"Wedge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wedge-shaped the Herd raced for the leading horseman; hindermost labored the fatted bulls, but in front thundered ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... without analogous precedent. In the later Middle Ages small craft were assigned the function in battle of trying to wedge up the rudders of great ships or bore holes between wind and water. See Fighting Instructions ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... Ida May that she would talk to nobody for the present—especially about the connection of the captain of the Seamew with Ida May's affairs—Sheila believed she had entered a wedge which might open the way for the young man to escape from a situation which threatened both his reputation ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... allowed to prevail in regard to that ill-used but still sacred vineyard! All friends of the Church had then whispered among themselves fearfully, and had, with sad looks and grievous forebodings, acknowledged that the thin edge of the wedge had been driven into the very rock of the Establishment. The enemies of the Church were known to be powerful, numerous, and of course unscrupulous. But surely this Brutus would not raise a dagger against this Caesar! And yet, if not, what was ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... yards out in the lake, a high wedge of water was sweeping toward him. At the apex of the vee, he could see the shape of a boat, its bow riding ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... gradually, with such a shelving of its hinder part that I could catch a glimpse of a little space of the blue sea that way. From this I perceived that whatever thickness and surface of ice lay southwards, in the north it was attenuated to the shape of a wedge, so that its extreme breadth where it projected its cape or extremity would not exceed ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... Holland and Zeeland in the spring of 1576 had again darkened. In June the surrender of Zierikzee to Mondragon was a heavy blow to the patriot cause, for it gave the Spaniards a firm footing in the very heart of the Zeeland archipelago and drove a wedge between South Holland and the island of Walcheren. This conquest was, however, destined to have important results of a very different character from what might have been expected. The town had surrendered on favourable terms and ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... the battle of Hastings. Here on the high ground, flanked by a wood, stood the brave English, under the leadership of Harold, with his banner, woven with gold and jewels, shining conspicuously in the morning sunlight. Here they stood in the form of a wedge; there they turned the Normans, and put them to flight. Then the Normans rallied, pretended to fly, decoyed the brave English from their position, and by stratagem succeeded in defeating them at last. Or go to the Madingley Windmill, ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... during the spring season. Many breeders have attempted to pick out the good layers by the appearance of the hens. Before the advent of the trap-nest the "egg type" of hen was believed to be a positive indication of a good layer. The "egg type" hen had slender neck, small head, long, deep body of a wedge shape. Various "systems" founded on these or other "signs" have been sold for fancy prices to people who were easily separated from their money. Trap-nest records show such systems to be on a par with the lunar guidance ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... gradually, and then mix all well together. Butter a baking-sheet, and drop on it a teaspoonful of the mixture at a time, leaving a space between each. Bake in a cool oven; watch the pieces of paste, and, when half done, roll them up like wafers, and put in a small wedge of bread or piece of wood, to keep them in shape. Return them to the oven until crisp. Before serving, remove the bread, put a spoonful of preserve in the widest end, and fill up with whipped cream. This is ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Island, after the Master of the Investigator. Neptune Isles, "for they seemed inaccessible to men." Thorny Passage, from the dangerous rocks. Cape Catastrophe, where the accident occurred. Taylor's Island, after a midshipman drowned in the accident. Wedge Island, "from its shape." Gambier Isles, after Admiral Lord Gambier. Memory Cove, in memory of the accident. Cape Donington, after Flinders' birthplace. Port Lincoln, after the chief town in Flinders' native county. Boston ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... at Biddu, about two miles away, and that night they took the Hill Mizpah and the Mosque of Nebi Samwil with the bayonet. This created a very sharp salient in the enemy's line defending Jerusalem and its northern exit on the west. The Turk held firmly to his positions north-east and south of this wedge, and counter-attacked Nebi Samwil with vigour. On the 24th the 52nd Division tried to deepen and lengthen the salient, thrusting it right across the Jerusalem road. The plan was that the 155th Brigade should ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... without delay, and accordingly he pilots his father out of the crush, and makes for a spot near the winning-post, where the crowd at the cords has a few gaps; and here, by a little unscrupulous shoving, he contrives to wedge himself in, with his father close behind, at about the very best spot on the course, with a full view of the last two hundred yards, and only a few feet from ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... escape, from the house-tops, and from the darkened windows, they opened fire with rifle and artillery. But our men had seen the dead faces of their leaders and comrades, and they were frantic, desperate. They charged like madmen. Nothing could hold them. Our wedge swept steadily forward, and the guns sputtered from the