as she can spin around. We want to make a real winner out ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... said, at the conclusion of one of French's stories of the grandeur of the coming empire, "and I'd like to hear you spin yarns all night, but, if you don't ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... on like a terrible nightmare, but a descent into a profound ravine of these mountain solitudes at length enables the driver to start the team at a rate which makes it impossible for them to stop, and he vaults lightly into his place as we spin merrily downhill. Our troubles are not over, for on the next upward grade the old game of rearing, backing, and futile attempts at buck-jumping, begins again. Despairing eyes rest on a thatched booth at the roadside, containing a row of bottles hung ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... intended for themselves. These politicians, who held constant correspondence with their old dejected friends in England, were daily fed with the vain hopes of the Queen's death, or the party's restoration. They likewise endeavoured to spin out the time, till Prince Eugene's activity had pushed on some great event, which might govern or perplex the conditions of peace. Therefore the Dutch plenipotentiaries, who proceeded by the instructions of those mistaken patriots, acted in every point with a spirit of litigiousness, than ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... dogs, elegantly harnessed and attended by a couple of servants in livery, a boy of ten or twelve years holding the lines from his seat in the light and graceful little vehicle. Merry young misses drive their ribbon-decked hoops with special relish, and roguish boys spin their tops with equal zeal. Clouds of toy-balloons, of various colors and sizes, flash high above the heads of itinerant vendors, while the sparkling fountains throw up softly musical jets everywhere. Soldiers off duty, strolling idly about, dot the scene with their ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... this great glitter, is more pitiful than if it lay upon a dung-hill. There is not a ray of imprisoned light in all the flash and fire of jewels, but seems to mock the dusty holes where eyes were, once. Every thread of silk in the rich vestments seems only a provision from the worms that spin, for the behoof of worms that ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... winter and on rainy days in summer, the women of the field had to card the wool and spin it into yarn. They generally worked in pairs, a spinning wheel and cards being assigned to each pair, and while one carded the wool into rolls, the other spun it into yarn suitable for weaving into cloth, or a coarse, heavy thread ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... his head, and stooped to pick up his bonnet by one of the strands of the worsted tuft, letting the soft flat cap spin slowly round as he watched it, and then he ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... Siren in his father's stables which would win the Goodwood Cup; how, having gone down to see Norton's people when the long vacation began, he had seen Siren daily, and had talked of her until two every morning in the smoking-room, and had then staid up two hours later to watch her take her trial spin over the downs. He remembered how they used to stamp back over the long grass wet with dew, comparing watches and talking of the time in whispers, and said good night as the sun broke over the trees in the park. And then just at this time of all others, when the horse was the only ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... for individuals, they also wanted to do for nations. Humanity was to be divided into national workshops, having each its speciality. Russia, we were taught, was destined by nature to grow corn; England to spin cotton; Belgium to weave cloth; while Switzerland was to train nurses and governesses. Moreover, each separate city was to establish a specialty. Lyons was to weave silk, Auvergne to make lace, and Paris fancy articles. In this way, economists said, an immense field ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... by the hour and talk with Bimley, the cottager; with Rosher, the hotel-keeper, who when young had travelled far; with a sailorman, home for a holiday, who said he could spin a tidy yarn; and with Pogan, the groom, who had at last won Saracen's heart. But one day when the meagre village chemist saw him cracking jokes with Beard, the carpenter, and sidled in with a silly air of equality, which was merely insolence, Gaston softly dismissed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... which would make an Englishman awkward sits gracefully on the Italian. He knows how to "do nothing" with dignity. Be assured, if Hercules had been of Anglo-Saxon blood, Omphale would never have set him down to spin; but being what he was, I could swear he went through ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... known to Washington as "Bath" is still a scene of fashionable revel: the over-dressed children romp, the old maids flirt, the youthful romancers spin in each other's arms to music from the band, and dowagers carefully drink at the well from the old-fashioned mug decorated with Poor Richard's maxims; but the festivities have a decorous and domestic look that would meet the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... was the peril that the officers in the Guards and Mounted Infantry placed their men back to back to make one last effort