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Hem   Listen
verb
Hem  v. t.  (past & past part. hemmed; pres. part. hemming)  
1.
To form a hem or border to; to fold and sew down the edge of.
2.
To border; to edge "All the skirt about Was hemmed with golden fringe."
To hem about, To hem around, or To hem in, to inclose and confine; to surround; to environ. "With valiant squadrons round about to hem." "Hemmed in to be a spoil to tyranny."
To hem out, to shut out. "You can not hem me out of London."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hem" Quotes from Famous Books



... bosom to stay the rapid beating of my heart; for I had become instantly aware of the immediate proximity of some large creature. There was a rustling of the bushes, the sound drawing ever nearer and nearer; there was a sniffing noise, frequently increasing to a snort. With my eyes above the upper hem of my blanket I strained my vision in the direction from which the disturbance proceeded. To my agitation I perceived in the greyish gloom a large, slowly shifting black bulk, distant but a few paces from me. Naturally, I ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... small a personage; so it behoved, that if she met any other "travellers on purpose bent," the moving body must have appeared to be some small tent on its way to a fair, carried by the proprietor thereof, of whom no more could be seen but the two short toddling legs, and the hem of the black riding-hood. But what cared Annie? She toiled along; the miles were long in comparison of the short legs, but then there was a large purpose in that little body, in the view of which miles were ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... eyes upon him, he muttered: "Looks like one of mine," and ran the hem quickly through his ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... the daring of science, if only her votaries will not place the law in the place of Him who made both it and the works which it was commissioned to guide. Science, when she has found the highest and the most comprehensive law of nature, has not touched Deity itself; she has but touched the hem of the garment of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... trying; but it is of the highest importance (I say this between ourselves, of course, and you may imagine that I would not give publicity to such a statement),—it is of the highest importance that the feelings of our—hem—masculine ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... comes of using one's eyes too well, my young Monsieur. Hem! I'm not so blind but that I can see as far ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... to tie them up again. Then the Shifty Lad entered the room and picked up a big handful of nuts, and returned to the loft, where the Black Rogue was still sleeping. At first the Shifty Lad shut his eyes too, but very soon he sat up, and, taking a big needle and thread from his pocket, he sewed the hem of the Black Gallows Bird's coat to a heavy piece of bullock's hide that was ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... stand this no longer!" cries a voice, and a man rushes into view, advancing until he stands before them. "My eyes have been opened to the truth. In bitter tears I repent the sorrowful past. Blanche, behold your husband, unworthy to kiss the hem ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... ... 'arrogant,' ... yes, 'arrogant, as women always are when men grow humble' ... there's a charge against all possible and probable petticoats beyond mine and through it! Not that either they or mine deserve the charge—we do not; to the lowest hem of us! for I don't pass to the other extreme, mind, and adopt besetting sins 'over the way' and in antithesis. It's an undeserved charge, and unprovoked! and in fact, the very flower of self-love self-tormented into ill ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... their reckoning? Shall it be worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, wherein there was one soul that was saved? Is there not one here? Nay, brethren, I trust it is not so. I trust ye will come, yea in numbers, yea in throngs, yea in multitudes, and crowd on Christ to touch the hem of His blessed garment, that is the power of His great mercy. Christ loveth to have folk crowd on Him to cry Him mercy. I read not that ever He complained of the crowding of the multitude. I read not that ever He turned away so much as one poor caitiff [sinner] ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt

... notice, but leaving a book or two and a handkerchief to hem, she went away, and left Miss Nan to her own devices. This was not agreeable, and after sitting a moment she tried to untie the cord. But it was fastened in the belt of her apron behind, so she began on the knot at the other end. It soon came loose, and, gathering it up, Nan was about to get ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... curious things talked about that it seemed as if the evenings were too short and the days too few, in spite of the long, dark Norwegian winter. Before she knew it spring had come again; and when she looked down at her long frock she found that the hem reached no farther than the tops ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud

... splendid textures, its rare metals and jewels, its marvellous and priceless traditions. They had, indeed, met before, but in Byzantium they were married; and the sacred tree of the Persians, the palm of Zoroaster, was embroidered on the hem of the garments of the Western world. Even the Iconoclasts, the Philistines of theological history, who, in one of those strange outbursts of rage against Beauty that seem to occur only amongst European nations, rose up against the wonder and magnificence of the new art, served merely to distribute ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... in March, when an unusually large party assembles at "our shanty." The sun is just rising, and is not yet visible above the sheltering ranges which hem in the central flat that forms the farm. The sky is cloudless, the air still and fragrant with the ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... heart's heart were in this house And not at fearful odds and perilous. And should one speak of Paris, as to say, "Would that our lord might see thee go so gay About his house!" Gently she'd bend her head Down to her breast and pluck a vagrant thread Forth from her tunic's hem, and looking wise, Gaze at her hand which on her bosom's rise Lit like a butterfly and quivered there. Now in the dusk, with Paris otherwhere At council with the chieftains, into the hall To Helen there, was come, adventuring all, Odysseus ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... with that of the neighbouring states and with the resources of England. Property was secure. Even the Cavalier, who refrained from giving disturbance to the new settlement, enjoyed in peace whatever the civil troubles had left hem. The laws were violated only in cases where the safety of the Protector's person and government was concerned. Justice was administered between man and man with an exactness and purity not before known. Under no English government since the Reformation, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... welnyh stant al reversed, 30 As forto speke of tyme ago. The cause whi it changeth so It needeth nought to specifie, The thing so open is at ije That every man it mai beholde: And natheles be daies olde, Whan that the bokes weren levere, Wrytinge was beloved evere Of hem that weren vertuous; For hier in erthe amonges ous, 40 If noman write hou that it stode, The pris of hem that weren goode Scholde, as who seith, a gret partie Be lost: so for to magnifie The worthi princes that tho were, The bokes schewen hiere and there, Wherof the world ensampled is; ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... when we are old. They shall put by their playthings to be told How England once, before the years of bale, Throned above trembling, puissant, grandiose, calm, Held Asia's richest jewel in her palm; And with unnumbered isles barbaric, she The broad hem of her glistering robe impearl'd; Then, when she wound her arms about the world, And had ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... Chameleon James Merrick The Blind Men and the Elephant John Godfrey Saxe The Philosopher's Scales Jane Taylor The Maiden and the Lily John Fraser The Owl-Critic James Thomas Fields The Ballad of Imitation Austin Dobson The Conundrum of the Workshops Rudyard Kipling The V-a-s-e James Jeffrey Roche Hem and Haw Bliss Carmen Miniver Cheevy Edwin Arlington Robinson Then Ag'in Sam Walter Foss A Conservative Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman Similar Cases Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman Man and the Ascidian Andrew Lang The Calf-Path Sam Walter ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... and big dark eyes; otherwise she was strangely pale. But her paleness toned to pink and not to gray. Her cheeks had no higher color than the rest of her face, the lips had hardly enough. She wore a white linen shirt and a leather belt with a gold buckle. Her skirt was blue with a red hem. She rowed by the outlaws without seeing them. They kept breathlessly still, but not for fear of being seen, but only to be able to really see her. As soon as she had gone they were as if changed from stone images to living beings. Smiling, they ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... me now. I have within love-philtres, to make peace where storm hath been, That, with no shame, no scathe of mind, shall save Thy life from anguish; wilt but thou be brave! [To herself, rejecting.] Ah, but from him, the well-beloved, some sign We need, or word, or raiment's hem, to twine Amid the charm, and one ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... The grass spring-wet And the quivering stem On the brooklet's hem, And the brake thrust up And the saffron's cup, Each fashioned thing From the heart of Spring, Long ere I forget it, the house of thy word And the doors of thy learning, ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... him indulge in profane, ungentlemanly emphatics, When the Protestant Church has been divided on the subject of the proper width of a chasuble's hem; I have even known him to sneer at albs—and as for dalmatics, Words can't convey an idea of the contempt he ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... crystal; or the strange, copper world that dissolves in the fluid of certain sunsets. And that Wednesday night, a week later, on my way to the "dollar meeting" at Doctor June's, I turned toward the Friendship Carnival with some vestige of my youth clinging to the hem ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... and shorter than the preceding pair. These belonged to Nickey's boon-companion, the gentle Oliver Wendell Jones. The rest of O. W. J. followed in due time; and, quite ignorant of what awaited him, he began his wriggling descent. Most unfortunately for him, the hem of his nightshirt caught on a large nail in the eaves of the roof; and after a frantic, fruitless, and fearful effort to disconnect himself, he hung suspended in the breeze for one awful moment, like a painted cherub on a Christmas tree, ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... his left foot, upon the trouser hem of which the small dog had fastened her sharp ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... your own eyes, is paltry indeed beside the light which bathes a Seer. Cease, cease to question me; our languages are different. For a moment I have used yours to cast, if it be possible, a ray of faith into your soul; to give you, as it were, the hem of my garment and draw you up into the regions of Prayer. Can God abase Himself to you? Is it not for you to rise to Him? If human reason finds the ladder of its own strength too weak to bring God down to it, is it not evident that you must find some other path to reach Him? That Path is in ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... him the father of all bishops, and a shining star among them; the man of God of blessed memory; to whom the people used to flock in crowds, offering their little children to his benediction, kissing his feet, and catching the hem of his garment. This holy man and light of the church, the great man of his day, asserts upon his own knowledge, "that in imitation of our Saviour's miracle at Cana in Galilee several fountains and rivers in his days were annually turned into wine. A fountain at Cibyra, a city of Caria, and ...
— Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English

... the voluminous skirt, tucked the hem into the waistband, and ran, with long flashes of grey stocking, ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... you're willing. And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, Sir!) Shall march a little.—Start, you villain! Paws up! eyes front! salute your officer! 'Bout face! attention! take your rifle! (Some dogs have arms, you see.) Now hold Your ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... asked me when by hell-fire burnt, * When flames of heart my vitals hold and hem, 'Which wouldst thou chose, say wouldst thou rather them, * Or drink sweet cooling draught?' I'd answer, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... much," replied Daniel in extreme torture, "a hundred thousand faces bewilder me, a hundred thousand pictures hem me in. I cannot ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... was prominent among the bridesmaids, looking particularly ugly. The other photograph might have seemed pretty to a less prejudiced eye. It was that of a slight, innocent-looking girl in a white satin gown, "ungirt from throat to hem," and holding a sheaf of lilies in her hand. Her hair was loose upon her shoulders, crowned with a fragile garland and covered with a veil ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... stateliness was mingled with Miss Tox's sweetest friend's demeanour, but she kissed Miss Tox, and said, 'Lucretia, thank you, I am pretty well. I hope you are the same. Hem!' ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... shrugged his shoulders. 'On the contrary, I know nothing,' he answered. 'But—if it does, Mr. Dunborough's position is such that—hem! Well, we are men of the world, Sir George, and the girl ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... the seven golden candlesticks. When you said good-night to Mamma you kissed her either three times or seven times. If you went past three you had to go on to seven, because something dreadful would happen if you didn't. Sometimes Mamma stopped you; then you stooped down and finished up on the hem of her dress, quick, before ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... he said, rubbing his head. "I thought that we had settled all that. Of course, my dear, the reason I preferred a boy was because, well"—the Dean floundered,—"because scientists hold a consensus of opinion that through—hem—through centuries of cultivation, I may say, collegiate development,—the male brain offers a better soil, as it ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... despairingly that should a week go by without news, she must go to the police and brave the storm of notoriety and questioning from Mason North and the Halsteads, which would mean the end of her cherished secrecy and hem her in with a ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... pathetically different from the scenes she loved in life—the heather-clad slopes of her Highland home, the seclusion of the wooded braes where she loitered with her poet-lover. Scant foliage is about her; few birds sing above her here. She lies by the wall; narrow streets hem in the enclosure; the air is sullied by smoke from factories and from steamers passing within a stone's throw on the busy Clyde; the clanging of many hammers and the discordant din of machinery and traffic invade the place ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... "hem!" from Pigott, arresting her attention, stopped all further consideration of the matter. That good lady, who, in honour of the occasion, was dressed in a black gown of a formidable character and a many-ribboned cap, was standing up behind her chair ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... the latest mode, and her dress made in so novel a style that it looked outre, even at a fashionable watering-place. Dress, bonnet and parasol were scarlet of hue; and the vivid tint was softened but slightly by the black lace which fell in cascades from her closely-swathed neck to the hem of her dress, fastened here and there by diamond pins. If it were possible that, as Lisette had said, Mr. and Mrs. Alan Walcott were poor, their poverty was not apparent in Mrs. Walcott's dress. Black and scarlet were certainly becoming to her, but the effect in broad daylight ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... her breath. What was the matter with this man? Once he had lain at her feet and kissed the hem of her garment. He was hers. She had never relinquished her ownership of him even when her honor had constrained her to live apart from him. Whose could he ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... two sharp and savage fights occurred in March, while the mercury was still thirty degrees below zero, and then the government decided on a great summer campaign. Generals Terry and Gibbon were to hem the Indians from the north along the Yellowstone, while at the same time General Crook was to march up and attack them ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... was Kenneth, and he reduced his Percentage on the first day by having the hem-stitched Mouchoir ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree. They built them a nest in the topmost bough, And young ones they had, and were happy enow. But soon came a Woodman in leathern guise, His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes. 25 He'd an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke, But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke, At length he brought down the poor Raven's own oak. His young ones were killed; for they could not depart, And their mother did die of a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... discover what a bonny lukkin woman his dowter wor; an when shoo axt him which he liked best, he could nobbut say, "onny on em! suit thisen, lass!" an th' young woman smiled at him an sed, "It's nice when a gentleman likes to see his wife well dressed," an Sammywell blushed an sed "Hem! hem!" but didn't undeceive her. After tryin on abaat a scoor, nooan seemin to exactly suit Hepsabah, th' young woman browt another, an Sammywell's e'en fairly sparkled. "By th' heart!" he sed, "but that's what aw call a Bobby Dazzler!" an it wor plain to be seen ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley

... veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles The landscape broadens on my sight, As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell Like that which, in the ocean shell, With mystic sound, Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round, And turns some city lane Into the restless main, With all his capes ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... blowing strongly toward it, and neither of them heard the fateful sound. The high wind caught her dress and blew it against the spider in the boy's hand. It tangled the toy in the folds and wrenched it from his fingers and then caught the hem of her gown upon the splitting edge of a worn rail. As she stooped to loose it the terrible front of the engine appeared, ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... too much honor, gemmen," said Jerry, modestly, taking a pinch of snuff; "I am sure I shall be most happy. My chants are all of a sort. You must make all due allowances—hem!" And, clearing his throat, he ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the child have kept?" wondering next if Helen had never written of the hoop, for which she had paid a dollar, and which was carefully hung in her closet, waiting for the event of to-morrow, while the hem of her pongee had been let down and one breadth added to accommodate the hoop. On the whole, Aunt Betsy expected to make a stylish appearance before the little lady of whom she stood slightly in awe, always speaking of her to the neighbors as "My niece, Miss Cameron, from New York," and taking good ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... heart throbbed! how I trembled! I felt in the almost divine presence of one whose genius I had worshipped with a devotion which, enthusiastic as it was, I am not even now ashamed of. I longed to fall at his feet, and implore his blessing; to kiss the hem of his garment; and thought, in my foolishness, that inspiration might be communicated by his touch. I pushed back my hair, so that I might not lose a word he uttered, or the least look he gave. 'His ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... stockings there I often knit, My kerchief there I hem; And there upon the ground I sit— I ...
— Phebe, the Blackberry Girl - Uncle Thomas's Stories for Good Children • Anonymous

... desfendu son mestier Heeft hem verboden sin ambocht Lui a deffendu son mestier Hath ...
— Dialogues in French and English • William Caxton

... her toilette, and looked into the glass, and gave half a sigh—the other half, as if she would not have sighed if she could have helped it, she gently hem'd away. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... and without hesitation nicked and tore off the hem of one of his sheets, knotted two lengths together, lowered them down, and in turn drew up wash-hand jug, soap, brush and comb, and afterwards a basin, by having it tied up in a towel, and attaching the string ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... takes place scarce a yard from me, and the doctor, the tenant of the house, sees nothing either, and does not even know the victim who is found next morning on his premises! Thereupon our informant, Josephine, goes into hospital; pain in the stomach, they say—hem! Poison, maybe? Then she gets a threatening letter from Loupart. And when I come to the hospital to protect her, whom do I ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain

... a man whom she had never seen before advanced, kneeling on one knee, and taking up the hem of her veil, saluted it with an air of the most profound respect. She stepped back, surprised and alarmed, although there was nothing in the appearance of the stranger to justify her apprehension. He seemed to be about thirty years of age, tall of stature, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... had said the mass, I went back to the venta. I was hoping Carmen would have fled. She could have taken my horse and ridden away. But I found her there still. She did not choose that any one should say I had frightened her. While I had been away she had unfastened the hem of her gown and taken out the lead that weighted it; and now she was sitting before a table, looking into a bowl of water into which she had just thrown the lead she had melted. She was so busy with her spells that at first she didn't ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee

... as thise holtes and thise hayis, That han in winter dede ben and dreye, Revesten hem in grene whan that ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... mapping out careers for her boys, making brilliant matches for Mildred and Bernadine, and even building a castle for Beth now and then. She made and mended as badly as might be expected of a woman whose proud boast it was that when she was married she could not hem a pocket-handkerchief; and she did it all herself. She had no notion of utilising the motive-power at hand in the children. As her own energy had been wasted in her childhood, so she wasted theirs, letting it expend itself to no purpose instead of teaching them to apply ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... out of the wagon backwards, making a maidenly effort to keep the connection between the hem of her black silk skirt and the top of her calf-skin shoes inviolate, and brushing the dust of the wagon wheel from her dress carefully after her safe arrival in the dog-fennel. Marg'et Ann ignored the chair which had been placed beside the ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham

... irritating, use vaseline about the buttocks. Now put the arms in the shirt sleeves and tie or button it up, and then pin the petticoat or pinning blanket. Lay an extra diaper folded many times under him, and fold the pinning blanket just in three, bring the hem up to the waist ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... Lowth, whose popular little Grammar was written in or about 1758, made no scruple to hem up both the poets and the Friends at once, by a criticism which I must needs consider more dogmatical than true; and which, from the suppression of what is least objectionable in it, has become, her hands, the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... hem that writen ous tofore The bokes duelle, and we therfore Ben tawht of that was write tho: Forthi good is that we also In oure tyme among ous hiere Do wryte of newe som matiere, Essampled of these olde wyse So that it myhte in such a wyse, Whan we ben dede and elleswhere, Beleve ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... although I am longing—longing to kiss you—those dear gentle eyes, your red lips—I never will until you give them, because my love, being very great, is very humble, like—like this!" And sinking to my knees, I would have kissed the hem of her gown, but with a soft, sweet cry of reproach, she slipped to her knees also and swaying to me, hid her ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... trimming. No sign of an overskirt, no ruffle or puff, plaiting or ruching, no "Hamburg" or lace,—nothing! Plain round waists, neatly stitched at throat and wrists; plain round skirts, each with a deep hem, and not so much as a tuck ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... the men that breed from them They traffic up and down, But cling to their cities' hem As a child ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... before, revealed Himself by turning death into life, sorrow into joy. The eye of her faith was fastened on the distinct, living, loving personality of our human yet Divine Friend, who no longer seemed afar off, but as near as to that other burdened one who touched the hem of ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... was enjoying herself, she was triumphant and happy as the darting needle danced ecstatically down a hem, drawing the stuff along under its vivid stabbing, irresistibly. She made the machine hum. She stopped it imperiously, her fingers were deft and swift ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... national costume, she said to her Duke," being then only sixteen, poor young soul, and on her marriage-journey, "'WAS WILL DAS GESCHMEISS (Why does that rabble bore us)!'" This is probably the main foundation. That "her Ladies, on approaching her, had always to kiss the hem of her gown," lay in the nature of the case, being then the rule to people of her rank. Beautiful Unfortunate, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... back with her hands, and gazed at him over her shoulder. He threw himself on his knees, seized the hem of her dress, and pressed it to his lips. It was a gesture of such inexpressible humility that even ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... but half opened, as though he saw men as trees walking; but Christ had touched those eyes, He knew little of the great Healer, but somehow he had touched the hem of His garment of grace, and virtue came out of Him who wears that seamless robe, and who responds even to the faintest contact of the soul that is groping after salvation. And so we meet here another proof of the infinite variety of God's working which, like the fact of that working, ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... too, at this stage, practice takes an important place: a child is willing to hem, to try certain brush strokes, to cut evenly, and later on to use his cardboard knife to effect for the sake of a future result if he has already experimented freely. This is in full harmony with the spirit of play, when we think of the practiced "strokes" and ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... 'members 'zactly. I wore a blue worsted shirt, over a red underskirt, over a white linen petticoat wid tuckers at de hem, just a little long, to show good and white 'long wid de blue of de skirt and de red of de underskirt. Dese all come up to my waist and was held together by de string dat held my bustle in place. All dis and my ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... ran, bowling over or trampling on the fear-stricken prisoners as they tried to scramble out of his way, men and women alike. But she made up in agility what she lacked in strength, lifting up the hem of her robe so that her legs twinkled bare, ducking under Gore's outstretched arms, or leaping over the fallen form ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl

... the hem of Miss Mary's skirts to her lips. She would have buried her hot face in its virgin folds, but she dared not. She rose to ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... is better at this time. I saw the hills the war well and san thar Love to you. I war sory to hear that My brother war sol i am glad that i did come away when i did god works all the things for the Best he is young he may get a long in the wole May god Bless hem ef you have any News from Petersburg Va Plas Rite me a word when you anser this Letter and ef any person came form home Letter Me know. Please sen me one of your Paper that had the under grands ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... as immanent good. He knew that Carmen's great love was an impervious armor, which turned aside the darts of the evil one, the one lie. He knew that his reasoning from the premise of mixed good and evil was false, and the results chaotic. And knowing all this, he knew that he had touched the hem of the garment of the Christ-understanding. There remained, then, the test of fire. And it had come. Would ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... says Judge SWEENEY, genially, "I believe, though, that I know that world, also, pretty well; for, if I have not exactly been to foreign countries, foreign countries have come to me. They have come to me on—hem!—business, and I have improved my opportunities. A man comes to me from a vessel, and I say 'Cork,' and give him Naturalization Certificates for himself and his friends. Another comes, and I say 'Dublin;' another, and I say 'Belfast.' If I want to ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various

... feet resting in the orchards of the South, her snowy bosom rising to the clouds, Idaho lies serene in her beauty of glacier, lake and primeval forest, guarding in her verdure-clad mountains vast treasures of precious minerals, with the hem of her robe embroidered in sapphires and opals.... As representing Idaho, first I wish to express the heartfelt gratitude of every equal suffragist in our proud and happy State to the National Association for the most generous help afforded us in our two years' campaign. Without the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... turned away, the lady elevated the hem of her rather short garments a shade too high (as the delicate dustman imagined) above her ancle. He turned towards her, and, in an audible whisper, said, 'Delicacy, my love—'delicacy!'—'Lawks, Fred!' replied the damsel, with ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... Alen the idea of this hulking youngster as a suitor for such a woman seemed preposterous. He was not fit to touch the hem of her garment. He was unmannerly, uneducated; he was not of her class—and even as he analyzed, the boy stood up, perfect in his strong ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... through these trees, down through these lawns. A blessed warm sun hums with the joy of innumerable bees. To right hand and to left, in front of you and behind, rising sheer, forbidding, impregnable, the cliffs, mountains, and ranges hem you in. Down the river ten miles you can go: then the gorge closes, the river grows savage, you can only look down the tumbling fierce waters and turn back. Up the river five miles you can go, then interpose the sheer snow-clad cliffs of the Palisades, and them, rising a matter ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... grass rotting, many sicknesses, those are the messengers that came to me. Oh! why are you silent? You carry the pardon of the Most High; give it to me! I would kiss your hands if I were not afraid—no, no, the hem ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats

... he turned, a long, faint, ghostly sigh came from the man's lips. The bony fingers gripped the hem of the Magian's robe and held ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke

... library book and skipped into the kitchen. Grandma peppered the fried potatoes, sliced some wrinkled tomatoes into nests of wilting lettuce, and wiped her dripping face with the hem of her clean gingham apron. The kitchen was even hotter than the half-darkened sitting room where crippled Jimmie sprawled on the floor listlessly wheeling a toy automobile, the pale little baby on ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means

... as if all their sufferings had but sanctified them! As if the death-angel, in passing, had touched them with the hem of his garment, and made them holy! As if the hand of disease had been stretched out over them only to make the sign of the cross upon their souls! And as in the sun's eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... the wars of Troy I and my sisters did employ Our time and all our artifice: Standards, with many a fair device Embroidered, did we weave for them; 360 And on them lavished many a gem And gaily with glad songs of joy Our necklaces we freely gave, Tiara and diadem. Then leave your points and hem-stitch leave, 365 Your millinery and your lace, And utterly from off earth's face These renegade dogs destroy. O to see Penthesilea again With forty thousand warriors, 370 Armed maidens gleaming like the stars On the ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... the floor again, being in evident pain. I pulled her up, and made her limp after me through several halls to the inner court, and the well, where I set her upon the weedy margin, took her foot in my lap, examined it, drew water, washed it, and bandaged it with a strip torn from my caftan-hem, now and again speaking gruffly to her, so that she might no ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... lifted the hem of her dress just two inches—the discreetest, the modestest gesture. He had a transient vision of something ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... and wary student of human nature, Peter dropped his eyes to the man's long, claw-like fingers. These were twitching ever so slightly, plucking slowly—it may have been meditatively—at the hem of his black silk coat. At the intentness of Peter's stare, this twitching ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... doorway, through which women and men draped in shawls, lads and little children, were coming and going. Their faces assumed expressions of superstitious reverence and devotion. And, going up one by one to the large image of the saint, they contemplated it with awe, touched its hand or the hem of its robe, made the sign of the cross, and retreated, feeling that they were blessed for ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... with your French, Avice—it's nearly half-past twelve, and you know Eliza will want to lay the table presently. Come here, Queenie." She took the pillow case, and unpicked a few stitches, which clearly indicated that the needle had been taking giant strides. "Just hem that last inch or two again, and see if you can't make it look nice. I believe the needle only stuck into your finger because you were making it sew so badly. Have you got a handkerchief?—but, of course, you haven't." She polished ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... hand—you must feel that I DO press it sincerely, don't you? I don't think I shall drink any more. What time is it? Never mind, I know the time. The time has come, at all events. What! they are laying supper over there, are they? Then this table is free? Capital, gentlemen! I—hem! these gentlemen are not listening. Prince, I will just read over an article I have here. Supper is ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... fire in Miss Gibbie's sitting-room Mrs. McDougal held up her left foot to the crackling coals and watched the steam curl away from the wet sole of her shoe with beaming satisfaction. Her skirt, wet around the hem, was drawn up to her knees, her coat, well sprinkled, was on the back of a chair, and in her lap her hat ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... memorandum-book, and in a low voice reads what he writes.] Trav. "Mem. Yankee landlords do not belong to their house's [Aloud] You seem young for a landlord: may I ask how old you are? Land. Yes, if you'd like to know. Trav. Hem! [Disconcerted.] Are you a native, sir? Land. No, sir; there are no natives hereabouts. Trav. "Mem. None of the inhabitants natives; ergo, all foreigners." [Aloud] Where were you born, sir? Land. Do you know where Marblehead ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... him in actual life. He pored over the pictures in religious books, and knew by heart the exact mode in which the wrestling angel grasped Jacob, how Jacob looked in his mysterious sleep, how the bells and pomegranates were attached to the hem of Aaron's vestment, sounding sweetly as he glided over the turf of the holy place. His way of conceiving religion came then to be in effect what it ever afterwards remained—a sacred history indeed, but still more a sacred ideal, a transcendent version ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... setting of the strangest and most beautiful thing he had ever seen. For he was looking into the eyes of the loveliest woman in the world. She was bending above him, tall and slim and supple, her perfect body clad in a deep black gown, the hem and bosom of which were embroidered with celandines, and it had a golden belt and was lined with gold, as he could see when the loose sleeves fell open on her round and slender arms; and the bodice of the gown hung a little away from her stooping body, and was embroidered inside, as well as ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... curve struck as illustrated. The other two sides of the mainsail are then laid off and pencil lines drawn. You will note that allowance must be made for hemming the back edge of the mainsail. If your sewing-machine has a hemmer, find out how wide a hem it makes (the smaller the better), and make allowance accordingly, twice the width of the hem being necessary. Much depends upon the tension at which the machine is set, so be careful that the latter is sufficiently slack so that it does not ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates

... the lid, it will be necessary to find where it is located, and then dislodge it from its position. Begin by examining the lower lid. Pull it down sufficiently to expose the inner surface, and, if the foreign substance be there, wipe it off with the hem of a clean handkerchief. If it is not under the lower lid, it will be necessary to fold back the upper lid. "The patient is told to look down, the edge of the lid and the lashes are seized with the forefinger and thumb of the right hand (Fig. 165), and the lid is drawn at first ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... thing as becoming panic-stricken from surprise or fear. An animal that looks death in the face every hour from sunrise until sunset is not to be upset by trifles. We have seen that if a dog and several men corner a goat on a precipice ledge, and hem him in so that there is no avenue of escape, he does not grow frantic, as any deer or most sheep would do, and plunge off into space to certain death. Not he. He stands quite still, glares indignantly upon his enemies, shakes his head, occasionally ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... she had ta'en the mantle, And put it on her back, About the hem it seemed To wrinkle and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... like her," commented Madame, taking up a dainty lavender silk stocking that had "run down" from the hem. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... two great streets through which the two great rivers dash, and all the little streets whose name is Legion, were scorching, blistering, and sweltering. The houses, high and vast, dirty to excess, rotten as old cheeses, and as thickly peopled. All up the hills that hem the city in, these houses swarm; and the mites inside were lolling out of the windows, and drying their ragged clothes on poles, and crawling in and out at the doors, and coming out to pant and gasp ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... aside from his typewriter to see a director enter Breede's room. He did not lift his look above the hem of the man's coat, but he knew him for the quiet one. And yet, when the door closed upon him, he seemed to become as noisy as any of them. Bean heard his ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... throughout the earth!" The veil which she had loosely bound about her head had fallen from her shoulders and the morning breeze touching her soft dark hair was moving it gently around her face while unseen fingers stirred the hem of her woolen skirt above her dew wet sandals. The altar smoke of the morning offering was ascending from the Temple of snow and gold, casting delicate and ever changing spirals of gray and black against the rosy sky, and now and then the silver glint of a dove's ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... Ahlas! 'tis eene pittie meethinks; for God's sake, madam, buy him but a hobbie horse; let the poore youth have something betwixt his legges to ease 'hem. Alas! we must doe as ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis



Words linked to "Hem" :   stitch, hem and haw, fabric, run up, utterance, hem in, sew, let loose, emit, cloth, textile, utter, sew together



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