front and rear and sides, flashing and illuminating the night like ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... stood the little wedge of people with the white flag at its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small vertical black shapes upon the black ground. As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... final resting place. The agencies which spread the material of the continental delta grow more and more feeble as they pass into deeper and more quiet water away from shore. Coarse materials are therefore soon dropped along narrow belts near land. Gravels and coarse sands lie in thick, wedge-shaped masses which thin out seaward rapidly and give place to ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... which the child is inclosed. It contains a liquid in which the child floats; the object of the water is to protect the child from sudden shocks or any kind of injury during pregnancy. During labor this membrane with its contained water serves as a dilating wedge to assist in the opening of the womb, and it also protects the child from the direct contraction of the uterus upon it. When the waters break prematurely, the labor is much longer and more tedious; normally this should not occur before the mouth of ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... his might. "I desire of you, my Lords, in your humane frenzy, to show some humanity to the whites as well as to the negroes",—illustrating this remark by a picture of the sufferings of an English trader who had risked thirty thousand pounds on the slave-trade that year. When an entering wedge was attempted for the improvement of the bloody code of criminal law, Thurlow opposed it with passion. The particular clause selected by the reformers was one which demanded that women who had been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... of these principles? Any one in Coniston will tell you that Mr. Price makes a specialty of orators and oratory; and will hold forth at the drop of a hat in Jonah Winch's store or anywhere else. Who is Mr. Price? He is a tall, sallow young man of eight and twenty, with a wedge-shaped face, a bachelor and a Methodist, who farms in a small way on the southern slope, and saves his money. He has become almost insupportable since they ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and to Napoleon the apothegm that Providence is on the side of the heavy battalions. Zeal was oftentimes our main dependence, and on many a hard-fought field served to drive our small battalions, like a wedge, through the serried ranks ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... largest and smoothest trunks are selected. In the spring two circular incisions are made, several feet apart, and two longitudinal ones on opposite sides of the tree; after which, by introducing a wooden wedge, the bark is easily detached. These plates are usually ten or twelve feet long and two feet nine inches broad. To form the canoe, they are stitched together with fibrous roots of the white spruce about the size of a quill, which are deprived ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... (Fig. 42,) exhibits the mode called stock-grafting; a, being the limb of a large tree which is sawed off and split, and is to be held open by a small wedge, till the grafts are put in. A graft, inserted in the limb, is shown at b, and at c, is one not inserted, but designed to be put in at d, as two grafts can be put into a large stock. In inserting the graft, be careful to make the edge of the inner bark of the graft meet exactly ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... statesman of the Emancipation Proclamation. Now, in action, he was capable of staking his whole future on the soundness of his own thinking, on his own ability to forecast the inevitable. Without waiting for the results of the Proclamation to appear, but in full confidence that he had driven a wedge between the Jacobins proper and the mere Abolitionists, he threw down the gage of battle on the issue of a constitutional dictatorship. Two days after issuing the Proclamation he virtually proclaimed himself dictator. He did so by means of a proclamation which divested the whole American ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... guns are provided with a round backed wedge, which is pushed in from the side of the breech, and forced firmly home by a screw provided with handles; the face of the wedge is fitted with an easily removable flat plate, which abuts against a Broad well ring, let into a recess in the end of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... legionaries stood firm under a storm of missiles, withholding their own fire till the foe came within close range. Then, and not till then, they delivered a simultaneous discharge of their terrible pila[180] on the British centre. The front gave with the volley, and the Romans, at once wheeling into wedge-shape formation, charged sword in hand into the gap, and cut the British line clean in two. Behind it was a laager of wagons, containing their families and spoil, and there the Britons made a last attempt to rally. But the furious Romans entered the enclosure with ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... began to wedge up, the moment we were all present, and this portion of the labour was soon completed. Monsieur Le Compte then took his station in the head of the schooner. Making a profound bow to Emily, as if to ask her permission, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... that was slightly grotesque in his outer man, the broad flat head, the red hair, the sharp wedge-like chin, disappeared for Constance in the single impression of his eyes—pale blue, ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... examined the long crevice through which the sea was glittering so near. It was not so narrow as at first it had seemed, and I reckoned that it was some twenty feet through. On my side, it was a little over a foot across. Wouldn't it be possible to wedge myself through? I tried it at the opening, and found, that, with my arms extended sidewise, it was comparatively easy to enter it, though it was something of a tight fit. If it only kept the same width all through, I ought to be able to manage it, inch by ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... without consulting either the Cabinet or the Prime Minister. And such incidents were constantly recurring. When this became known to the Prince, he saw that his opportunity had come. If he could only drive in to the utmost the wedge between the two statesmen, if he could only secure the alliance of Lord John, then the suppression or the removal of Lord Palmerston would be almost certain to follow. He set about the business with all the pertinacity of his nature. ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... amalgam of gold and quicksilver remaining at the bottom, in consequence of its weight. This amalgam is then put into a linen bag, and pressed very hard, by which the greatest part of the mercury is strained off, and the remainder is evaporated off by the force of fire, leaving the gold in a little wedge or mass, shaped like a pine-apple, whence it is called a pinna. This is afterwards melted and cast in a mould, to know its exact weight, and to ascertain the proportion of silver that is mixed with the gold, no farther process ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... by an eight-horse-power engine. The air is forced down a central shaft to the bottom, where it is deflected, and, being confined between keels, passes backward and upward, escaping at the stern through an orifice nineteen feet wide, so as to form a sort of air wedge between the boat and the surface of the water. The force with which the air strikes the water is what propels it. The boat has a speed of four miles an hour, but requires a thirty-five-horsepower engine to develop its full capabilities. The patentee claims a great advantage in doing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... in two minutes, the blue-jackets circling out like a fan, and pressing their enemy into a helpless mass against the rail. For a moment the fight was furious, every man for himself, then the Lieutenant drove like a wedge into the bunch, and it was all over. I struggled to my feet, still viewing all through a mist, and swaying back and forward as I endeavored to steady myself on the rolling deck. There was no one at the wheel, and the bow of the Sea Gull ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... not mind so much his own apprehension. Her presence in the locality at the same time the Nevski had been in the harbor would fairly prove the correctness of his theory of Miss Dalrymple's whereabouts. If he could now deliver the Russian woman into the hands of the law, he would have a wedge to force the powers that be to give credence to at least the material part of his story—that the prince had left port with the young girl—and to compel them to see the necessity of acting at once. That he, himself, would be ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the island decently stocked with implements of husbandry. Even the modern axe is not in general use; for felling the larger class of trees the negroes commonly use what they call an axe, which is shaped much like a wedge, except that it is a little wider at the edge than at the opposite end, at the very extremity of which a perfectly straight handle is inserted. A more awkward thing for chopping could not be well conceived—at least, so I thought until I saw the instrument in yet more general use about ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... Mannering, 'to make short, he conceived that, as the property of Singleside lay like a wedge between two farms of his, and was four or five miles separated from Ellangowan, something like a sale or exchange or arrangement might take place, to the mutual convenience ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and thought, and hit on an idea. Going into the large yard, he cut two oaken wedges, took a new wheel, and drove a wedge firmly into one end of its axle-box. Then he ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... Curiously enough, in Nevada City and vicinity it would appear that at one time in the earth's making, a great fissure opened in forming California and a wedge of Nevada mining country was pushed into it. North of there the California stratas ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... wake. They'll have a hell of a time." And the event fully redeemed the promise. The whole Gap turned out to do the dead bully honor. I have not heard from the Gap, and hardly from Hell's Kitchen, in five years. The last news from the Kitchen was when the thin wedge of a column of negroes, in their up-town migration, tried to squeeze in, and provoked a race war; but that in fairness should not be laid up against it. In certain local aspects it might be accounted a sacred duty; as much so as to get drunk and provoke a fight on the anniversary of the battle ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... a moment. Then the right wing swung forward; it in turn was surpassed by the left. Afterward the center careered to the front until the regiment was a wedge-shaped mass, but an instant later the opposition of the bushes, trees, and uneven places on the ground split the command and scattered it into ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... fortifications were scarcely three times as high as the besiegers; the fields reached to the clouds; the trees and lotus flowers could scarcely be distinguished from each other; and the heads of men and animals were all alike, and only in profile. On many of the walls were found those wedge-shaped characters, or letters, which constitute what are called cuneiform inscriptions, and are found only on ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... The long line of reefs which form the outer protection would, were they exposed in their whole length, represent an irregular incline from about twelve feet above the sea level at the southern end to three fathoms below water at the northern extremity. A wedge laid with its broad base to the south would represent the inclination of this long line of useful reef, which can be converted into a sea-wall by simply filling-in with blocks of concrete to a sufficient height above the extreme water-mark. The ancient ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... more for whom I dare risk the bumpety-bumps," laughed Dr. Dudley. "Corinne, I think you can bear them, and perhaps we can wedge in Isabel." ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... Photometer being still a desideratum, I had recourse to the old wedge of coloured glass, of an uniform neutral tint, the distance between whose extremes, or between transparency and total opacity, was one foot. A moveable arm carrying a brass plate with a slit and a vernier, enables the observer to read off ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... cried out that this midwife must be sent for, as she was just the kind of woman they wanted. After this other matters were talked about, the marquis changing the conversation; he had gained his point in quietly introducing the thin end of the wedge of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the clean cliffs wedge Them flat to their faces; by chasm and ledge He helps the King from the ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... meridian, in about N. lat. 42 deg. One of the most interesting features associated with this range is the so-called great Alpine valley, which cuts through it west of Plato. The Caucasus consist of a massive wedge-shaped mountain land, projecting southwards, and partially dividing the Mare Imbrium from the Mare Serenitatis, both of which they flank. Though without peaks so lofty as those pertaining to the Alps, there is one, immediately east ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... with his hands, and as the water was continuously lashing over him on that part of the deck it was no easy task to accomplish this. In a few minutes he had ascertained that about two feet of deck, the shape of a wedge, had been staved close to the hatch combings; in fact it had never been fastened with nail or bolt. He shouted at the top of his voice, "I ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... common uses of wood where the material is subjected to sudden shocks and jars or impact. Such is the action on the felloes and spokes of a wagon wheel passing over a rough road; on a hammer handle when a blow is struck; on a maul when it strikes a wedge. ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... But the wedge that drove them apart was entered when his first wife, Anne, brought into their married life, Dorothy, a fellow ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... narrow space. Then the plan of fighting, which they had directed equally against every part, being now relinquished, they all incline their forces towards one point; in that direction straining every effort both with their bodies and arms, they forced a passage by forming a wedge. The way led to a hill of moderate acclivity; here they first halted: presently, as soon as the higher ground afforded them time to gain breath, and to recover from so great a panic, they repulsed them as they advanced up; and the small band by the advantage of the ground was gaining ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... front teeth pulled out in each jaw. Cieza speaks of another tradition requiring the extraction of the teeth of children by their fathers as a very acceptable service to their gods. The Damaras knock out a wedge-shaped gap between two of their front teeth; and the natives of Sierra Leone file or chip their ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... would often fly off in opposite directions, to hunt on different beats. If one hunted in the grove, the other would go out to the rail fence. A high maple was a favorite lookout and hunting-ground for the one who stayed in the grove, and cracks in the bark afforded good places to wedge insects into. The bird who hunted on the fence, if suspecting a grub in a rail, would stand motionless as a Robin on the grass, apparently listening; but when the right moment came would drill down rapidly and spear the grub. If an insect passed ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... was ready, but fear of impairing the prestige of the Conference prevented me from uttering it. I could have emphasized the need for unanimity in the presence of vigilant enemies, ready to introduce a wedge into every fissure of the edifice we are constructing. I could have pointed out that, this being an assembly of nations which had waged war conjointly, there is no sound reason why its membership should be diluted with states which never drew the sword at all. I might ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Triangles of the Soldier class are formidable, it may be readily inferred that far more formidable are our Women. For if a Soldier is a wedge, a Woman is a needle; being, so to speak, ALL point, at least at the two extremities. Add to this the power of making herself practically invisible at will, and you will perceive that a Female, in Flatland, is a creature by no means ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... figure; but resolution, courage, endurance, deep design, clear vision, dogged will, and heroism shone forth from those searching eyes, making of no account the incongruities of the sallow features. Straight red hair, a nose thrust out like a wedge, and a chin falling back from an affectionate sort of mouth, made, by an antic of nature, the almost grotesque setting of those twin furnaces of daring resolve, which, in the end, fulfilled the yearning ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... occasion to mention the course of the tropical winds from east to west, I will add some observations connected with them. They are known to occasion a strong current in the ocean, in the same direction. This current breaks on that wedge of land of which Saint Roque is the point; the southern column of it probably turning off and washing the coast of Brazil. I say probably, because I have never heard the fact, and conjecture it from ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... or very lightly curved back and no arms, or a rocking chair of similar construction with a wedge placed under the rockers in such a manner as to keep the chair steady at a suitable angle, is well adapted to the practice of a number of corrective movements, such as rotating of hips and waist, forward and sideward bending of the trunk, the various arm and neck exercises, bending and twisting ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... parts of northern and central Macedonia known as Old Serbia. The crux of the whole problem was, and is, that the claims of Serbia and Greece do not clash, while that of Bulgaria, driving a thick wedge between Greece and Serbia, and thus giving Bulgaria the undoubted hegemony of the peninsula, came into irreconcilable conflict with those of its rivals. The importance of this point was greatly emphasized by the existence of the ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... frequently descend to the sea-coast, where they feed on various species of shell-fish, but in particular on a large sort of oyster, which commonly lies open on the shore. "Fearful," he says, "of putting in their paws, lest the oyster should close and crush them, they insert a stone as a wedge within the shell; this prevents it from closing, and they then drag out their prey, ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... see if Mrs. Martha had finished trying on her finery and gone to bed as usual. He found the kitchen dark and empty. He went to the foot of her stairs. There was no chink of light showing from her room. The stillness of the place entered into his mind as the thin edge of a wedge of alarm. "Mrs. Martha!" he called in sonorous voice. "Mrs. Martha!" But no one answered. He opened the back-door, and swept the dark garden with the light of his lamp, but she was not there. Lamp in hand, he went upstairs, and ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the score stood: one clock knocked off the mantel-piece in the library; three chandelier globes broken to bits; one plaster Barye bear destroyed by a low kick from the parlor floor; Tommy with his nose very nearly out of joint, thanks to a flying wedge represented by Jack; Mrs. Jarley's amiability in peril, and Jarley's irritability ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... elastic edges of this excellent fortress, sometimes half lifted as a bent willow levered up against their bellies, and the forward-tilting men fended their faces from the whipping twigs. They could not wedge a man's length into that pliant labyrinth, and the General called them out. They rallied among the sage-brush above, Crook's cheeks and many others painted with purple lines of blood, hardened already and cracking like enamel. The ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... grew pink; wedge after wedge of water-fowl swept through the calm evening air, and their aerial whimpering rush sounded faintly over ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... over-massive, and shining with long usage, reflected the stone ware and the wine. Chairs, carved grotesquely, and as old almost as the walls about me, stood round the comfort of the fire. I saw that the windows were deeper than a man's arms could reach, and wedge-shaped—made for fighting. I saw that the beams of the high roof, which the firelight hardly caught, were black oak and squared enormously, like the ribs of a master-galley, and in the leaves and ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... resolved to profit by the sudden show of friendliness which, true to their compact, the five girls had lost no time in carrying out. Ignoble of soul, she did not value the favor of these girls as a concession which she had been fortunate enough to receive. She decided to use it only as a wedge to reinstate herself in a certain leadership which her bad behavior of last year had lost her. She had no idea of the real reason for their interest in her. She preferred to think that they had come to a realization of ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... the Troll, hidden in the branches of a tree close to the entrance door, glanced first at the procession and then at a wedge of wood sticking out of the stone mouth of the ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... crept, Green goblins, in the roots; and squirrel things Ran, wild as cherubs, through the tracery; And here and yonder a flaky butterfly Was doubting in the air, scarlet and blue. But 'twixt my heart and summer's perfect grace, Drove a dividing wedge, and far away It seemed, like voice heard loud yet far away By one who, waking half, soon sleeps outright:— Where was the snowdrop? where the flower of hope? In me the spring was throbbing; round me lay ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... Christian Church in the west had been affected by the German invasion. Before the landing of the English in Britain the Christian Church stretched in an unbroken line across Western Europe to the furthest coasts of Ireland. The conquest of Britain by the pagan English thrust a wedge of heathendom into the heart of this great communion and broke it into two unequal parts. On one side lay Italy, Spain, and Gaul, whose churches owned obedience to and remained in direct contact with the See of Rome, on the other, practically cut off from the general body of Christendom, ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... Colonial-office had long projected making the Cape a penal colony, and it was supposed that political convicts would not be objected to. The colonists believed that this was merely the plan of insinuating the thin edge of the wedge, which would ensure the whole being driven home. John Mitchell was among the convicts; that gentleman having suffered at Bermuda from the climate, the government desired in mercy to place him in one more salubrious for persons afflicted with pulmonary ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... bullet. It may be easily understood that although this compound bullet was smaller than the bore of the rifle, a blow with the ramrod after loading would drive the conical bullet upon the larger diameter of the boxwood cone, which, acting like a wedge, would expand the lead, thus immediately secured within the barrel. The expansion when fired drove the boxwood into the centre of the bullet, which of necessity ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... apex. Obovate, same as ovate, but with the stem at the narrow end. Obcordate, a reversed heart-shape. Oblanceolate, a reversed lanceolate. Wedge-shaped or cuneate, having a somewhat square end and straight sides like a wedge. ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... the same nature. The planks of the small Mtpe dhows are sewn together with a thread-like stuff they get from the reeds in the lagoons. They are built broad and shallow, with a keel deepening towards the stern, almost like a wedge, so that they can turn quickly. They're good sea-boats, too, and can sail almost up into the wind's eye, with their large lateen sails, which are cut something like an old- fashioned leg of mutton, or short tack lug. The stem of them rises high ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... as an ocean terminus had been severely hampered by the thrusting in of the Maine-wedge between New Brunswick and Quebec, but still the town struggled on. In 1847 shares in the railway had been placed both in England and in the province, and the legislature guaranteed the interest on debentures ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... opened, evidently by force; an instrument like a wedge was fixed in the bureau containing Lester's money, and seemed to have been left there, as if the person using it had been disturbed before the design for which it was introduced had been accomplished, and, (the only evidence of life,) Aram ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... nor useful thought passed through the brain of the overwearied maiden as she rest on the couch, how long she knew not; but it was growing dark by the time Madge returned with a guttering candle, a cracked plate and wedge of greasy-looking pie, a piece of dry bread, a pewter cup of small beer, and an impaired repulsive steel knife with a rounded end, and fork with broken prong. The fact of this being steel was not distressing to one who had never seen a silver fork, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... directed the position of the boats which made up his first line of defense. His plan of keeping Mascola away from his fishing fleet was nothing more or less than just straight football formation, with an augmented line to withstand the opposing pressure. The Pelican formed the center of the wedge. To her right and left followed the heavy Diesel-motored vessels with the Curlew and Snipe guarding the extreme ends. Behind the first line came the reserve which closely covered the fishing-boats cruising the center area. Every boat ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... the worst guides for conduct. Threats are always mistakes. A sieve of oats, not a whip, attracts a horse to the halter. If Rehoboam had wished to split the kingdom, he could have found no better wedge than ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... understanding with the Romanists, Flacius saw through their schemes and fully realized the impending danger. In the reintroduction of Catholic ceremonies which Melanchthon regarded as entirely harmless, Flacius beheld nothing but the entering wedge, which would gradually be followed by the entire mass of Romish errors and abuses and the absolute dominance of Pope and Emperor over the Lutheran Church. The obedience demanded by the Emperor, said Flacius, consists in this, that "we abandon our true doctrine and adopt the godless Papacy." In ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... discussion which Montesino raised went home to Spain; but when a board of commissioners, charged to investigate the subject, advised that all Indians granted to Spanish courtiers, and to all other persons who did not reside upon the island, should be set at liberty, the colonists saw the entering wedge of emancipation. The discontent was so great, and the alternative of slavery or ruin was so passionately offered to the Government at home, that the system of repartimientos remained untouched; for the Government felt that it must choose between the abandonment of the island and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... and children); six, seven, eight (Chasseurs de Vincennes or a 'noble Zouave),' and so on, until the Rosary is complete and there are no more seats.[50] Every day under our windows they come and wedge themselves close together on the long stone seats under the dusty trees, to rest; and thread themselves in rows one by one, as if some unseen hand were telling, with human beads, the mystery ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... increasing the lap of the valve, is shown in the next drawing, Fig. 4. The cut off valve is held upon the main valve by the pressure of steam upon its back and rides with it until it comes in contact with the cut off wedge-shaped blocks, when its motion is arrested, and the main valve continuing its movement the steam port is closed by the main valve passing beneath the cut off valve. Thus the main valve travels and carries the cut off valve upon its ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... tried our tempers severely. Some of us would come in with muddy boots and tread on the blankets of the others. Those who went to bed early could stretch out their legs until their feet touched the tent-pole. Those who arrived later would have to wedge themselves in as best they could and remain with knees drawn up for the rest of the night—any attempt at forcing them down would be sure to create a disturbance and lead to a furious dispute and an exchange of insults ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... honey, was jest a wedge to split the church half in two. It was the new cyarpet that brought on the organ. You know how it is with yourself; you git a new dress, and then you've got to have a new bonnet, and then you can't wear your old shoes and gloves with a ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... is necessary to join the bark above and below the girdle by means of cions, which are whittled to a wedge-shape on either end, and inserted underneath the two edges of the bark (Fig. 159). The ends of the cions and the edges of the wound are held by a bandage of cloth, and the whole work is protected by melted grafting-wax poured upon it. [Footnote: ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... old man's promise had been torn like a leaf,—not to be mended or recalled,—torn and flung at his listener's feet. Yet such was the simplicity of utterance, such the nobility of poise, the beauty of the old face set like a silver wedge into the deepening mist, that Tatsu could only give him look for look, with no resentment. The young voice had taken on strangely the timbre of the old as, ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... there, while port and starboard, in the illuminated doorways, silhouettes of moving men appeared for a moment, very black, without relief, like figures cut out of sheet tin. The ship was ready for sea. The carpenter had driven in the last wedge of the mainhatch battens, and, throwing down his maul, had wiped his face with great deliberation, just on the stroke of five. The decks had been swept, the windlass oiled and made ready to heave up the anchor; ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... when my victuals have tasted right before," said Henry. He received a large wedge of the pie on his plate, and his whole face ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... leaf. The sap was flowing very readily and they bled very freely, although the ones that had been cut back early would not bleed like the ones you cut when you are ready to graft. In grafting we used the wedge graft, splitting straight down and placing three or four scions on each limb three or four inches in diameter. However the method we like the best is the slip bark method, but we have had fairly good results with both methods. Of the trees we ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... water for the other shanties, swept out all three, split wood and carried it in to the cook and to the living-camps, filled and trimmed the lamps, perhaps helped the cook. About half the remainder of the day he wielded an ax, saw and wedge in the hardwood, collecting painfully—for his strength was not great—material for the constant fires it was his duty to maintain. Often he would stand motionless in the vast frozen, creaking forest, listening with awe to the voices which spoke to him alone. There was something uncanny in the ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... making preparations to salt the cattle down in the "V" lot on his place (so-called because a wedge of the Redfield property carved out a bit of its very centre) when those angry black clouds ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... last high one. They worked like desperate men during the interval. The wedge was the mechanical power which prevailed at last. Several wedges were inserted under the vessel's side, and driven home. Thus the sloop was canted over a little towards the water. When the tide was at the full, one man hauled at the tackle, two men swung at the ends of the levers, and ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... an ax of stone, sharpened at each end, with eyes, nose, and mouth in a narrow line of cold defiance. To Grace, the acute wedge of white forehead, gleaming its way to the roots of the black hair, and the sharp chin cutting its way down from the tightly drawn mouth, spoke only of cunning. She regarded Fran as a fox, ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... down with your fly. At other times, as you struck sharply at the plunge, your fly would come back to you, or tangle itself up in unseen snags; and far out, where the verge of the firelight rippled away into the darkness, you would see a sharp wave-wedge shooting away, which told you that your trout was only a musquash. Swimming quietly by, he had seen you and your fire, and slapped his tail down hard on the water to make you jump. That is a way Musquash has in the night, so that he can make up his ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... man," continued the "King." "I may not be too smart, but still things don't have to be driven into me with a wedge. If Sylvia and Harley were left to themselves, they would fall deep in love, I can see that; but I tell you, Mr. Grayson, she's mine, she belongs to me, because I've earned her, and because she's promised herself to me, too, an' I can't give her up. Still, if it's wrong, if I ought to ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... it, Ave,' he said; 'I have thought it over many times, and I see that the discomfort and evil of our home was in the spirit of pride and rebellion that I helped you to nurse. It was like a wedge, driving us farther and farther apart; and now that it is gone, and you will close up again, when you are kind and yielding to Henry—what a happy peaceful home you may make out in ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and settlement was so slow during the first one hundred and fifty or sixty years of our history. New England had, it is true, been largely subjugated and reclaimed; a considerable body of emigrants, wedge-like, were driving slowly up through the Mohawk Valley towards Niagara; a weak, thin line, was straggling with difficulty across the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania, towards the Ohio, and a more compact and confident battalion in Virginia, was ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... court below I saw him again. The archway to street sent toward us a deep wedge of shadow. He had a cloak which he wrapped around him and a large round hat which he drew low over his gray-blue eyes. With a firm step he crossed to the archway where the purple shadow ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... consisted of oak planks, the spaces between which had been filled in with mortar made of sand and grease. On the ground-floor lay several flint implements, showing no signs of having been polished, a quartz wedge, and a stone chisel, which had evidently seen long service. This chisel, the discoverers say, corresponded exactly with the notches around the mortices. A regular paved way, formed of sea-beach pebbles placed on a foundation of interlaced branches, ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... most eager to make herself agreeable; she looks quite like a screen picture behind her piled-up cakes, ornamented with little posies. We will take shelter under her roof while we wait; and, to avoid the drops that fall heavily from the waterspouts, wedge ourselves tightly against her display of white and pink sweetmeats, so artistically spread out on fresh and delicate ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... the top, circular and about 50 ft. high. Four circular vaults are sunk in the interior and four passages have been pierced below from the outside, which probably lead to them. The base of the building is constructed of sun-dried bricks about 2 ft. square and 4 or 5 in. thick. The Takht-i-Rustam is wedge-shaped in plan, with uneven sides. It is apparently built of pise mud (i.e. mud mixed with straw and puddled). It is possible that in these ruins we may recognize the Nan Vihara of the Chinese traveller Hsuan Tsang. There are the remains of many ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... forward, parallel with the proboscis, and on each side of it, was a gigantic staff, thirty or forty feet in length, formed seemingly of pure crystal and in shape a perfect prism,—it reflected in the most gorgeous manner the rays of the declining sun. The trunk was fashioned like a wedge with the apex to the earth. From it there were outspread two pairs of wings—each wing nearly one hundred yards in length—one pair being placed above the other, and all thickly covered with metal scales; each scale apparently some ten or twelve feet in diameter. I observed that the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... tongs into the fire. As Thor came toward him he lifted up the tongs and flung from it a blazing wedge of iron. It whizzed straight toward Thor's forehead. Thor put up his hands and caught the blazing wedge of iron between the mittens that old Grid had given him. Quickly he hurled it back at Gerrioed. It ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... the divan with a gesture of sweeping back her hair. And then—oh, treachery of tortoise-shell! oh, the villainy of those little gold hair-pins!—the fat twisted coils tumbled loose and slowly unravelled themselves, and her pink-and-white face, half-eclipsed, showed a delectable wedge between big, odourful, crinkly, ponderous masses of hair. It clung about her, a heavy cloak, all shimmering gold like the path of sunset over the June sea. And Margaret, looking at herself in the mirror, laughed, and appeared ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... in the woods, and the professor was lying in my little wedge tent, discussing the dangers of hunting alone in couples in this way. The flap of the tent hung back and let in fragrant odours of cooking over an open wood fire; everywhere there were bustle and preparation, and one canoe ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... awakened no unusual solicitude in the minds of Republicans had their inspiration been confined to political opponents, but suddenly there came to the aid of the Democrats a formidable array of Republicans. Although the entering wedge was a difference of policy growing out of conditions in the Southern States, other reasons contributed to the rupture. The removal of Motley as minister to England, coming so soon after Sumner's successful resistance to the San Domingo scheme, was treated as an attempt to punish a senator for ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... bay, he saw, by pinching a small chunk out of the huge cone of the volcano. The bay was a watery wedge cutting into the mountain to a depth of about twelve hundred yards, a half-mile wide at the entrance, and narrowing down to a bare half hundred yards of narrow beach at the point of ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... is this whilom capital of the tiny feudal kingdom; topsy-turvy, higgledy-piggledy, coated of many colours are its zig-zag little streets, one house tumbling on the back of its neighbour, another having contrived to wedge itself between two of portlier bulk, a third coolly taking possession of some inviting frontage, shutting out its fellow's light, air, and sunshine; here, meeting the eye, breakneck alley, there aerial terrace, and on ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the Medical Bureau of the Government at this time for the care and comfort of the wounded and fever-stricken was small and often inappropriate. Where tents were provided, they were either of the wedge pattern or the bivouacking tent of black cloth, and in the hot sun of a Virginia summer absorbed the sun's rays till they were like ovens; many of the sick were put into the cabins and miserable shanties of the vicinity, and not unfrequently in the attics of these, where amid the intense heat they ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett |
