"Batten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... do this? It is most unreasonable to flee the knowledge of good like the infection of a horrible disease, and batten and grow fat in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house. This was my first thought; but my second was not like unto it, and I saw that our satirist was wise, wise in his generation, like the unjust steward. He does not want light, because the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... picturesque, sometimes you get sight of comfort, sometimes of opulence, through the unlatched wicket in some porte-cochere—red-painted brick pavement, foliage of dark palm or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a glimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, and ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... about us in clouds, with a humming sound as of sawmills far away. But this was long before you took your malaria of mosquitoes, and we minded them no more than little children mind them to-day. Indeed, I can keep peacefully still even now to watch a mosquito batten and fatten upon my hand, to see his ravenous, pale abdomen swell to a vast smug redness—that physiological, or psychological, moment for which you ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... rest of the King's following was billetted on farm-houses in the parishes nearest to the town. Yet, as a warning that all was not their own, four frigates and two line-of-battle ships, with a commission from the rebel government of London, and flying the broad pennant of Admiral Batten, cruised between Jersey and Guernsey, never far from sight, although giving for the most part a wide berth to both the island castles, whose gunners ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... shield, but pierced it not right through, for the gold stayed it, the gift of a god; and with the other he grazed the elbow of Achilles' right arm, and there leapt forth dark blood, but the point beyond him fixed itself in the earth, eager to batten on flesh. Then in his turn Achilles hurled on Asteropaios his straight-flying ash, fain to have slain him, but missed the man and struck the high bank, and quivering half its length in the bank he left the ashen spear. Then the son of Peleus drew his sharp sword from his thigh and leapt fiercely ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... absent on the Continent selling her jewels and endeavoring to raise a force, landed at Burlington, with four ships, having succeeded in evading the ships of war which the Commons had dispatched to cut her off, under the command of Admiral Batten. That night, however, the Parliament fleet arrived off the place, and opened fire upon the ships and village. The queen was in a house near the shore, and the balls struck in all directions round. She was forced to get up, throw on a few clothes, and retire on foot to some distance ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... passed A long black time within, thou shalt come out To front the sun; and Zeus's winged hound, The strong, carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down To meet thee—self-called to a daily feast— And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off The long rags of thy flesh, and batten deep Upon ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... are performed: First, raising and lowering alternately different sets of warp filaments to form the 'sheds'; second, throwing the shuttle, or performing some operation that amounts to the same thing; third, after inserting the weft thread, driving it home, and adjusting it by means of the batten, be it the needle, the finger, the shuttle ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... Dan as they struggled out of the hold. "You've done all I can ask. Hurry! Get out!" and they got out and then turned to batten the hatch cover down. But the rush of fire was too swift to be denied. A thick-bodied pillar choked through the opening and spouted to the top of the funnel—great gouts of the devouring element pulsed softly, but with lightning ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... that is evil in the life of the nation is encouraged and justified. It is then that the diplomatists who lied and schemed to bring on the monstrous event, that all the politicians who exploit and foster the nation's madness and misery to enhance their own reputations, that those who batten on the slaughter, and that those who glorify the carnage at a safe distance and fight the enemy with their lying tongues, are justified. They all are justified. But if, instead of victory, there is defeat, then ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... their way, and would have proceeded in their intent. The carpenter was there with his axe to strike off one of the bars of the grating—he had already given a blow on the batten, another would have been enough—and then the horrid scene would have begun; but at that moment a cry came from the after-part of the vessel that caused the carpenter to suspend his work, and look up in dismay. Those who surrounded him were startled as well as he, and all looked aft ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... was driven into Plymouth by stress of weather. She had been out seven weeks, and had many sick on board. The gale increasing in the afternoon, it was determined to run for greater safety to Catwater; but the buoy at the extremity of the reef off Mount Batten having broke adrift, of which the pilots were not