to save the situation. "To me," says the writer, who was outside on the right face: "they appeared to spin round a large mound like a ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... of establishing a small school within the town of Horncastle, wherein the children of such poor persons, as the Governors of the Grammar School shall think objects of charity, may be taught to read, knit, spin, and plain needlework, or sewing. I do therefore hereby earnestly request, will, and direct, my nephew and executor, after my decease, by deed, conveyance (&c.), to convey, and assure, to the said Governors, and their successors, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... lying, it is so peculiar that it would be hard to explain. The American who appreciates the phrase 'to sit down and swap lies' would not be taken in by a Romany chal, nor would an old salt who can spin yarns. They enjoy hugely being lied unto, as do all Arabs or Hindus. Like many naughty children, they like successful efforts of the imagination. The old dyes, or mothers, are 'awful beggars,' as much by habit as anything; but they will give as freely as they ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... superfluous length wound around the little feet, purchasing three short and sheer ones, also a doll-size toilet set painted in little clumps of forget-me-nots. The hair brush had a thick, soft nap which would spin out her child's curls into a cloud of gold. They really were the color, these curls, of a jar of strained honey seen through sunlight. It was as if she could never tire of feeling them wind ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... boat, or bound to his spar or barrel, appears to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a funnel, vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might be mistaken for ebony, but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spin around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shoot forth, a foul, phosphorescent iridescence, as of accumulated corruption, streaming in a flood of loathsome radiance along the black walls, and far away down into the inmost ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... nobody's pardon; the pretty little Gaiety Girl hurrying to rehearsal with no thought but of her own sweet self and whether there will be a letter from Harry at the stage-door,—yes, if we are alone in our griefs, we are no less alone in our pleasures. We spin our tops as in an enchanted circle, and no one sees or heeds save ourselves,—as how should they with their own tops to spin? Happy indeed is he, who has his top and cares still to spin it; for to be tired of our tops is to be tired of life, ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... submit to the public. He is now on the eve of visiting foreign parts; a ship of war is commissioned by its royal master, to carry the Author of Waverley to climates in which he may readily obtain such a restoration of health as may serve him to spin his thread to an end in his own country. Had he continued to prosecute his usual literary labours, it seems indeed probable that, at the term of years he has already attained, the bowl, to use the pathetic language of Scripture, would have been broken at the fountain; and little can ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... in a day. But the kayar is not made from the husk, as might be supposed, but from the rind of the nut; which, after being long soaked in water, is beaten with mallets, and rubbed together into fibers. After this being dried in the sun, you may spin it, just like hemp, or any similar substance. The fiber thus produced makes very strong and durable ropes, extremely well adapted, from their lightness and durability, for the running rigging of a ship; while the same causes, united with its great strength ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... find some substitute to help them over the winter. Two chipmunks near my study were occupied many days in carrying in cherry pits which they gathered beneath a large cherry-tree that stood ten or twelve rods away. As Nig was no longer about to molest them, they grew very fearless, and used to spin up and down the garden path to and from their source of supplies in a way quite unusual with these timid creatures. After they had got enough cherry pits, they gathered the seed of a sugar maple that stood near. Many of the keys remained upon the tree after the ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... to his weapon as a lost cow does to a 'dobe water-hole in the desert. Bob got a grip on his arm and twisted till he screamed with pain. He did a head spin and escaped. One hundred and sixty pounds of steel-muscled cowpuncher landed on his midriff and the six-shooter went clattering away to a far ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... at night, even when de moon warn't shinin'. On dem dark nights one set of slaves helt lanterns for de others to see how to chop de weeds out of de cotton and corn. Wuk was sho' tight dem days. Evvy slave had a task to do atter dey got back to dem cabins at night. Dey each one hed to spin deir stint same ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... shuddering. "Those heights! Only to think of them makes everything spin round me. Only one who is free from such giddiness dare to occupy such a place. Every one must desire to do what he can do best. I could be a good housewife to Diodoros, but I should be a bad empress. I was not born to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... himself round with velocity in the opposite direction; continued to spin until his long cloak was all wound neatly about him; clapped his cap on his head, very much on one side (for it could not stand upright without going through the ceiling), gave an additional twist to his corkscrew moustaches, and replied with perfect coolness: "Gentlemen, I wish you a very good ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... with flashing tides; Blue sky through boughs looks in; Mosses and ferns o'er floor and sides A mazy arras spin. ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... more," he said; and they walked on slowly. "I know what presumption this is; but I will not spin phrases about that. Nor do I ask what is impossible; but I will only ask leave to teach you in my turn what ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... placed in that Girdle of the World which affords Wine, Oil, Fruit, Grain, and Silk, with other rich Commodities, besides a sweet Air, moderate Climate, and fertile Soil; these are the Blessings (under Heaven's Protection) that spin out the Thread of Life to its utmost Extent, and crown our Days with the Sweets of Health and Plenty, which, when join'd with Content, renders the Possessors the happiest Race of ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... well for you to say," returned he, "who can sew and spin the whole Evening through; but I, whose long entire Day is Night, grow soe tired of it by nine o'clock, that I am fit for Nothing ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... and smiling). Artful villain! I confess myself outdone—no devil could spin a finer snare! The scholar excels his master. The next question is, to whom must the letter be addressed— with whom to accuse her of having ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... far as this early in the week, when bedtime came. The next day she read it all, and saw it was sad stuff, and she frankly asked herself why. The answer was, that she had really been trying to spin out three pages. "Now," said Laura to herself, "that is not fair." And she finished the piece in a very different way, as you shall see. Then she went back over this introduction, and struck out the fine passages. Then she struck ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... around the wall the crowds that drink and frolic there Spin serpentines into the air far ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... such heinous appetites be compared,) Pleased in some open field to exercise A toy that mimics with revolving wings The motion of a wind-mill; though the air Do of itself blow fresh, and make the vanes 370 Spin in his eyesight, that contents him not, But, with the plaything at arm's length, he sets His front against the blast, and runs amain, That it may whirl the faster. Amid the depth Of those enormities, even ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... intestinal canal of the silkworm, spread throughout its body, and filled the sack which ought to contain the viscid matter of the silk. Thus smitten, the worm would go automatically through the process of spinning when it had nothing to spin. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... doing missionary work in saving them from the cannibalism of heathen Africa. Both men and women were taught trades and useful occupations. There were tanners, shoemakers, blacksmiths, farmers, gardeners, horticulturists and carpenters among the men. The women could sew, cook, card, spin, weave, knit, wash, iron, in fact what they produced in this way would put to shame the acquirements and accomplishments of free labor. Many of the older negroes refused to be freed, when the mighty proclamation came. They ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... need to fetch anybody," said the page; "for though I can't spin I can read, and I'll read it;" and so he read it through, but as it has been already given it is not inserted here; and then he took out the other one from the duchess, which ran ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was raining. Rain and fine-spun cotton thread are Bolton's specialities, the two chief pillars of her fame and prosperity, for without the somewhat distressing superabundance of the former she could not spin the latter fine enough. It would break in the process. Wherefore the good citizens of Bolton cheerfully put up with the dirt and the damp and the abnormal expenditure on umbrellas and mackintoshes in view of the fact that all the world must come to ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... back to appraise the effect of this startling proposition on me. At any other moment I should inevitably have broken loose again, but the fascination of his personality was upon me and I let him spin his webs. Any man, and there are scores adrift, who falls under the spell of Henry H. Rogers, invariably, as did the suitors of Circe, pays the penalty of his indiscretion. Some he uses and contemptuously ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... to you because it is my nicest one and just ready to spin up. Do you like pussy-pillars, and know how they do it?" asked Ruth, emboldened by the kiss she got in return for ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... I'd come to say good-bye, and could stay only twenty-four hours? I should say she didn't. Kissed me, with her hand on my shoulder—glove off—and then said: "Want to spin round the Circle, Jack, before we go home? By that time ...
— The Whistling Mother • Grace S. Richmond
... the terraces of the near houses, by way of celebrating the Sabbath. In the basilica, the bashing of the crotolos can be heard, and the thuds of the tambourines. "They would do better," says Augustin, "to work and spin their wool." ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Fortune, after setting up the wheel, put one of them into her hand and instructed her how to draw out and twist the thread of yarn, she saw all that was coming. She saw it with dismay. So much yarn as Miss Fortune might think it well she should spin, so much time must be taken daily from her beloved reading and writing, drawing, and studying; her very heart sunk with her. She made no remonstrance, unless her disconsolate face might be thought one; she stood half a day ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... devoutness which she displayed and by her firm assurance in the truth of her mission. She told them that it was God's will that she should go to the King, and that no one but her could save the kingdom of France. She said that she herself would rather remain with her poor mother and spin; but the Lord had ordered her forth. The fame of "The Maid," as she was termed, the renown of her holiness, and of her mission, spread far and wide. Baudricourt sent her with an escort to Chinon, where the Dauphin Charles was dallying away his time. Her Voices had bidden her assume the arms ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... the invalid for a day or two and investigate her. Meantime, he must call up that garage and see what could be done for the car. If he could get it patched up by noon he might take the girl out for a spin in the afternoon. One could judge a girl much better getting her off by herself that way. He didn't seem to relish the memory of that father's smile and haughty tone as he said "My daughter." Probably was all kinds of fussy about ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... of a Merovingian king. The shareholder owns the world de jure, by the common recognition of the rights of property; and the incumbency of knowledge, management, and toil fall entirely to others. He toils not, neither does he spin; he is mechanically released from the penalty of the Fall, he reaps in a still sinful world all the practical benefits of a millennium—without any ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... then those dusty feet of yours—Jupiter would never like to have those treading upon his golden floors. It is useless to sit weeping here. Minerva will order you off if she finds you. She has the care of the steps. You had better go back to your village and learn to spin with your mother." ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... the white fur hood which gave a setting to her sparkling eyes and teeth. "Oh, but it's a glorious morning! If you want to feel your blood leap and your lungs tingle, just let Constantine take you for a spin behind that team. We did the five miles from ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... to sew to spin the heel the spectacles the cassock to forget my window looks out on to the courtyard he was walking with long ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... deadly thing to rest in them. How infinitely wiser is Walt Whitman, in his address to a brook he loved, than the man who coldly analyses, with learned formulae to help him, and sees and feels nothing beyond. "Babble on, O brook" (Walt Whitman cries), "with that utterance of thine! . . . Spin and wind thy way—I with thee a little while at any rate. As I haunt thee so often, season by season, thou knowest, reckest not me (yet why be so certain— who can tell?)—but I will learn from thee, and dwell on thee— receive, copy, print, ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... irregularities, disperse themselves; all irregularities are incessantly becoming regular. Hast thou looked on the Potter's wheel,—one of the venerablest objects; old as the Prophet Ezekiel and far older? Rude lumps of clay, how they spin themselves up, by mere quick whirling, into beautiful circular dishes. And fancy the most assiduous Potter, but without his wheel; reduced to make dishes, or rather amorphous botches, by mere kneading and baking! Even such a Potter were Destiny, with a human ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... a glance of contempt—made safe by the darkness—at this partisan, and with the air of one who knows that he has an interesting yarn to spin, began at the beginning and worked slowly up for his effects. The expediency of brevity and point was then tersely pointed out to him by both listeners, the highly feminine trait of desiring the last ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... who gave us wool, which my mother spun, and wove it into cloth. Just think of that! Do you imagine you would have as fine clothes, if your mothers had to spin all the cloth? She knit, too, O, so fast! as well in the dark as the light. I have known her to knit a coarse stocking easily of an evening—her fingers flew along the needles! Cotton cloth was a great rarity among us. I remember ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... enclosure then leave their daytime hiding-places, select their posts and begin to spin, one here, another there. There are many of them; we can choose where we please. Let us stop in front of this one, whom we surprise in the act of laying the foundations of the structure. Without any appreciable order, she runs about the rosemary- hedge, from the tip of one branch ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... him a lamiter, yet, grippie for grippie, he'll make the bluid spin frae under your nails" (Black ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... Sally, father, for her head is full of all sorts of vanity now; and as to Mara, I never did see a more slack-twisted, flimsy thing than she's grown up to be. Now Sally's learnt to do something, thanks to me. She can brew, and she can make bread and cake and pickles, and spin, and cut, and make. But as to Mara, what does she do? Why, she paints pictur's. Mis' Pennel was a-showin' on me a blue-jay she painted, and I was a-thinkin' whether she could brile a bird fit to be eat if she tried; ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and died. The other three, on my father's death, agreed to live together, and knit or spin for our support. So we took that small cottage, and furnished it with some of the parsonage furniture, as you shall see; and kindly welcome I am sure you will be to all it affords, ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... spin," said Ranny, though the look on his mother's face was enough to tell him that a spin, on a Sunday, was dissipation, and he, recklessly, iniquitously spinning, a prodigal most unsuitably descended from an ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... Schiller evidently began the novel in no very strenuous frame of mind. He wished to profit by the popular interest in tales of mysterious charlatanry which had been aroused by the exploits of Cagliostro. So he set out to spin a yarn in that vein, but he had no definite plan and did not himself know where he would bring up. The literary merits of 'The Ghostseer', Schiller's most noteworthy attempt in prose fiction, will come up for consideration in connection with the conclusion, or rather ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... lights of the forest increased, moving about like so many fireflies in the night; the nauseous odours grew heavier, more persistent, and for a moment Helen felt ill; her head began to spin around at the thought of what she was going to see, but quickly she recovered herself and went on by the side of the girl who never faltered. Helen wondered at such courage, and ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... hawser, by "hands" who, being nothing but hands, evidently cannot say, "I beg your pardon, miss." There were children, who always will go where they ought not to go, running against people, and taking hold of their clothes with sticky, smeared hands, asking commercial gentlemen to spin their tops, and corpulent ladies to play at hide and seek. I saw one stern-visaged gentleman tormented in this way till he looked ready to give the child its "final quietus." [Footnote: American juveniles ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... was weak and luxurious. His brother, Saracus, was so like him, that what seems really to have been the end of Saracus, is generally told of Sardanapalus. He was so weary of all amusement and delight, that, by way of change, he would dress like his wives, and spin and embroider with them, and he even offered huge rewards to anyone who would invent a new pleasure. He said his epitaph should be, that he carried with him that which he had eaten, which, said wise men, was a fit motto only for a pig, not a man. At last ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... little white legs. There he stood. He looked round once more, to see if father and mother were still asleep—yes, they slept; and now he crept softly, softly, in his short little nightgown, to the spinning wheel, and began to spin. The thread flew from the wheel, and the wheel whirled faster and faster. I kissed his fair hair and his blue eyes, it was such ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... such cloth made by any of these local tribes," I announced, examining those rags with great care. "Somewhere up yonder they spin and weave and ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... Star-of-Spring seats herself. Business of Priscilla's teaching her to spin. Haltingly and somewhat fumblingly she does at length manage to compass the first rudiments of her lesson. The Pilgrim maidens stand grouped about her. Tableau. DEGORY (from background). The shadows of the pines lengthen across ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... you'll see visions you can't distinguish from reality. I shall lie like a stone in your path, so that you stumble; I shall be the thorn that pricks your hand when you go to pluck the rose. My soul shall spin itself about you like a spider's web; and I shall guide you like an ox by means of the woman you stole from me. Your child shall be mine and I shall speak through its mouth; you shall see my look in its eyes, ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... makes you think of accident and sudden death. Contrast this ill-boding hand with the quick, skilful, quiet hand of a nurse whom I remember with affection because she took the best care of my teacher. I have clasped the hands of some rich people that spin not and toil not, and yet are not beautiful. Beneath their soft, smooth roundness what ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... stop, prick her ears under the hammering of unspurred heels, spin round, bucking as she spun, and toss her rider like a bull. There in the moonlight he lay like lead, with leaden face upturned to the ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... we can talk more comfortably when we're alongside of one another; and you can spin me the yarn how you come to be all alone ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... a box on the ears, that the place seemed to spin round with him. As soon as he recovered sufficiently to be enabled to walk, he made his way from the shop with abundance of precipitation, much regretting that he had troubled himself to make a confidant of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... never cared for domestic things. I'd rather wear a dinner-gown than an apron; I'd a damn sight rather spin a roulette wheel than rock a cradle. And, perhaps, Peyton wanted a housewife; though heaven knows he hasn't turned to one. It's her blonde, no bland, charm and destructive air of innocence. I've admitted and understood too much; but I couldn't help it—my mother and grandmother, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... to me: 'Upon my word, your friend amuses me. It's impossible to make him spin a yarn. I expect he had a bad time ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... at once; "well there, I s'pose they ain't quite 'xactly the thing, but they look pretty nice on paper. See that fellow, now, Polly, a-flyin' through that ring. Beats all how they do it. Makes my head spin to look at him. See there!" and Mr. Atkins pointed a stubby forefinger, shaking with excitement, to the big ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... Merry-Go-Round," said the Spinning Wheel. "I just make believe I'm one up here in the attic. Time was when I used to spin yarn for the grandmother of Mr. Dunn. But now all yarn is spun in factories by machinery, and spinning wheels are out of fashion. So I am up here in the dust, and it makes the time pass more quickly to pretend ...
— The Story of a Stuffed Elephant • Laura Lee Hope
... them so. They have not the higher pleasures. Neither have they the higher perils. 'They sow not, neither do they spin.' But neither do they envy Solomon in all his glory. Jack Haslem and Dave Olden sleep all day in their coracles. They put down their lobster pots at night. Next day, they have caught enough of these ugly brutes to pay for a glorious drunk. Then sleep again. How can you add to such happiness? ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... had a spin in the ice-boat with his hostess and a few of the hardier guests; in the afternoon he "went over the farm" with Reggie, and listened, in the elaborately appointed stables, to long and impressive disquisitions on the horse; ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... never a hope beyond! What is to be done about it? Suppose the wealth of the universe were divided per capita, how long would it remain out of the clutches of the Napoleons of finance, only a percentage of whom find ultimately their Waterloo, little to the profit of the poor who spin and delve, who fight and die, in the Grand ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... lord. No man can provide against an accident of this sort. But Miss Vanrenen will lose all confidence in me. The arrangement was that to-day's spin should be a short one—to Brighton. I was to take the ladies to Epsom in time for the Derby, and then we were to run quietly to the Metropole. Miss Vanrenen made such a point of seeing the race that she will be horribly disappointed. There is ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... work very hard; nor that the cows were fed that they might give milk to the children; nor that the pigs were fatted to make pork; nor that the sheep had their warm fleeces cut off every year that the settlers might have the wool to spin and weave. Blackie did not say that the men carried guns, and the dogs were fierce, and would hunt poor squirrels from tree to tree, frightening them almost to death with their loud, angry barking; that cats haunted the barns and houses, and, in short, that there were dangers as well ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... talking for somebody else: it's gibberish to me. Don't bother; and help yourself to what you want. Money's what you want—though you won't own it. That's money. When it's gone, I can go back to California and get more. While it lasts, make it spin. What is there to stare at? I told you I'd be brothers with you, because of what you done for me the other night. Well: I'm being brothers with you now. Get your watch out of pawn, and shake a loose leg at the world. Will you take what you want? And when you have, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, etc., in silver, the whole in such order that it might have come from the silversmith's window half an hour before." He took out his paper, then starting up angrily, said, "'Go spin, you jade, go spin.' No, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... and had no notion whether she could fly or not, and yet no girl had a clearer head. "We have chosen work that we know we can do well, and we mean not to be ashamed of our occupation. In the old days ladies used to spin and weave, and no one blamed them, though they were noble; and if my work will bring me money, and keep the mother comfortable, I see nothing that will prevent my ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... greatly-blotched egg, big at one end, going off to almost nothing at the other, and wanting in the soft curves of ordinary eggs, while he wondered how it was that such an egg should not blow out of its rocky hollow when the wind came, but spin round ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn |
