"Axe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spent the night in prayer, but at dawn, to his great chagrin, the sky was overcast. Nevertheless, he assembled the people near Thor's statue, and after secretly bidding his principal attendant to smash the idol with his battle-axe if the people turned their eyes away but for a moment, he began to address them. Suddenly, while all were listening to him, Olaf pointed to the horizon, where the sun was slowly breaking its way through ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... Cedar to the axe's edge, Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle, Under whose shade the ramping lion slept, Whose top-branch o'erpeered Jove's spreading tree, And kept low shrubs ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... colour, and seemed sensitive to the light. His mother said he got hurt oftener than all the others put together. He was always trying to ride the colts before they were broken, teasing the turkey gobbler, seeing just how much red the bull would stand for, or how sharp the new axe was. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... reactions of the martyred flesh. I do not remember ever hearing him cry out, though this would have seemed to me natural enough, and would by no means have lowered Monsieur Spat in my opinion. All I ever heard from him was a stifled moan, the dull panting of the woodman as he swings his axe. ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... most French provincial towns, arranged like a star, the Grande Place and Hotel de Ville forming the centre. We found our way to the cathedral, where a white-haired old cure showed us around, pointing out the door leading to the great square tower and the axe marks left by the German soldiers who burst it open. They had used the tower as an observing post during the week their cavalry had held the town the preceding October. The old man had been held as hostage by them, together with the mayor and some other notables, ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... myself as well as Telie Doe, or any other girl in the settlement;"—a declaration echoed and re-echoed by her sisters, all of whom bent their eyes towards a corner of the ample porch, where, busied with a rude loom, fashioned perhaps by the axe and knife of the militia colonel himself, on which she was weaving a coarse cloth from the fibres of the flax-nettle, sat a female somewhat younger than the eldest of the sisters, and doubtless of a more humble degree, as was shown by the labour in which ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... invaders, the destroyers of the throne and the Church, impious, sacrilegious, revolutionary,—the authors of every evil. It was they who, for years, destroyed the harvests, shed torrents of blood, smote with the sword or the axe of the guillotine, crowded war upon war, heaped ruins upon ruins, bringing misery and disgrace to all mankind. The old nobility, once so proud of its coats-of-arms and of its sovereign rights, now enslaved, humiliated, ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... name which resembles that of the Lesghians, one of the present warlike tribes of the Caucasus. On antient medals the Amazons are represented with a short vest reaching to the knee, and one breast bare. Their arms were a crescent shield, the bow and arrow, and the double axe, whence the name Amazonia was used as a distinctive appellation for that weapon (Amazonia securis, Horat. Od. ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... he directed, when they had dismounted, "do you see that tall slender sapling over there? It's just the thing I want. Please take the axe and get it for me, and don't cut off all ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... of faithful servants filled the background of the room, and listened with suspended breath to the axe-strokes with which the savage crowd broke down the doors, and heard the ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... turned on me severely, and I observed that he and Mr. Rogers had armed themselves with a musket apiece, each slung on a bandolier, and that Mr. Rogers wore an axe ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... making any way. It was as though the devil had tied a hair about the spokes. After fearful struggling and long agony, the wood was at length reached. Klaus fell manfully to work. A sheaf of young trees were presently down before his axe. In the haste of the felling, he cut down some shrubbery, of no use in the manufacture of twirling-sticks, but trees and shrubs were heaped together on his cart; he stopped his pipe, and with provision at least for the next week, he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Brockholst Livingston, over the signature of "Decius," assailed the treaty with great ability. This aroused Hamilton, who had both spoken and written in favor of the treaty. He came to the tournament most gallantly, and, over the signature of "Camillus," he dealt such powerful blows with his battle-axe of fact and logic; that "Decius" was quickly unhorsed. Jefferson, with his eagle vision, had watched the combat with intense interest from his eyry at Monticello; and when he saw the force of Hamilton's reasoning, and the power it must have upon the people, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... except for the marble high relief over the door, showing the grizzly head of the Baptist in the charger, and for the iron cage close by, in which were formerly exposed the heads of criminals; the decapitated, or, as they call him here, decollated, John the Baptist, being apparently the patron of axe and block. ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... big flaring torches of pine knots,) I shall never forget. I like to go to the paymaster's tent, and watch the men getting paid off. Some have furloughs, and start at once for home, sometimes amid great chaffing and blarneying. There is every day the sound of the wood-chopping axe, and the plentiful sight of negroes, crows, and mud. I note large droves and pens of cattle. The teamsters have camps of their own, and I go often among them. The officers occasionally invite me to dinner or supper at headquarters. The fare is plain, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... The framing of these buildings is more systematically put together than in the earlier examples. The great beams crossing the ceilings, and the supporting-posts and hanging knees, are surfaced and beaded, instead of being rough-hewn with an axe. The fireplaces are often surrounded with Dutch tiles held in place by brass bands. The locks and door-trimmings are of brass. The window-glass is larger and clearer, and is set in well-made sashes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... plainer, I suppose. But in the mane time, might one axe, out o' mere curiosity, if you're ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... Alloy steel Circular saw plates Automobile steel Coal auger steel Awl steel Coal mining pick or cutter steel Axe and hatchet steel Coal wedge steel Band knife steel Cone steel Band saw steel Crucible cast steel Butcher saw steel Crucible machinery steel Chisel steel Cutlery steel Chrome-nickel steel Drawing ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... yesterday, with your name attached to it, and it made my heart ache for your family. As a resident in your State I felt humiliated. Two of Wisconsin's ablest men have been thus slaughtered by the rude broad-axe of the engraver. Last fall, Senator Spooner, who is also a man with a first-class head and face, was libeled in this same reckless way. It makes me mad, and in that way impairs my usefulness. I am not a good citizen, husband or father when I am mad. I am a perfect simoom of wrath at such ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... for greater security. The door had neither lock nor latch, but she contrived to fasten it in some fashion. At midnight, three men came and tried to force it open; but every time they partially succeeded, she struck at them with a broad axe. This mode of defence was kept up so vigorously, that at last ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... had hovered constantly close to his hand, and, at the last, he made one final dip. It was at the moment when the Mary's axe, on deck, had struck Borckman down and when Tambi loosed the first shot at her from his Lee-Enfield. And Bashti's withered ancient hand, the back of it netted with a complex of large up-standing veins from which the flesh had shrunk away, dipped out a huge pistol of such remote ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... packs on their backs, sling their blankets into place, and pick up their little fishing-rods, unjointed and compactly packed in cloth cases. Lew buckled the pistol to his belt and suspended the canteen from his shoulder, while Charley sheathed his little axe and hung it on his hip. Then, completely ready, the two lads waved farewell to their envious comrades and hastened away to the train. In less than an hour the train stopped to let them off at the little flag-station ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... ball, and it checked the charge for a moment by bringing the bear to his knees. As the bear gathered himself for another rush, McKiernan swung the heavy rifle and struck the bear over the head with the barrel. He was a powerful man, accustomed to swinging an axe, and the blow knocked the bear down and stunned him. The stock of the rifle broke in McKiernan's hands and the barrel fell close by the bear, which had fallen upon the very edge of a steep slope at the side of the ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... in the sun, could be preserved for a considerable time, and would prove more serviceable than any other food we were likely to obtain. He offered at once to go down to the river and look out for one. Arthur, Tim, and I accompanied him and the two other natives. Tim had an axe, while we had our guns, and the natives had provided themselves with lances, to which long lines were attached. Camo took his post on the lower branch of a tree which projected over the water, while we stationed ourselves at some little distance, ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... their favorite pastime. It was one round of card playing nights and Sundays. When I first went to work on the Lonsdale ranch, the boss put me to cutting oak wood. After I had been at work awhile, he came along and told me that I did not hold the handle of my axe right. The next day he found fault with me for the way I used a cross-cut saw. A week later I was piling brush to burn, and the way I laid the brush did not suit him. He was everlastingly blowing about himself and telling how he did things. I did not seem to ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... may be killed by a small axe," said Lingard, drily. "And, remember, my one-eyed friend, that axes are made by white hands. You will soon find that out, since you have hoisted the flag of ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... lifted the nude, insensible form of the beautiful girl so that her neck rested in the hollow of the block. He held her in position. The axe fell. The head rolled to the stone pave. A woman close by, caught the head by the hair, twisted her fingers well into the beautiful black swathes, and swinging the gory thing around her head, let it fly from her hand, shouting, as it hurled through ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... Weed was, perhaps, as unfortunate a man as ever brought an illustrious son into the world. He was neither shiftless nor worthless, but what others did he could not do. He never took up land for himself because he had nothing to begin with. A neighbour who began with an axe and a hoe, entered fifty ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... to Breckenridge; and I can remember hearin' em say 'Hurrah for Buchanan!' I'm just tellin' you to show how fur back I can remember. I used to have a book with a picture of Abraham Lincoln with an axe on his shoulder and a picture of that log cabin, but somebody stole ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... guilty, and beheaded on July 22nd, 1535. On his way to the scaffold he exclaimed, "Feet, do your duty; you have only a short journey," and then, singing the Te Deum laudamus, he placed his head upon the block, and the executioner's axe fell. Although Bishop Fisher was condemned for denying the King's supremacy, he incurred the wrath of Henry by his book against the divorce, and that practically sealed his fate. His head was placed on a spike on London Bridge as a warning to others who might be rash enough to incur ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... to die under the axe, as we say," interrupted Klaft, as if to ease the concern plain on Kinton's face. "In other words, criminals. You suspect this Albirken is such a ...
— Exile • Horace Brown Fyfe
... keel uppermost, and would have righted at once, but a bight of the mainsail, with some of the wreck, held her down. Her crew, one by one, succeeded in clambering upon her, and Harry shouted to the men in the ship to hand him an axe. One was thrown to him which he caught, and began therewith to cut the wreck ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... difference, that at the arrival of the French the superb panorama was more or less enveloped in an apparently interminable forest, to which the predominance of the pine imparted in some places an air of solemnity, and even gloom. Since then, the axe has done its work in the inhabited portions, opening up a landscape of singular loveliness in some parts; of stern, wild grandeur in others; nevertheless, enough of the lordly old woods still remains, to justify ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... gone to speak with Mrs. Drane, Mike repaired to the woodshed, where, picking up an axe, he stood for some moments regarding a short, knotty log on end in front of him. ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... were all taken—no chance e'en of flight; And with torch and with axe the bloody Cossacks Went hither and thither a-hunting in packs: They slashed and they slew both Christian and Jew— Women and children, they slaughtered them too. Some, saving their throats, plunged into the moats, Or the river—but oh, they had burned ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Never an axe had seen their chips, And the wedges flew from between their lips; Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linch-pin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thorough-broke bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... they guard the treasures of their libraries and galleries? Would they shudder in indignation if some one sent a bullet through the Sistine Madonna, or throw a bomb at the Venus de Milo, or struck a rare Chinese porcelain into fragments with an axe? ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... merchant, in a Sambk that lay at the harbour-mouth. A party had lately slaughtered a camel, of course not their own property; and yet they wondered that the Bedawin shoot them. They showed their insolence by threatening with an axe the dog Juno, when she sportively sallied out to greet them; and were highly offended because, in view of cholera and smallpox, I stationed sentries to keep them at a distance. Had there been contagious ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... enforced silence. Then another proclamation was made, commanding the Lieutenant of the Tower to bring forth his prisoners to the Bar, and accordingly the six rebel lords were brought to the Bar by the Deputy-Governor of the Tower, having the axe carried before them by the Gentleman Jailer, who stood with it on the left hand of the prisoners, with the edge turned from him. The prisoners after kneeling before the Bar, bowed to his Grace the High Steward, and also to the Peers, whose sad privilege ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... seen peering out through the dusty glass. William Carley tried to open the lattice, but it was secured tightly within. One of the firemen leapt forward upon his failure, and shattered every pane of glass and every inch of the leaden frame with a couple of blows from his axe, and then the bailiff ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... whole days doing literally nothing. What should I do? I'm not the man for books; I can't get much sport nowadays; I don't care for billiards. I want to have an axe in ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... decayed, that I must have it taken down and rebuilt, and if thou art willing to undertake the job I will employ thee." On his consenting, she led him to her house, and shewing him the wall, gave him a pick-axe, directing him as he went on to place the stones in one heap and the rubbish in another. He replied, "To hear is to obey." She then brought him some provision and water, when he refreshed himself, and having thanked God that he had escaped, and was able to get his living, began ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... the silence, like a knife rough and jagged. In a twinkling the lights went out. There was a scuffling, a struggling in the corridor, cries and shouting, the sound of wood splintering, the blows of an axe,—a rushing forward of heavy bodies and the trampling of feet. The doors burst open, and a cordon of police dashed over the wreckage, cursing, shouting—and then stopped on the threshold, staring in amazement and panting with mouths ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... life; that is to say, the pleasures of the senses, avarice, and vanity. The Church then will be founded on mortification of the flesh, poverty, and humility. Pleasures and honours follow in the train of wealth; but poverty puts an axe to the roots of pride and sensual enjoyments. Some, says David, blaming them, glory in the multitude of their riches; and St. Paul exhorts the rich of this world ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... If I thought anybody would split, do you think I wouldn't wring his neck? I've done as good before now, Strong—I told you how I did for the overseer before I took leave—but in fair fight, I mean—in fair fight; or, rayther, he had the best of it. He had his gun and bay'net, and I had only an axe. Fifty of 'em saw it—ay, and cheered me when I did it—and I'd do it again,—him, wouldn't I? I ain't afraid of anybody; and I'd have the life of the man who split upon me. That's my maxim, and pass me the liquor.—You wouldn't turn on a man. I know ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... soften the appearance of bleakness. I asked why no fire had been made, and Louise said that she had engaged a negro to cut some wood, but that he had gone away. She had paid him in advance. She would herself have kindled a fire, but there was no axe on the place, and she was afraid to leave her husband long enough to go to the woods to gather sticks. I went out and found the negro dozing in the sun. He was impudent when I spoke to him, but when I told him my name and ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... knowledge of them: for asmuche as al togethers they belonge to Eloquucion, whyche is the thyrde and pryncipall parte of rhetorique. The common scholemasters be wont in readynge, to saye vnto their scholers: Hic est figura: and sometyme to axe them, Per quam figuram? But what profit is herein if they go no further? In speakynge and wrytynge nothyng is more folyshe than to affecte or fondly to laboure to speake darkelye for the nonce, sithe the proper vse of speach is to vtter the meaning of our mynd ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... knight than with a great noble, for that in the rivalries between these there might be troubles come upon the land, and maybe even civil strife; that one who might hold his head highest of all one day might on the morrow have it struck off with the executioner's axe, and that at any rate it were best at present to live quietly and see how matters went before taking any step that would bind me to the fortunes of ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... course each year of destruction rendered the forest less able to recuperate, less able to resist next year's inroad. Mr. Meyer describes the ceaseless progress of the destruction even now, when there is so little left to destroy. Every morning men and boys go out armed with mattox or axe, scale the steepest mountain sides, and cut down and grub out, root and branch, the small trees and shrubs still to be found. The big trees disappeared centuries ago, so that now one of these is never seen save in the neighborhood of temples, where they are artificially protected; and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... far from being off. The pulleys twice stuck in their fastings, bow and stern, and the one axe was passed forward and back (and with it my flashlight) as the entangling mesh of ropes that held us to the ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... down the periods at which the various more revolting punishments under the English law were repealed, or fell into disuse. For instance, when torture, such as the rack, was last applied; when embowelling alive and quartering ceased to be practised; and whose was the last head that fell under the axe's bloody stroke. A word also on the use of the pillory, ducking-stool, stocks, &c. would interest. Any illustrations of the modification of our penal code would throw valuable light on the philosophy and improvement of the national character. And I believe it would appear that the Reformation gradually ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various
... was troubling him. He was wondering whether he would find his job when he got back. Poor devil! If he didn't what would become of his trim little house? Grover was older by five years than I had been when the axe fell. ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... must have noticed in your trips to the country, as well as our fine valley and mountain oaks. Try to learn the kinds of trees and study their leaves, blossoms, and fruit, and you will find every one a friend well worth knowing. Then you will wish to save them from fire and the lumberman's axe, especially ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... these hounds begin to wind you, flee! 'Tis like a sickness—it still hangeth, hangeth upon the limbs. But let us see what they have written. It is as I thought, my lord; y' are marked like an old oak, by the woodman; to-morrow or next day, by will come the axe. But what wrote ye ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Three were tightening their harness on their backs, The Consul was the foremost man to take in hand an axe: And Fathers mix'd with Commons seized hatchet, bar, and crow, And smote upon the planks above, and ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... and counterpoises which served to fix the state and to give it a steady direction, melting down the whole into one incongruous, ill-connected mass; and then, with the most atrocious perfidy and breach of all faith, they laid the axe to the root of all property, and consequently of all national prosperity, by the principles they established and the example they set in confiscating all the possessions of the church. They had made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... disappeared, the young man ran forward to slip the harness from his animals, but found it frozen into their fur, the knots and buckles transformed into unmanageable lumps of ice, so he wrenched the camp axe from the sled and cut the thongs, then hacked loose the stiff sled- lashings, seized the sodden sleeping-bags, and made for the house. A traveller's first concern is for his dogs, then for ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... warming the place. Numerous guns, axes, and canoe-paddles hung round the walls or were piled in corners, and the rafters sustained a miscellaneous mass of materials, the more conspicuous among which were snow-shoes, dog-sledges, axe- ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... Brutus never turned away his head, and showed no pity on his stern countenance, but sat savagely looking on at the execution of his sons until at last they were laid on the ground and their heads severed with an axe. Then he handed over the rest of the culprits to be dealt with by his colleague, rose, and left the Forum. His conduct cannot be praised, and yet it is above censure. Either virtue in his mind overpowered every other feeling, or his sorrow was so great as to produce ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... as the mainstay is moused, for I never knew Jack tell a lie (meaning his brother), and now I'll fill and stand on. The boatswain, hearing the noise, came on deck. The mate pointed to the monster, and told him to get an axe. The beast had bristled up like an American porcupine and was ready to dart at them when the mate got abaft the foremast and fired at its head, which he missed, but struck it in the neck. The animal, finding itself wounded, darted with ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... he was here to comfort, help and heal, Yet now no earthly trace of him remains. Spring freshets from the hills have washed away The last wrecked fragments of his hermitage, And though I pleaded hard, I could not save The oak, his dear dumb daughter, from the axe, Albeit 'twas she preserved him unto us. Forgive me, sir, my chatter wearies you, Here be the grapes my boy has plucked: they sate Both thirst and hunger, pray ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... must find superficial the views which connect rhythm with the symmetry of the body as making rhythmical gesture necessary; or more particularly with the conditions of work, which, if it is skilled and well carried out, proceeds in equal recurring periods, like the swinging of a hammer or an axe. But it appears that primitive effort is not carried on in this way, and proceeds, not from regularity to rhythm, but rather, through, by means of rhythm, which is made a help, to regularity. Again, it is said that work can be ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... exposing himself without fear day and night in seeing to the wants of his men. Leaving Colonel Abram Eustis in command, he proceeded to join General Atkinson at Prairie du Chien, which he reached on the 3d of August. The engagement called the Battle of Bad Axe had been fought before his arrival. He was here again confronted with the plague of cholera, which had broken out in Atkinson's command at Rock Island, and he devoted himself to the care of the sick and ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... suspended upon it and over the fire, and the water in the kettle was just beginning to boil. Other utensils were strewed around. There was a frying-pan, some tin cups, several small packages containing flour, dried meat, and coffee; a coffee-pot of strong tin, a small spade, and a light axe, with its ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... almost superstitious and made numerous converts. Sometimes he would make appointments a year beforehand and suddenly appear before a waiting congregation like an apparition. At Montville, Connecticut, a thief had stolen an axe. In the course of a sermon Dow said that the guilty man was in the congregation and had a feather on his nose. At once the right man was detected by his trying to brush away the feather. On another occasion ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... in a peculiar way. On arriving at Axe Station for the previous Christmas holidays, he had seen two low-hung lamps brilliantly flashing instead of the higher and less powerful lamps of the dogcart, and there had been no light-reflecting flanks of a horse in front of the lamps. The dark figure sitting behind the lamps proved to ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... how they were brought up by hand, as you might say, and they know me and hang around the door for crumbs, and that beauty of a Wyandock, you couldn't eat him!" When the matter is decided, as the guillotining is going on, Ellen and I sit listening to the axe thuds and the death squaks, while she wrings her hands, saying: "O dearie me! What a world—the dear Lord ha' mercy on us poor creatures! What a thing to look into, that we must kill the poor innocents to eat them. ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... the front of the glacier I climbed to the surface of it by means of axe-steps made easy for Stickeen. As far as the eye could reach, the level, or nearly level, glacier stretched away indefinitely beneath the gray sky, a seemingly boundless prairie of ice. The rain continued, and grew colder, which I did not mind, but a dim snowy look in the drooping clouds made ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... No, nor half an hour's. Headsman, be ready. Soldiers, lay the heads of the prisoners ready for the axe." ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... when the cart is loaded with the buckets, and the procession starts into the woods. The sun shines brightly; the snow is soft and beginning to sink down; the snow-birds are twittering about, and the noise of shouting and of the blows of the axe echoes ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... an atheist in August, 1546. Dolet, as Mr. Chancellor Christie tells us in his exhaustive monograph, adopted a Mark and motto which are to be found in all or nearly all the productions of his press. The Mark and the motto are equally allusive: the former is an axe of the kind known as doloire, held in a hand which is issuing out of a cloud. Below is a portion of a trunk of a tree; it is usually surrounded by the motto, "Scabra et impolita ad amussim dolo atque perfolia"; it is often also surrounded by an ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... darn their black skins! there was a dozen here jest now, a blockin' up the fire-side, and stinkin' so no white man could come nearst it, till I got an axe-handle, half an hour or so since, and cleared out the heap of them! Niggers! they'll be here all of them torights, I warrant; where you sees Archer, there's never no scarceness of dogs and niggers. But come, walk in boys! ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... that we had been run down. The water was rushing into the little craft, and I knew that she must go to the bottom. Her masts and spars were still hanging to her side, an' so, thinks I to meself, I'll have a struggle for life. I had seen an axe in the companion hatch, and, getting hold of it, I cut away the rigging, and had time to get hold of a cold ham and some bread and a bottle of water, which I stowed in a basket. Thinks I, I'll make a raft, and so I hove overboard some planks, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... My chop-axe tells me I got the only clean aces they is on this table! Before I'll leave you all rob me outa my money, I'm goin' to ...
— Poker! • Zora Hurston
... the king, The Israelites to kill, so soon as they were born: My darling likewise doth the selfsame thing, And therefore causes kings and princes to be sworn, That with might and main they shall keep up his horn, And shall destroy with fire, axe, and sword, Such as against him shall speak but one word. And even as I was somewhat too slow, So that notwithstanding the Israelites did augment; So (for lack of murthering) God's people do grow, And daily increase at this time present; Which my ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... difficulties. Often the travellers were obliged to cut their road as they went. With the resolution of pioneers, however, they began the journey. At the end of several days they had gone but eighteen miles. Abraham Lincoln was then but seven years old, but was already accustomed to the use of axe and gun. He lent a willing hand, and bore his share in the labor and fatigue connected with the difficult journey. In after years he said that he had never passed through a more trying experience than when he went from Thompson's Ferry to Spencer County, Indiana. On arriving, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... there was a certain recklessness in his actions—as though his every movement advertised a careless regard for consequences. She held her breath when he split a short log into slender splinters, for he swung the short-handled axe with a loose grasp, as though he cared very little where its sharp blade landed. But she noted that he struck with precision despite his apparent carelessness, every blow falling true. His manner of handling the axe reflected the spirit that shone in his ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... a thousand dollars for a minister is only a slow way of killing him, and is the worst style of homicide. Why do not the trustees and elders take a mallet or an axe, and with one blow put him out of his misery? The damage begins in the college boarding house. The theological student has generally small means, and he must go to a cheap boarding house. A frail piece of sausage trying to swim across a river of gravy on the breakfast plate, ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... from the River Gate, where I was, I believe, the first to applaud one of the Patres Conscripti (commanding the Axe-and-Crowbar Volunteers), who set a fine example by actually starting on the demolition of the bridge himself. Already you could see the Tuscan hordes in the swarthy dust that shrouded the Western horizon. I was myself in a position to pick out ASTUR, who was girt with the brand which ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... without springs, carrying four rather poor sheep, four bushels of barley, and fifteen pounds of wool, which they hoped to exchange for five bushels of that precious corn. On top of it all there were three large bagfuls of hay for the horses. The boys also took an axe and an old flintlock gun, for much of the way ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... the native house superintending the floor, Lloyd down in Apia, and Bella in her own house cleaning, when I heard the latter calling on my name. I ran out on the verandah; and there on the lawn beheld my crazy boy with an axe in his hand and dressed out in green ferns, dancing. I ran downstairs and found all my house boys on the back verandah, watching him through the dining-room. I asked what it meant?—'Dance belong his place,' they said.—'I think ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... about to the westward, you see before you one vast forest, uninterrupted except by the cultivated openings which have been made by the axe on the summits of some of the loftiest hills, and which tend considerably to diminish those melancholy sensations its gloomy monotony would otherwise inspire. The innumerable undulations in this vast expanse of forest, forcibly remind you of the ocean when convulsed ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... seems to have more legs than a centipede when you try to drag it through a narrow space, and they all stick out in different directions. Of course, this one stuck and then there was more trouble, for when I took an axe to dismember it, a cop threatened to arrest me for cutting up a horse in the city limits. It took three hours to satisfy the red-tape requirements and get a permit from the Board of Health, and then I had a long, sickening job, for we had to haul up what ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... have given advice which has not been listened to. Nevertheless, you have been obliged to embark on board this vessel, your children and your brothers are there with you, your mother is on board. A pirate ranges up, axe in one hand, to scuttle the vessel, a torch in the other to fire it. The crew are resolved to defend themselves and run to arms. Would you say to this crew, 'For my part I consider this vessel badly built, and I will let it ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... organ was in hand, Louis Callinet experienced acute financial difficulties, and, failing to induce Daublaine, his partner, to advance him a relatively small sum, * * * Callinet became so bitterly incensed that one day, going to the organ on some trifling pretext, he entirely wrecked it with axe and handsaw. ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... Turks held out, winter came, provisions grew scarce, life ceased to be agreeable. Such was the discouragement that succeeded that several men of note deserted the army of the cross, among them Robert, duke of Normandy, William, viscount of Melun, called the Carpenter, from his mighty battle-axe, and Peter the Hermit himself. Their flight caused the greatest indignation. Tancred, one of the leaders, hurried after and overtook them, and brought them back to the camp, where they, overcome by shame, swore on the Gospel never again ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... the first sign of your approach to a sugar-camp is generally the sound of an axe or the barking of a dog; these help to direct your steps; then, in a little while you see snow- shoe tracks, and then—here are the little birch-bark troughs, one or two to each maple-tree, and a slip of ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... Flossie and Freddie by the hands, and they walked along with him, while Bert and Nan followed. On the way back to the camp, or place where the log cabins and other shacks were built, they met a man coming along with an axe on his shoulder. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... started for the bee tree, a mile and a half from his house, in a dense forest. He had several buckets prepared to secure a large amount of honey. When we began to chop, the bees began to roar, and our friend was frantic with delight. Soon the tree fell, and he "waded in" with his axe and buckets to get the luscious spoil. As he went in we went out, and soon he discovered himself in a big bumble-bees' nest alone with all his buckets, etc., a mile and a half from home! We saw no more of him that night, and did not care to ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... on thy soale: but on thy soule harsh Iew Thou mak'st thy knife keene: but no mettall can, No, not the hangmans Axe beare halfe the keennesse Of thy sharpe enuy. Can no prayers pierce thee? Iew. No, none that thou hast wit ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... killed by Ajax to a poplar felled by a workman) literally thus: "He fell on the ground, like a poplar, which has grown smooth, in the west part of a great meadow; with its branches shooting from its summit. But the chariot maker, with the sharp axe, has felled it, that he may bend a wheel for a beautiful chariot. It lies drying on the banks of the river." Observe the circumstances which coincide with the Jersey practice. 1. It is a tree growing in a ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... for this, then, that the amiable Louis, the majestic Marie Antoinette, the Minerva-like Madame Roland, the Girondins vowed to the utter quest of liberty, the tyrant-quelling Danton, the incorruptible Robespierre himself, had felt the fatal axe; in order that the mimicry of their death agonies might tickle jaded appetites, and help to weave anew the old Circean spells. So it seemed to the few who cared to think of the frightful sacrifices of the past, and to measure them against the seemingly hopeless ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... "what would I give for a chopper or pick-axe to smash open that there hatch, so as ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... explain that the tree is not an ordinary tree but the metamorphosed soul of an unlucky wight called Polydorus, (he must have been unlucky, if only to have had such a name). Needless to say, AEneas, who was strictly a gentleman in spite of his aristocratic pretensions, at once dropped his axe and showed his sympathy for the poor tree-bound spirit in an abundant flow of tears, which must have satisfied, even, Polydorus. There is a very similar story in Swedish folk-lore. A voice in a tree addressed a man, who was about to cut it down, with ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... procuring the remedy. If my house is on fire, I run to the hydrant by a mere automatic operation of my nerves. If my leg is caught in the bight of a paying-out hawser, my whole brain focuses at once on that single thought, "an axe." If I am enduring the agony which opium alone can cause and cure, every faculty of my mind is called to the aid of the tortured body which wants it. When a man has used opium for a long time the condition of brain supervening on his deprivation of the drug for a period of twenty-four ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... by a blow with a battle-axe, and Margaret, snatched from her palfrey, was thrown across the saddle-bow of one of the mounted men, who then with his comrades dashed ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... Ending on the rustling leaves, With minute-drops from off the eaves. And, when the sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, Of pine, or monumental oak, Where the rude axe with heaved stroke Was never heard the nymphs to daunt, Or fright them from their hallowed haunt. There, in close covert, by some brook, Where no profaner eye may look, Hide me from day's garish eye, While the bee with honeyed thigh, That at her flowery work ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... menacing—-by creeping along this they would be able to reach the top of the turret tower. If no other means were found available for gaining access to the room of the prisoner, Hugh expected to make good use of that axe, and force an entrance through the roof itself, as he had seen the Oakvale volunteer firemen do on ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... dared to fire. In vain he endeavoured to escape from the claws of the creature who held him in a fast embrace. His brother and Armitage, who were leading, dashed forward, the one drawing a long knife, the other armed with an axe which he had caught up as we left the hut. I held my gun ready, waiting to fire should I be able to do so without running the risk of shooting one of ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. The needful diversion of wealth and strength from the fields of peaceful industry, to the national defense has not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship: The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of, iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... toilet" of the executioner's victim. After this it was barked in its erect position to a point as high as a man could reach. If a fine product of vegetable nature could ever be said to look ridiculous it was the case now, when the oak stood naked-legged, and as if ashamed, till the axe-man came and cut a ring round it, and the two Timothys finished the work with ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... (as would appear from their being thus seen through the open door) advancing along its southern side. They were in mail, which covered their faces up to their eyes, and carried their swords drawn. Three had hatchets. Fitzurse, with the axe he had taken from the carpenters, was foremost, shouting as he came, "Here, here, king's men!" Immediately behind him followed Robert Fitzranulph, with three other knights, and a motley group—some ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... visit to a city or large town has enriched his experience. More probably, however, the wind and clouds, the weather, the soil, crops and taxes, his family and food and how to provide for them, are the main thoughts that occupy his mind. Before he will strike mattock or spade in the soil, lay axe to a tree, collect or burn underbrush, he will select a stone, a slab of rock or a stick of wood, set it upon hill side or mud field-boundary, and to this he will bow, prostrate himself or pray. To him, this stone or stick is consecrated. It ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... his hands and leaped from his bunk, seizing an axe that lay upon the floor. With that he made for the dog, and finally drove him from the tent; but only after he had been ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... Bones left at the "Admiral Benbow," with the knife that Wicks drove through his own hand and the table. There is always in his work a certain clean-cut angularity which makes us remember that he was fond of cutting wood with an axe. ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... entirely frank with you. You know me well enough to understand that I have not offered you my support in any philanthropic spirit. I could not have deceived you as to this had I tried. I am a practical man, and have an axe to grind. I am urging your election as Governor because I believe you to possess intelligent capacity to discriminate between what is harmful to the community and what is due to healthy, individual enterprise—the energy which is the sap of American citizenship. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... I, "in America we are all kings and we are not without our needs, matrimonial and otherwise, only our courts are not quite so expeditious as Henry's little axe. But what was Henry's attitude towards this ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... but now tangled and twisted, series of minute wires and electro-magnets in the broken wheel before us. Delicate brushes led the current into the wheel. With another blow of his axe, Craig disclosed wires running down through the leg of the table to the floor and under the carpet to buttons operated by the man who ran ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... superior discipline, instilled into them by their training on board ship, superior arms, the long two-handed sword and the spear and battle-axe and their deadly bows and arrows, and superior defensive armour, the long shield, the helmet and chain-mail, would make them more than a match for their adversaries.[12] Above all, the greater ferocity of these Northmen, ruthlessly directed to its object ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... given a sack of bread and a flagon of wine. Two Indians and a renegade Frenchman, called Francois Jean, were to guide them, and twenty Biscayan axe-men moved to the front to clear the way. Through floods of driving rain, a hoarse voice shouted the word of command, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... means he could accomplish his object. The shore was strewn with timber and pieces of plank of all shapes. Hunting about he soon found a piece which would answer his purpose, though had he possessed an axe he might have chopped it into a more suitable shape; as it was, however, it would have to serve his purpose. His next care was to select some fitting spot for the grave. He pitched on one under the cliff, where the sand appeared sufficiently soft, while the shape of the rocks around ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... very day, another mysterious incident occurred. Jake Fairthorn had been sent to Carson's on the old gray mare, on some farm-errand,—perhaps to borrow a pick-axe or a post-spade. He had returned as far as the Philadelphia road, and was entering the thick wood on the level before descending to Redley Creek, when he perceived Betsy Lavender leading Gilbert Potter's bay horse through a gap in the fence, after ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... years ago. We have spoken of the "discoveries" of 1817, and in continuing our remarks it may be said that "near the spot" some timber, supposed to have been the gallows, was once found, and that a brass hand-axe was dug up not far from it, at the same time. The Moor, which amongst other things embraced the "hill" we have mentioned, was a rough wildish place—a rude looking common; but it seems to have been well liked ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... gazed, the level spaces seemed peopled once more with charging knights, flashing sword and swinging battle-axe, and the intervening centuries dropped away, and Arthur's call to battle for "our fair father Christ," seemed curiously befitting that romantic scene. But, as the shadows lengthened, and the streams ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... earldoms, and baronies below. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were as fatal to feudalism as to world-empire and world-church. A series of wars occurring at this time were especially remarkable for the wholesale slaughter of the feudal nobility, whether on the field or under the headsman's axe. This was a conspicuous feature of the feuds of the Trastamare in Spain, of the English invasions of France, followed by the quarrel between Burgundians and Armagnacs, and of the great war of the Roses in ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... come here as your enemy, Leather-Stocking; but I dont value the hollow piece of iron in your hand so much as a broken axe-helve; so, squire, say the word, and keep within the law, and well soon see whos the ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... path. Yes," he continued, turning round to the pinetrees, who were creaking slightly in the wind, "hate and oppression, greed, lust, and ambition! There you stand malevolently regarding me. Out upon you, dark witches of evil! If I had but an axe I would lay you lower than the dust." But the poor pine-trees paid no attention save to creak a little louder. And so incensed was Mr. Lavender by this insensibility on the part of those which his own words had made him perceive were the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... out to destroy the pagan idols in the temples they were seized with great dread at sight of the god Serapis; for even those that did not believe in the old gods feared them, and none dared raise a hand against the sacred image. But suddenly a soldier who was bolder than the rest flung his battle-axe at the figure—and when it broke in pieces, there rushed out nothing worse than a great ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... for the divine honour, appeared either to prefer himself to Columba, or not to yield him the foremost place. But a good Spirit, descending from heaven, easily settled the quarrel, whatever it may have been, in this wise. He held out an awl, a hatchet, and an axe, presenting them to Kieranus: 'These things,' said he, 'and other things of this kind, with which thy father used to practise carpentry, hast thou abjured for the love of God. But Columba renounced the sceptre of Ireland, ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... members of the council shook their heads, and breathed deeply. Were there no Fujinami left of the collateral branches? Why adopt a tanin (outside person)? So spoke the M.P., the man with a wen, who had an axe ...
— Kimono • John Paris |