aware, she touched on the shoal, and carried away her rudder. Thus rendered unmanageable, she fell off, and grounded under the citadel, where, beating round, she lay ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... admiral, but got no answer. When on the point of trying the virtue of a few kicks, I overheard a low laugh on deck, and that let me into the secret of the state of the nation at once. I suppose you will all admit, gentlemen, when sailors laugh at their officers, as well as batten them down, that they must be somewhat near a state ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... detail, even this lengthy account may have justification. The Army Commander's opinion was shown not alone by his congratulatory message, but by the immediate honours awarded. To the Leicestershires fell one Military Cross[4] and four Military Medals, one of the latter going to Sergeant Batten, Marner's platoon-sergeant. The water-tank leans against the station no longer, and they have repaired the crumbled walls. But the cracks and fissures in the great fort lift eloquent witness to the way both armies desired it, and the quiet, ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... gaining rapidly on the schooner. I could see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about; and still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what I chose ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... I hurl back on you the denunciation with which, when we met three nights since, you would have crushed the victim of your own perfidy. You shall tread the path of your ambition childless and objectless and hopeless. Disease shall set her stamp upon your frame. The worm shall batten upon your heart. You shall have honours and enjoy them not; you shall gain your ambition, and despair; you shall pine for your son, and find him not; or, if you find him, you shall curse the hour in which he was born. Mark me, man,—I am dying while I speak,—I know that I am a prophet in my ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... able to console herself for those and similar bitternesses by the knowledge that on the whole the world honours those who battle against ill-fortune without complaint far above the needy crowd of spongers who strive to batten without effort on the crumbs that fall from ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... The batten door behind the bar now began to open slowly and noiselessly. Lefever peered through it. "Come in, Pedro," he cried reassuringly, "come in, man. This is no officer, no revenue agent looking for your license. Meet a friend, Pedro," he continued encouragingly, ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... thin layer of damp kelp and put in the potatoes. Another layer of sea-weed, then the roasting-ears. After that come the fish, wrapped in paper. Then the mussels, clams or anything else you want. When you get them all in, cover the whole thing with a lot of heavy kelp and batten it down with a big piece of canvas. The whole trick is knowing just when to open the oven. Nothing can burn so it's better to leave it too long than to ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... arouse thy soul To exultation. Sing hosanna, sing, And halleluiah, for the Lord is great, And full of mercy! He has thought of man; Yea, compass'd round with countless worlds, has thought Of us poor worms, that batten in the dews Of morn, and perish ere the noonday sun. Sing to the Lord, for he is merciful: He gave the Nubian lion but to live, To rage its hour, and perish; but on man He lavish'd immortality and Heaven. The eagle ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... the world assurance of a man. This was your Husband. Looke you now what followes. Heere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare Blasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes? Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed, And batten on this Moore? Ha? Haue you eyes? You cannot call it Loue: For at your age, The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waites vpon the Iudgement: and what Iudgement Would step from this, to this? What diuell was't, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... mask of Hate, whom woful ailments Of unavailing tears and heart deep moans Feed and envenom, as the milky blood Of hateful herbs a subtle-fanged snake. Shall Love pledge Hatred in her bitter draughts, And batten on his poisons? Love forbid! Love passeth not the threshold of cold Hate, And Hate is strange beneath the roof of Love. O Love, if thou be'st Love, dry up these tears Shed for the love of Love; for tho' mine image, The subject of thy power, be cold in her, Yet, like ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the Australians have no ancestor-worship. The Kurnai ghosts 'were believed to live upon plants,'[13] which are not offered to them. Chill ghosts, unfed by men, would come to waning camp-fires and batten on the broken meats. The Ngarego and Wolgal held, more handsomely, that Tharamulun (Darumulun) met the just departed spirit 'and conducted it to its future home beyond the sky.'[14] Ghosts might also accompany relics of ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... Oriental stories most acceptably, and Mr. Batten's remarkable illustrations are all that can be desired. His genii are genii indeed, and his fairy princesses creatures of grace ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... he cried. 'You have made your choice, and shall abide by it; and those who, by their looks, indicate their resolution to abet your folly, shall not fare the better for their interference. Mate, call the crew! force the palantines below; and batten them down, as ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... to blow the water out of the bay. At half-past two on July 12th, the anchor was raised, the cat falls manned, and we bade New York good-by once more. A brisk northeast breeze was blowing, kicking up an uncomfortable sea, and when Sandy Hook was passed it became necessary to close all ports and batten down hatches. ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... not hard to see. For the sound way of building, I suppose, Is just with cash—the wonder-working paint That round the widow's batten'd forehead throws The aureole ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... all this without any the least blur or obstruction in the world, that could give an offence to any, and with the great honour he thought it would be to him. Being overtook by the brigantine, my Lord and we went out of our barge into it, and so went on board with Sir W. Batten, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... congratulate myself an the co-operation of my friend Mr. J. D. Batten in giving beautiful or amusing form to the creations of the folk fancy of the Hindoos. It is no slight thing to embody, as he has done, the glamour and the humour both of the Celt and of the Hindoo. It is only a further proof that Fairy Tales are something ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... dancing, the first time that ever I did in my life Have been so long absent that I am ashamed to go I took occasion to be angry with him Justice of God in punishing men for the sins of their ancestors Lady Batten to give me a spoonful of honey for my cold My great expense at the Coronacion She hath got her teeth new done by La Roche That I might not seem to be afeared The monkey loose, which did anger me, and so I did strike her Was kissing my wife, which ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... down. But as for swearin'—well, if you knew how full of cusswords I was there one spell you wouldn't find fault; you'd thank me for holdin' 'em in. I had to batten down my hatches to do it, though; I tell ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... continued, in a tone of gentle badinage. "I love the plot-interest of the game," he said, "and so does dear Jessie here. We both of us adore it. As long as I find such good pickings upon you, I certainly am not going to turn away from so valuable a carcass, in order to batten myself, at considerable trouble, upon minor capitalists, out of whom it is difficult to extract a few hundreds. It may have puzzled you to guess why I fix upon you so persistently. Now you know, and understand. When a fluke finds a sheep that suits him, that fluke lives upon ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... lady into the sea, living or dead," said Mr. Thompson, with an ominous lift of his eye, "you go with her, Mr. Batten. Remember who brought her here and how ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... blackness, gone in the twinkling of an eye. But, strangely enough, one grows to understand the Mountain better from a distance and by watching its moods from afar, like the Neapolitans themselves, who never ascend to probe its mysteries, except a few vulgar guides and touts who batten on the curiosity of ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... regions, and has softened much With bland amelioration, and with charms Of social sweetness, the hard lot of man. 260 But weighed in truth's firm balance, ask, if all Be even. Do not crimes of ranker growth Batten amid thy cities, whose loud din, From flashing and contending cars, ascends, Till morn! Enchanting, as if aught so sweet Ne'er faded, do thy daughters wear the weeds Of calm domestic peace and wedded love; Or turn, with beautiful disdain, to dash ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... P.M. we could do no more with it and had to lie to. Ask old D. what that means, if you can't understand my description of it. The principle of it is to set two small sails, one fore and one aft, lash the rudder (wheel) amidships, make all snug, put on hatches, batten everything down, and trust to ride out the storm. As the vessel falls away from the wind by the action of one sail, it is brought up to it again by the other-sail. Thus her head is always kept to the wind, and she meets the seas, which if they caught ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sea a skipper will order his men to trim, batten down the hatches, and clear the deck of all litter. The barometer says nothing, neither the sky nor the water; the skipper has the "feel" that out yonder there's a big blow moving. Now the doctor had the "feel" ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... stranger was drawing the batten blinds together. Her ivory-white arms gleamed in the sun. For a moment they could see her face shining like a star against the dusky glooms within; then the bolt was ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... at times in beating the bookmakers; we have then an outer circle, composed partly of stainless gentlemen who do not bet and who want no man's money, partly of perfectly honest fellows who have no judgment, no real knowledge, and no self-restraint, and who serve as prey on which the bookmakers batten. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... discuss; take down, get down, gulp down; lay in, tuck in*; lick, pick, peck; gormandize &c. 957; bite, champ, munch, cranch[obs3], craunch[obs3], crunch, chew, masticate, nibble, gnaw, mumble. live on; feed upon, batten upon, fatten upon, feast upon; browse, graze, crop, regale; carouse &c. (make merry) 840; eat heartily, do justice to, play a good knife and fork, banquet. break bread, break one's fast; breakfast ,lunch, dine, take tea, sup. drink in, drink up, drink one's fill; quaff, sip, sup; suck, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... indeed, a common thief Is very glad to batten on potatoes and on beef, Or anything, in short, that prison kitchens can afford, - A cut above the diet in a common ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... Batten, University of California, Los Angeles George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles Nancy M. Shea, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Thomas Wright, ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... an austerer, perhaps to a better one, and it may be that in "that woman," as he called Caesar, his clearer vision discerned beneath the plumage of the peacock, the beak and talons of the bird of prey. For they were there, and needed only a vote of the senate to batten on nations of which the senate had never heard. Loan him an army, and "that woman" was to give geography such a twist that today whoso says ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... batten' des like lightnen', 'Ef I ketch you hangin' 'roun' dis place agin', Gus, I'll jump on you en stomp de life ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... liberality of the gaming-house keepers, and to loiter round the brunnens of more or less nauseous flavour, the pretext of resort to this rendezvous of idlers and gamblers. The waiters had disappeared to batten on the broken meats from the public table, and to doze away the time till the approach of supper renewed their activity. My interlocutor, with whom I was alone in the deserted apartment, was a man of about thirty years of age, whose dark hair and mustaches, marked features, spare person, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... have it, leave me; y'are infectious, the plague and leprosie of your baseness spreading on all that do come near you; such as you render the Throne of Majesty, the Court, suspected and contemptible; you are Scarabee's that batten in her dung, and have no palats to taste her curious Viands; and like Owles, can only see her night deformities, but with the glorious splendor of her beauties, you are struck blind as Moles, that ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... how the stage must be set and the side-scenes worked. Jean took measurements, drew up a plan, worked out an estimate. He manifested a passionate eagerness that was surprising, albeit the old priest took it all as a matter of course. A batten would come here, a practicable door there. The actor would ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... set his Seale, To giue the world assurance of a man.[2] This was your Husband. Looke you now what followes. Heere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare Blasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes? [Sidenote: wholsome brother,] Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed, And batten on this Moore?[3] Ha? Haue you eyes? You cannot call it Loue: For at your age, The hey-day[4] in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waites vpon the Judgement: and what Iudgement Would step from this, to this? [A] What diuell was't, ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... paper back finally—which is often only after much bush grumbling, accusation, recrimination, and denial—he severely and carefully re-arranges theme pages, folds the paper, and sticks it away up over a rafter, or behind a post or batten, or under his pillow where it will safe. He wants that paper to ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... Clear weather. At 1/2 past 8 p.m. Anchored in the Entrance of Plymouth Sound in 9 fathoms water. At 4 a.m. weighed and worked into proper Anchoring ground, and Anchored in 6 fathoms, the Mewstone South-East, Mount Batten North-North-East 1/2 East, and Drake's Island North by West. Dispatched an Express to London for Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander to join the Ship, their Servants and Baggage being already on board. ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... Hoe, one point after another that catches the eye suggests a fresh train of ideas. To the east is Sutton Pool, with its coasting vessels and fishing-boats; south, across the Cattewater, lies Mount Batten, whose round tower recalls the long and resolute defence of the town in the Civil War. Still farther south are the high grounds of Plymstock and Bovisand, with their modern fortifications; to the north ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... perhaps a school or pack or flock of Octopus gigas would be found busy picking the sailors off a stranded ship, and then in the course of a few score years it might begin to stroll up the beaches and batten on excursionists. Soon it would be a common feature of the watering-places—possibly at last commoner than excursionists. Suppose such a creature were to appear—and it is, we repeat, a possibility, if perhaps a remote one—how ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... are man, wife, young woman, and a daughter of about fourteen years of age; the young woman and daughter sleep in a kind of box under the man and his wife. In another part of the yard is a Gipsy tent, where God's broad earth answers the purpose of a table, and a "batten of straw" serves as a bed. There is a woman, two daughters, one of whom is of marriageable age and the other far in her teens, and a youth I should think about sixteen years of age. I should judge that the mother and her two daughters sleep on one ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... profusion to discomfort joined, The listless body and the vacant mind; The fear, the hate, the theft and falsehood, born In menial hearts of toil, and stripes, and scorn There, all the vices, which, like birds obscene, Batten on slavery loathsome and unclean, From the foul kitchen to the parlor rise, Pollute the nursery where the child-heir lies, Taint infant lips beyond all after cure, With the fell poison of a breast impure; Touch ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the world assurance of a man; This was your husband.—Look you now what follows: Here is your husband, like a milldew'd ear Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it love; for at your age The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... go on deck before they batten down the hatches," said Jose, putting on his boots again. "I've no mind to stay in this hole. If the ship sinks, we shall be drowned like ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... harbored, first, Out of contemptuous ruth, a wretched band Of outcast paupers, gave them leave to ply Their money-lending trade, and leased them land On all too facile terms. Behold! to-day, Like leeches bloated with the people's blood, They batten on Bohemia's poverty; They breed and grow; like adders, spit back hate And venomed perfidy for Christian love. Thereat the Duke, urged by wise counsellors— Narzerad the statesman (half whose wealth was pledged To the usurers), abetted by the priest, Bishop of Olmutz, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... pours it into these yere auger holes an' lets it cool. It gets good an' hard, this arsenic-tallow does, an' then Coyote drags the timber thus reg'lated out onto the plains to what he regyards as a elegible local'ty an' leaves it for the wolves to come an' batten on. Old Coyote will have as many as a dozen of these sticks of timber, all bored an' framed up with arsenic-tallow, scattered about. Each mornin' while he's wolfin', Coyote makes a round-up an' skins an' counts up his prey. ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... with a lifting of the eyebrows, and a pursing of the mouth, in an anxiety not altogether burlesque. He knew himself the prey of any one who chose to batten on him, and his hospitality was subject to frightful abuse. Perhaps Mr. Norton has somewhere told how, when he asked if a certain person who had been outstaying his time was not a dreadful bore, Longfellow answered, with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to confer earnestly, as though the safety of the ship were uppermost in their minds. Soon the pirates of the prize crew were ordered to stow and secure all light sail and pass extra lashings about the boats and batten the hatches. They worked slowly, some of them shaking with fever, nor could kicks and curses and the sting of the whistling cat make them turn to smartly. The sailing-master signaled the Revenge to send off more hands but Blackbeard was either drunk or in one of his crack-brained ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... a simple metal or wooden batten, sliding in two beckets attached to the outer or inner sides of each of the brackets of the carriage, retained in any position by a thumb-screw. This batten is graduated by experiment or calculation for either the parallel or converging fire, for such points on the bow, beam, ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... thy triumphs, that adorn Fitliest our nature, and bespeak us born For loftiest action;—not to gaze and run From clime to clime; or batten in the sun, Dragging a drony flight from flower to flower, Like summer insects in a gaudy hour; Nor yet o'er lovesick tales with fancy range, And cry, ''Tis pitiful,'tis passing strange!' But on life's varied ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... a circular enclosure of about four acres, with a spiked batten fence round it, and a listless crowd of back-country settlers propped along the fence. Behind them were the sheds for produce, and the machinery sections where steam threshers and earth scoops hummed and buzzed and thundered unnoticed. Crowds of sightseers wandered past the ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... protecting fortifications for defence from attacks both by sea and land. Along the southern bank of the estuary extend the woods of Saltram, the seat of the Earl of Morley. Then we come to Catwater Haven, crowded with merchant-ships, and the older harbor of Sutton Pool. Mount Batten on one side and Citadel Point on the other guard the entrance to the haven. It was here that the English fleet awaited the Armada in 1588; that Essex gathered his expedition to conquer Cadiz in 1596; and from here sailed the Mayflower with the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620. Plymouth harbor's maritime ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... tired of being Lauds, for Laud's Church, gewgawish and idolatrous as it was, was not sufficiently tinselly and idolatrous for them, so they must be Popes, but in a sneaking way, still calling themselves Church of England men, in order to batten on the bounty of the Church which they were betraying, and likewise have opportunities of corrupting such lads as might still resort to ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... The exceeding bitter heritage Which still a jealous God bestows From inappellable age to age, The ghostly worms that softly move Through every grey old corse of love And creep across the coffined years To batten on our blood and tears; And there were hooded shapes of death Gaunt and grey, cruel and blind, Stealing softly as a breath Through the woods that loured behind The City; hooded shapes of fear Slowly, slowly stealing near; While all the gloom that round them rolled With intertwisting coils ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... comes, content makes sweet. Here we rejoice, because no rent We pay for our poor tenement, Wherein we rest, and never fear The landlord or the usurer. The quarter-day does ne'er affright Our peaceful slumbers in the night. We eat our own and batten more, Because we feed on no man's score; But pity those whose flanks grow great, Swell'd with the lard of others' meat. We bless our fortunes when we see Our own beloved privacy; And like our living, where we're known To very few, or ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... there—whether he was of your country or mine I know not, but I fervently hope he belonged to neither. Oh, I have never slept sound since. The screams of the birds terrify me, and yet what do they do but follow the instincts of their nature? They batten on the dead, and if they do feed on the living, God has given them animated beings for their sustenance, as, he has the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the beasts of the field to us, but they feed not on each other. Man, man alone is a cannibal. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... first, then boil them very tender, take the weight of them in Sugar, put to it as much water as will make a syrup to cover them; then boil them something leisurely, and take them up, then boil the syrup till it be somewhat thick, that it will batten on a dish side, and when they are ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous
... our minds as the chief picture of this pleading call. But there's another bit of picture talking that will help. That is the picture of a weaver's loom, with the warp threads running lengthwise, the shuttle threads running crosswise, and the cross beam (or batten) driving each shuttle thread into place in the cloth with a ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... understood, but only glazedly Reflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows, Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadows Where hare-lipped monsters batten, let me ply ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... one end of the fife to his mouth, blew out all the flour, and in this humble imitation of the smoke of a gun, poor puss was run up to the batten, where she hung till she was dead. I am ashamed to say I did not attempt to save the kitten's life, although I caused her foul murder to ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... were common—locks seven inches across; several windows without sashes, but with sturdy iron gratings and solid iron shutters. On the fourth floor the doorway communicating with the main house is entirely closed twice over, by two pairs of full length batten shutters held in on the side of the main house by iron hooks eighteen inches long, two to each shutter. And yet it was through this doorway that the ghosts—figuratively speaking, of course, for we are dealing with plain fact and ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... they reach their flower of age Or gain and lose full vigour of their frame, And never burn with one same lust of love, And never in their habits they agree, Nor find the same foods equally delightsome— Sooth, as one oft may see the bearded goats Batten upon the hemlock which to man Is violent poison. Once again, since flame Is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bulks Of the great lions as much as other kinds Of flesh and blood existing in the lands, How could ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... a master-emotion, arising one hardly knows how, nor whither leading; a feeling that takes charge of one, as a big wave is said to take charge of a boat when it destroys steerageway; an emotion so powerful that it does but batten on all which might be expected to clash with it. These are the periods when day and night are enveloped in one large state of mind, and life ceases to be a collection of discrete, semi-related moods. These are the dawns ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... isn't far from Monaco. I got off the Laconia there, to visit Esme, and when I came on board again, Monny and Mrs. East and Rachel came with me. They'd been in Italy and France, and had picked up Miss Guest, who was only too enchanted to batten on Monny's kindness and dollars. It was I who had engaged their staterooms, on a cable from Monny, long before. And if there were a spy anywhere, he might have the idea that I wanted to smuggle Esme out of her convent by ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... the opportunity this number affords of upholding the poor author's right, of censuring the greedy spoliation of publishing tribe, who would live, batten, and fatten upon the despoiled labours of those whom their piracy starves—snatching the scanty crust from their needy mouths to ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... family. Beyond the fact that he was knighted by Charles I., nothing is known of his career until in 1646 he received a naval command. Through the latter years of the first civil war, Ayscue seems to have acted as one of the senior officers of the fleet. In 1648, when Sir William Batten went over to Holland with a portion of his squadron, Ayscue's influence kept a large part of the fleet loyal to the Parliament, and in reward for this service he was appointed the following year admiral of the Irish Seas. For his conduct at the relief of Dublin he received the thanks ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... being apt to batten or fatten those that eat it. The cove has hushed the battner; i.e. has killed ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... to have been inventors of the loom. There were two kinds in use, one horizontal and the other perpendicular. Instead of a shuttle they used a stick with a hook at one end, which was used also as a batten. Herodotus says that it was the practice of the Egyptians to push the woof downwards, and this method is pictured in many paintings; but one representation found at Thebes shows a man pushing it upwards. The former method is, I believe, the one generally used by all nations, and ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... to rule. He spoke no Spanish, and he was surrounded by greedy Flemish courtiers dressed in outlandish garb, speaking in a strange tongue, and looking upon the realm of their prince as a fat pasture upon which, locust like, they might batten with impunity. The Spaniards had frowned to see the great Cardinal Jimenez curtly dismissed by the boy sovereign whose crown he had saved; they clamoured indignantly when the Flemings cast themselves upon the resources of Castile and claimed the best offices civil and ecclesiastical; ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... brow. Realizing that she is a social outcast, a moral pariah, she becomes reckless, defiant, and finally glories in betraying the fool who trusts her. No matter how fair the mountain upon which she has leave to feed, she will batten on the moor. Love was her excuse when first she went astray, and she hugs the delusion to her heart that Cupid can sanctify a crime; but where honor spreads not its wings of snow love perishes in the fierce simoon of lust. The man with whom she enters the primrose path ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... methods of those who batten on others' goods, the plunderers who know no rest till they have wrought the destruction of the worker, it would be difficult to find a better instance than the tribulations suffered by the Chalicodoma ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... Anne's reign. He lives with Whigs and Tories, vibrates between coffee-house and tea-table. He annoys his daughter by sometimes calling her 'Belinda,' and astonishes his wife with his mock-heroic apostrophes to her hood and patches. He reads his Spectator at breakfast while other people batten upon newspapers only three hours old. He smiles over the love-letters of Richard Steele, and reverences the name and the writings of Joseph Addison. Indeed, his devotion to Addison is so radical that he has actually been guilty of reading The Campaign and the Dialogue ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... bristles and the shape of swine, but their mind abode even as of old. Thus were they penned there weeping, and Circe flung them acorns and mast and fruit of the cornel tree to eat, whereon wallowing swine do always batten." (Butcher and Lang's translation.) ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... that they never drove afield, and that they had no flocks to batten; and, though it be allowed that the representation may be allegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and remote, that it is never sought, because it cannot be known when ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... necessity of returning to the tower and removing the traces of the two murders, the frightful punishment of climbing that tower, of touching those skeletons, of undressing them and burying them. That will be enough. We will not ask for more. We will not give it to the public to batten on and create a scandal which would recoil upon M. d'Aigleroche's niece. No, let us ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... diagnosing internal complications in a doodle-bug; of MacLachan (drunk) singing "The Cork Leg" and MacLachan (sober) repenting thereof; of Bartholomew Storrs offering samples of his mortuary poesy to a bereaved second-cousin; and, having decked out her chin in cotton-batten whiskers (limb of Satan!), of myself proffering sage counsel and pious admonitions to Our Square at large. Having concluded, she sat down on a bench and coughed. And the Little Red Doctor, who, from the shelter of a shrub had observed her presentation ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... like life; for he was one of those ill-omened creatures who feed upon the misfortunes of their kind, and stand on shore in foul weather hoping the worst, instead of praying for the best: briefly, a wrecker. He and his comrade, Jacques Moinard, had heard the Agra's gun fired, and came down to batten on the wreck: but ho! at the turn of the tide, there were gensdarmes and soldiers lining the beach, and the Bayonet interposed between Theft and Misfortune. So now the desperate pair were prowling about like hungry, baffled wolves, curses ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... ideality and a gaudy pinchbeck honor. A young tough, when arrested, wrenched away the policeman's club, dashed into the street, rescued a baby from a runaway, and came back and gave himself up. They batten on the yellowest literature. Those of foreign descent, who come to speak our language better than their parents, early learn to despise them. Gangs emulate each other in hardihood, and this is one cause of epidemics in crime. They passionately love boundless independence, are sometimes ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... never drove a-field and had no flocks to batten; and though it be allowed that the representation may be allegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and remote that it is never sought, because it cannot be ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... introduced here to show the method of using the batten stick represented in Fig. 546. There is not a family among the Pueblos or Navajos that does not possess the necessary implements for weaving blankets, belts and garters. Figs. 500-502 will convey an idea of the variety in design and coloring which prevails in this class ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Indians of New Mexico in 1880 • James Stevenson
... threads are further controlled by a reed board which acts both as warp spacer and beater-in. All being ready for the weaving, the shed is opened by raising one of the heddle sticks, and a heavy knife-shaped batten of wood is slipped into the opening. This is turned sideways to enlarge the shed, and a shuttle bearing the weft thread is shot through. By raising and lowering the heddle rods the position of the warp is changed as desired, while from time to time the weft threads are forced up against ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... such records as to height, etc., are kept about officers, and my search proved fruitless, more especially as the records at Woolwich for the period required were destroyed by fire some years ago. The best evidence I have obtained is that of General Gordon's tailors, Messrs Batten & Sons, of Southampton, who write: "We consider, by measurements in our books, that General Gordon was 5 ft. 9 in." As he had contracted a slight stoop, or, more correctly speaking, carried his head thrown forward, he looked in later ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... my excuse till hair had clothed his cheek, * And gloom o'ercrept that side-face (sight to stagger!) A fawn, when eyes would batten on his charms, * Each glance deals thrust like ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... was given to Colonel Baum, who, with about a thousand Germans, Indians, Canadians, and refugee loyalists, started out from camp on his maraud, on the eleventh, halted at Batten-Kill on the twelfth, and reached Cambridge on the thirteenth. He was furnished with Tory guides, who knew the country well, and with instructions looking to a long absence from ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... macaroni from Amalfi and bringing back wine of Verbicaro. A fine boat, the Giovannina, able to carry twenty tons in any weather, and water-tight too, being decked with hatches over which you can stretch and batten down tarpaulin. A pretty sight as she ran up to the end of the breakwater, old Luigione standing at the stern with the tiller between his knees and the slack of the main-sheet in his hand. She was running wing and wing, with her bright new ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... his passion, which latter, being deserted by his breath, began a little to retreat, the following accents, leapt over the hedge of his teeth, or rather the ditch of his gums, whence those hedgestakes had long since by a batten been displaced in battle with an ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... also ours, recommends, amongst other things, that His Excellency should be allowed to choose his own advisers. By this Mr. Froude certainly does not mean that the advisers so chosen must be all pure-blooded Englishmen who have rushed from the destitution of home to batten on the cheaply obtained flesh-pots of ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... can do nothing. I don't even know that there's anything in it.' The instinct of self-preservation warned him to batten down his hatches, to smother the fire with want of air. Unless one believed there was something in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... boats and canoes are drawn up upon the beach. The atmosphere is heavy with the odor of ancient fish. The water-line is strewn with cast-off salmon heads and entrails. Indian dogs and big, fat flies batten there prodigiously. Acres of salmon bellies are rosy in the sun. The blood-red interiors of drying fish—rackfuls of them turned wrong side out—are the only bit of color in all Alaska. Everybody and everything is sombre ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... narrowed the means of mischief which such Christian Shylocks would otherwise have possessed. There was loss, there was discredit, in having recourse to such characters, when honest wants could be fairly supplied by upright men, and on liberal terms. Such reptiles have been confined in Scotland to batten upon their proper prey of folly, and feast, like worms, on the corruption ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury |
