"Ready to hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... each side of the great red-brick building. One of these offices receives lost articles, the other restores them. Intermediately there are the vast store-rooms through which the accumulations progress every month, till in the third month all unclaimed things are ready to hand in the ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... be nothing ready to hand that you call work, there is always preparation for work to be done," ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... it seems that the only thing necessary to establish the elephant as an animal of remarkable intellect and power of original reasoning is to set forth the unadorned facts that lie ready to hand. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... quell possible and probable revolt, the money would have been there to hand: also, if you remember, there was talk at the time of the King of Naples proving troublesome. There, too, in case of a campaign on the frontier, the money lying ready to hand at Grenoble could prove very useful. But of course I cannot possibly pretend to give you all the reasons which actuated M. de Talleyrand when he caused five and twenty millions of stolen money to be conveyed secretly to Grenoble rather than to Paris. His ways are more tortuous than any mere army-surgeon ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... such time as the Commission might make its report, and until I, as President, might issue further orders in view of this report. I had to find a man who possessed the necessary good sense, judgment, and nerve to act in such event. He was ready to hand in the person of Major-General Schofield. I sent for him, telling him that if I had to make use of him it would be because the crisis was only less serious than that of the Civil War, that the action ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... branch, whose end was under water. It dipped itself, then fluttered its wings, and plumed its feathers, and seemed thoroughly to enjoy itself alone in the shady nook which it had chosen. "There is no need for poets to invent," he adds, "while nature furnishes us with such marvellous little sprites ready to hand." ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... be of immense strength. The hollow sound caused by rolling over a drawbridge was twice heard, and the carriage crossed two courts before stopping at the foot of a broad flight of stone steps, where stood Sir William Fitzwilliam and Sir Amias Paulett ready to hand ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... placed his own tank on the opposite side. "That watchman thought I was bluffing when I said I'd get an order from the company, if I had to wake up the president of the road. It was too good a chance to miss. One doesn't find such a complete outfit ready to hand every day." ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... were at the threshold of a large wayside hostelry, fronting a slope of forest and a plunging brook. Whitecoats in all attitudes leaned about the door; she beheld the inner court full of them. Herr Johannes was ready to hand her to the ground. He said: 'You have nothing to fear. These fellows are on the march to Cremona. Perhaps it will be better if you are served up in your chamber. You will be called early in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... asking for collateral. I'm ready to hand you over the money on any terms you like or on ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... with a feeling of pleasure, was the honest expression which every countenance, without exception, wore. It was long since he had seen a sight of the kind, and he felt ashamed of himself for going about with his knife ready to hand, as had been his custom for so many years, and put it away in his chest the very first day. He took a pleasure in leaving his watch and money out on the top where they might easily have been taken, and was ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... well met, indeed, the farmer and the manufacturer, both in the same grist between the two millstones of the lethargy of the Public and the aggression of the Trust, the two great evils of modern America. Pres, my boy, there is your epic poem ready to hand." ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Bozzle; and there ain't no good to be got, never, by going off the regular line." Whereupon Bozzle scratched his head and again read the letter. A distinct promise of a hundred pounds was made to him, if he would have the child ready to hand over to Trevelyan on Trevelyan's arrival ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... many small opportunities of service which lie ready to hand. She was quite content, since the larger field was not yet open to her, to occupy a smaller one. In a letter to her aunt she wrote very characteristically:—"I am trying and succeeding more and more in fixing my eyes ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... for blurred and vicious perversions of our speech. They must read and recite aloud in their qualifying examinations, it is true, but under no specific prohibition of provincial intonations. In the pulpit and the stage, moreover, we have ready to hand most potent instruments of dissemination, that need nothing but a little sharpening to help greatly towards this end. At the entrance of almost all professions nowadays stands an examination that includes English, and there would be nothing revolutionary in adding to that written paper an ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... very self-conscious as he entered Bob's study, and was rather glad that he had a topic of conversation ready to hand. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... herring pie; Keziah was stoning the dates, grating the manchet, and preparing the numerous other ingredients—currants, gooseberries, barberries—which, being preserved in bottles in the spring and summer, were always ready to hand in Mistress Susan's cookery. From the open door of the kitchen proceeded a villainous smell of herrings, which caused Cherry to turn up her pretty nose in a grimace that set Keziah laughing. Both these elder damsels, who were neither blooming nor pretty nor graceful, like their youngest ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... then another; the big, coarse peasant became so skilful that he even began to cook soup in the hollow of his hand. Our Generals became jovial, light-hearted, fat, and white. They began to say to each other that, here they were living with everything ready to hand while their pensions were accumulating ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... to be dressed, stitches taken out, bandages renewed: Philip prided himself a little on his skill in bandaging, and it amused him to wring a word of approval from a nurse. On certain afternoons in the week there were operations; and he stood in the well of the theatre, in a white jacket, ready to hand the operating surgeon any instrument he wanted or to sponge the blood away so that he could see what he was about. When some rare operation was to be performed the theatre would fill up, but generally there were not more than half a dozen students present, and then the proceedings had a cosiness ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... curious, obstinate thrust to this big man's jaw. "By heaven, Bill! The feller responsible for the murder of my little gal's father, a father she just loved to death, don't git away with his play if I know it. The feller that hands her an hour's suffering needs to answer to me for it, and I'm ready to hand over my life in seeing he gets his physic. There's no one going to get away with the boodle Allan gave his life for—not if I can hold him up. That's just as fixed in my mind as I'm going to marry Jessie. Get that good. And I hold you to your word on the trail. You're with me in it. ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... disciples expressed a wish to give him a splendid funeral. But Chuang Tzu said: "With heaven and earth for my coffin and my shell; with the sun, moon and stars as my burial regalia; and with all creation to escort me to my grave,—are not my funeral paraphernalia ready to hand?" "We fear," argued the disciples, "lest the carrion kite should eat the body of our Master;" to which Chuang Tzu replied: "Above ground I shall be food for kites; below ground for mole-crickets and ants. Why rob one to ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... be a heavy strain on the existing teaching personnel in the army, and would be indirectly detrimental to it as well. Nor would any strengthening of the field army be possible under this scheme, since the cadres to contain the mass of these special reservists are not ready to hand. This mass would therefore only fill up the recruiting depots, and facilitate to some degree the task of ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... cap and the packet of sandwiches which lay ready to hand, and as she put on the cap she saw the lawyer, a middle-aged, but stout gentleman, conferring with the detective and smiling triumphantly and rubbing his hands at the news of her presence in the house. She smiled too—a smile of pleasant anticipation. But ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... the authority to make decrees, and transact the business of government. (10) In order that such authority might last for ever, the high priests usurped the rights of secular rulers, and at last wished to be styled kings. (11) The reason for this is ready to hand; in the first commonwealth no decrees could bear the name of the high priest, for he had no right to ordain laws, but only to give the answers of God to questions asked by the captains or the councils: he had, therefore, no motive for making changes ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... fast, my friends," exclaimed a low deep voice, which the lads recognized as that of Kapitan Schwalbe. "Remember I have a pistol ready to hand." ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... first traveller's stick. He, none the wiser, trudged on; but the second traveller, seeing the bird sitting so tamely just in front of his nose, said to himself: "What a chance for a supper!" and immediately flung his shoes at it, they being ready to hand. Whereupon the Partridge flew away, and the shoes knocked off ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... has been soaked in the perfume and dried, so that it is more easily carried and less suspicious than in liquid form. Just place a little water on the wool and squeeze it out, when you have the perfume ready to hand." ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... the lances, against which they hewed with their sharp scimitars, frequently severing the steel top from the ashpole, and then breaking through and engaging in hand-to-hand conflict with the knights. Behind the latter sat their squires, with extra spears and arms ready to hand to their masters; and in close combat, the heavy maces with their spike ends were weapons before which the light clad horsemen went down ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... be seen from the hall, we beheld a small, flickering spark of fire, well up on the lower slopes of the mountain, which, even as we gazed, waxed in size and brilliancy. Snatching up a powerful telescope that always hung ready to hand in the hall, and bringing it to bear upon the spark, I was able to make out that it was indeed a large house, from the windows and thatched roof of which flames were bursting in momentarily increasing volumes, while round about it a crowd of negroes were apparently dancing a dance of ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... was this, astute as Morano, and simple as his naive mind. The clothing for which Rodriguez searched the plain vainly was ready to hand. No disguise was effective against la Garda, they had too many suspicions, their skill was to discover disguises. But in the moment of la Garda's triumph, when they had found out the disguise, when success had lulled the suspicions for which they were infamous, then was the time to trick ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... himself, of God, and of things, never ceases to be, and always enjoys true peace of soul. If the way which leads hither seem very difficult, it can nevertheless be found. It must indeed be difficult since it is so seldom discovered: for if salvation lay ready to hand and could be discovered without great labor, how could it be possible that it should be neglected almost by everybody? But all noble things are as difficult as they ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... with his hat in his hand, he stood under the great gateway of the hotel, ready to hand Mrs. Thompson into the carriage. This would have been nothing if the landlord and landlady had not been there also, as well as the man-cook, and the four waiters, and the fille de chambre. Two or three other ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad. But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front Ready to hand. Lastly those images Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear, In water, or in any shining surface, Must be, since furnished with like look of things, Fashioned from images of things sent out. There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms, Like unto them, which ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... out, time after time, in the happy and happy-go-lucky past, the practical civilian seditionist and active civilian rebel is more fortunately situated in India than is his foreign brother, in that his army exists ready to hand, all round him, in the thousands of the desperately poor, devoid of the "respectability" that accompanies property, thousands with nothing to lose and high hopes of much to gain, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... establishment of State colonies for the care of epileptics; and for a dozen other enterprises which occupy that borderland between charitable effort and legislation. In this borderland we cooperate in many civic enterprises for I think we may claim that Hull-House has always held its activities lightly, ready to hand them over to whosoever would carry them ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... information is of a very scanty and generally erroneous description. The inherited knowledge which enables a modern schoolboy to start life with what would have been an outfit to an ancient philosopher, had yet to be created. Instead of finding, as we find, tools ready to hand, replies prepared to questions that may arise, primitive mankind must create its own tools and prepare its own answers. And in consequence of this the social environment, which at all times determines the form of man's mental output, is with primitive man radically different ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... thereupon asked him what he wanted me to do, if the plan was still to be carried out. On this point he seemed uncertain, but thought I had shown a great lack of fellow-feeling in having not only ignored him, but Reissiger as well. I answered that I was perfectly ready to hand over my composition and the conducting of the piece to Reissiger. But he could not swallow this, as he really had an exceedingly poor opinion of Reissiger, of which I was very well aware. His real grievance was that I had arranged the whole business with the Lord Chamberlain, Herr von ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... you take your meridian altitude and tell a messenger to notify the captain that it is noon at the ship. The captain then orders eight bells struck, and you are ready to hand in your noon report, consisting of latitude and longitude by observation, latitude and longitude by dead reckoning, deviation of the compass on the ship's head at 8 A.M., distance made good since the preceding noon, distance to destination, set and drift of current (Note:—When steaming ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... succeed in really lending her any help, for she herself put forth all her cleverness and power of head and hand, forgetting nothing that might be useful or agreeable in the nursing of the sick. In that wealthy, well-ordered house everything stood ready to hand; and in less than a quarter of an hour the tribune Nemesianus was informed that the chamber was ready for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... easier than usual to-day, for a topic was ready to hand—most of the ladies on whom she called taking a lively interest in the Temple-Wilson wedding, anxious to know if Miss Ethel had seen the bride lately, and if it were true that the trousseau surpassed all previous ones ever ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... 113: Make him over to you)—Ver. 1086. "Vobis propino." The word "propino" was properly applied to the act of tasting a cup of wine, and then handing it to another; he means that he has had his taste of the Captain, and is now ready to hand ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... one pigeon? In this instance, no doubt, it would have been difficult for me to make a mistake, but there are many cases which are not so obvious and where the interpretation is nevertheless made, and then the misunderstanding is ready to hand. Once my wife and I saw from our seats in the car a chimney-sweep who stood in a railroad station. As he bent over, looking for a lost coin, my very myopic wife cried out, "Look at the beautiful ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... our mind in the first heavy cloak ready to hand, so that all the sunbeams of the world cannot persuade us to throw it off, much less to assume another! The man who is exclusively a nationalist is a snail forever chained to his house. Psyche had wings given her for a never-ending, eternal flight. We ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... establishment. As already mentioned, for many miles all the heights along the Loire have been more or less excavated for stone for building purposes, so that every one hereabouts who grows wine or deals in it has any amount of cellar accommodation ready to hand. It was the vast extent of the galleries which M. Ackerman pre discovered already excavated at Saint-Florent that induced him to settle there in preference to Saumur. Extensive, however, as the original vaults were, considerable additional excavations ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... him. The Mehudins treated him with open hostility, which infected the whole market with a spirit of opposition. The beautiful Norman intended to revenge herself on the handsome Lisa, and the latter's cousin seemed a victim ready to hand. ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... domain of recent annals, and essays to pick his way through thickets all but untrodden? More than once I have been tempted to give up the quest and turn aside to paths where pioneers have cleared the way. There, at least, the whereabouts of that fabulous well is known and the plummet is ready to hand. Nevertheless, I resolved to struggle through with my task, in the consciousness that the work of a pioneer may be helpful, provided that he carefully notches the track and thereby enables those who come after him to know what to seek ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... they was fumblin' to draw, if he had to. But the chances is there won't be a shot fired one way or another. He'll jest naturally out-guess 'em an' ease 'em along, painless an' onsuspectin' until he turns 'em over to me, with the evidence all done up in a package, you might say, ready to hand ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... individual to his class—condemned by native reformers like Ramananda, Kabir, Nanak, and Chaitanya long before the advent of European ideas. Whatever the origin or original advantages of the caste system, it has long operated to repress individuality.[9] It is a vast boycotting agency ready to hand to crush social non-conformity.[10] One can easily understand that if society is rigidly organised for certain social necessities (marriage for example) into a number of mutually exclusive sets or circles, admission to all of which is by birth only, ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... that the terms of the enlistment were interpreted literally, and that wherever the minute men went, to the field, the shop, or to church, gun and powder-horn and bullet-pouch were ready to hand. It is scarcely an exaggeration to suppose that, as represented by French's statue, the farmers actually left the plough in the furrow and ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... intellectual power certainly, but from some inward consideration, some afterthought, from the antecedent gravitation of his own general character—or, will you say? from that unprecipitated infusion of fallacy in him—he fails to draw, unlike almost all the rest of the world, the conclusion ready to hand. ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... activity of live, virile men who were taking the first staunch grip upon the tricky wheel of fortune and were turning it to their own account. Every man was building; no man complained of conditions, for conditions were so new and so ready to hand that he who found fault was merely lessening his own chance to secure his share of the vast resources that spread before him, welcoming the greedy fingers of him who courted the future and shunned the past. All men lived in the present out there in the great stretches, and all men were strong ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... more from the crystalline formations in the Lake district. Several boulders of these rocks have also been found in our own neighbourhood; and doubtless more remain to reward the explorer. {91b} I have dwelt at some length on this particular formation—the boulder clay—because it is the most ready to hand; it lies on the surface, in many parts around us, within the ken of the ordinary visitor to Woodhall Spa. It may give an additional interest to his rambles in search of health, to know that he may, at any moment, pick up a boulder which has travelled further, and passed through ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... down at the head of the table with the Comtesse on his right. Jellyband was bustling round, filling glasses and putting chairs straight. Sally waited, ready to hand round the soup. Mr. Harry Waite's friends had at last succeeded in taking him out of the room, for his temper was growing more and more violent under the Vicomte's ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... condescending to Science, which naturally annoyed the scientific men. These latter professed a theory of the structure of knowledge which the philosophers could easily show to be grotesque, but the retort was always ready to hand that at any rate Science seemed somehow to be getting somewhere while Philosophy appeared to lead nowhere ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... money of the railroad company than his own, but the prize offered was too great to be missed. Even if the six hundred thousand dollars had been lost, it would not have been a losing investment for his company, and there was little danger of this because we were ready to hand over to him the securities which we obtained in return for the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... having fitted the loop to the horn notch, drew forth an arrow from his girdle, where he carried two or three more ready to hand than in the quiver on his shoulder. "I thought I saw signs of them some time since, and now I am nearly sure. ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... looked for the Hawk, and found him already in the lockers and pulling out three space-suits. The clumsy, heavy cone of a portable heat-ray lay on the table ready to hand. ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... Begin to plan now for your next year's garden. Put a pile of dirt where it will not be frozen, or dried out, when you want to use it next February for your early seeds. If you have no hotbed, fix the frames and get the sashes for one now, so it will be ready to hand when the ground is frozen solid and covered with snow next spring. If you have made garden mistakes this year, be planning now to rectify them next—without progress there is no fun in the game. Let next spring find you with your plans all made, your materials ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... This provides the necessary funds for the German army for ten calendar months. The authorities have no necessity to ask the country, warring politicians—in this instance the Reichstag—for money to start a campaign. They have got it ready to hand. Once war is declared and started, if needed ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... At last the eyes of the world were upon it. News of the great sensation was flashed to the end of the earth; every detail was gone into with harrowing minuteness. The Hemisphere Company announced by telegraph that it stood ready to hand over the ten thousand dollars; and the sheriff of Bramble County with all the United States deputy marshals within reach raced at once to Tinkletown to stick a ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... national insolvency, and here is an infallible remedy ready to hand. Lord FISHER'S panacea for our discontents was to "sack the lot"—to dismiss all our rulers and administrators. But he had only a glimmering of the truth. Our cry should rather be, "Lock up the lot." Experience has taught us that if complete latitude is given to eccentrics and incompetents, if, in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... some two thousand paces, my face muffled and sword ready to hand, when suddenly there sprang upon me from the shadow of a doorway, two ruffians, who, making short shift of courtesy, demanded my purse and such valuables as were upon my person. Having slight desire for so rude a giving, I did straightway put my back against a wall, and with drawn blade contended ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... December of the same year, and falling sick at Ferrara, died so suddenly as to give rise to the suspicion of foul play, which too easily sprang up in those days when ambition or private vengeance found ready to hand weapons so many and so convenient. Crowe and Cavalcaselle give good grounds for the assumption that, in order to save appearances, Titian was supposed—replacing and covering the battle-piece which already existed ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... different breed, and escape being impossible while Bunster lived, he was resolved to get the white man. The trouble was that he could never find a chance. Bunster was always on guard. Day and night his revolvers were ready to hand. He permitted nobody to pass behind his back, as Mauki learned after having been knocked down several times. Bunster knew that he had more to fear from the good-natured, even sweet-faced, Malaita boy than from the entire population ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... in us to be rational beings. Again, culture, with the intelligence and choice it involves, counts for something too. It is easy to argue that, since there were the Asiatic steppes with the wild horses ready to hand in them, man was bound sooner or later to tame the horse and develop the characteristic culture of the nomad type. Yes, but why did man tame the horse later rather than sooner? And why did the American redskins never tame the bison, and adopt a pastoral life in their vast ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... "I have facts ready to hand," he went on, summing up his argument. "I have an acquaintance here, an employee of one of the best-known men in the gold-mining industry." Here Kovroff mentioned a well-known name. "He is now in St. Petersburg. Well, a few days ago he suddenly came to me as if he had something ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... use keeping up strife. We can work together now. Me and her own that farm in partnership, and I've had enough of it. I've made a fair give-or-take offer, and nothing is to prevent her from closing out and paying you what she owes you. I've got eight hundred dollars in cash ready to hand her at ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... Italy, Constantinople, even Antioch, and the Holy Land itself, showed in time Norman states, Norman laws, Norman civilisation, and all alike felt the impulse of Norman energy and inspiration. England lay ready to hand for Norman invasion—the hope of peaceable succession to the saintly Edward the Confessor had to be abandoned by William; the gradual permeation of sluggish England with Norman earls, churchmen, courtiers, had been comprehended ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... serious attempt at recalcitration on her part. Fitzpiers kept himself continually near her, dominating any rebellious impulse, and shaping her will into passive concurrence with all his desires. Apart from his lover-like anxiety to possess her, the few golden hundreds of the timber-dealer, ready to hand, formed a warm background to Grace's lovely face, and went some way to remove his uneasiness at the prospect of endangering his professional and social chances by an alliance with the family of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... that half amused and half shamed her. Some of her escapades she would describe with whimsical zest, and trivial as they were they served to show that, even then, her native wit and resource were always ready to hand. But very early the Change came. An old widow, living in a room in the back lands, used to watch the children running about the doors, and in her anxiety for their welfare sought to gather some of the girls together and talk to them, young as they were, ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... the agent: on the contrary, Clowes looked out for a fellow who would be useful to Laura, a gentleman, an unmarried man, who would be available to ride with her or make a fourth at bridge—and there by good luck was Val Stafford ready to hand. Born and reared in the country, though young and untrained, Val brought to his job a wide casual knowledge of local conditions and a natural head for business, and was only too glad to squire Laura in the hunting field. For Laura must hunt: as Laura Selincourt ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... of Neleus. There the people were doing sacrifice on the sea shore, slaying black bulls without spot to the dark-haired god, the shaker of the earth. Nine companies there were, and five hundred men sat in each, and in every company they held nine bulls ready to hand. Just as they had tasted the inner parts, and were burning the slices of the thighs on the altar to the god, the others were bearing straight to land, and brailed up the sails of the gallant ship, and moored her, and themselves came forth. And Telemachus too ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... for amidst all this flashing of fire and flame, and the crying out of folk, and the measured clash of the bells so near him, his thought was confused, and he had no words ready to hand. But the monk turned from the parapet and looked him full in the face and ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... books we find much of the plain sense of law. There is no mystification by technicalities, but all the information is practical, all ready to hand, we mean mouth; so that, as Mrs. Fixture says in the farce of A Roland for an Oliver—"If there be such a thing as la' in the land," you may "ha' it." Joking apart, they are sensible books, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... full of things evidently in constant use. The large table covered with books and plans, the tall glass-fronted bookcases with keys in the locks, the high desk for writing while standing up, on which lay an open exercise book, and the lathe with tools laid ready to hand and shavings scattered around—all indicated continuous, varied, and orderly activity. The motion of the small foot shod in a Tartar boot embroidered with silver, and the firm pressure of the lean sinewy ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... gigantic spur in yellow paint. Here they dismounted, tied their horses, and went in. Carson, with a quick eye toward preparedness for what might lie on the cards, looked for Lee's gun. It wasn't in his pocket; it wasn't in his waistband, ready to hand. It wasn't anywhere that Carson could see. At the door ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... to an unknown source such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews—all we know of which shows its affinities to have been rather on the side of the Synoptics—when we have a known source in the fourth Gospel ready to hand, is ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... cast out my exalted notion of love. As if you have proven that love is incompatible with civilisation! We make over life with each successive step, but we do not give over living. In developing new forms and in establishing more and more subtle social relations we are only building upon what we find ready to hand. The paradox of creature and creator does not exist. When your sociologist speaks of arbitrary alterations, he has reference to polities and governments and criteria, to the material and ideal forces which ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... better ex tempore speaker: a happy talent has complete command of a happy turn of speech. He has a present wit, always flying ahead, and a ready memory; and having all this ready to hand, he can promptly and unhesitatingly produce whatever the subject or occasion requires. In arguments he is unimaginably acute, so that he often puzzles the best theologians on their own ground. John Colet, a man of keen and exact judgement, often observes in intimate conversation ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... were nailed up under the tilt for the rifles and guns, so that they might always be ready to hand; for they were going into the land of wild beasts and savage men. Above all, their stores had to be so packed that their positions could be remembered, and they could be obtained when wanted, and yet leave space for blankets to ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... you are a mile and more nearer Heaven here in Benton than you were when beside the noble Hudson," supplemented the Colonel. "And the prices of living are reasonable; foh money, suh, is cheap and ready to hand. No drink is less than two bits, and a man won't tote a match across a street foh less than a drink. Money grows, suh, foh the picking. Our merchants are clearing thirty thousand dollars a month, and the professional gentleman who tries to limit ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... by taking orders? Parents do not demand that a house-master should be a clergyman, yet it reassures them when he is. And he would have to take orders some time, if he hoped for a school of his own. His religious convictions were ready to hand, but he spent several uncomfortable days hunting up his religious enthusiasms. It was not unlike his attempt to marry Mrs. Orr. But his piety was more genuine, and this time he never came to the point. His sense of decency forbade him hurrying into a Church that he reverenced. ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... off shore, while the recruiter's boat, also lying on its oars, kept afloat on the edge of the beach. When I landed with my trade goods, leaving my steering sweep apeak, Otoo left his stroke position and came into the stern sheets, where a Winchester lay ready to hand under a flap of canvas. The boat's crew was also armed, the Sniders concealed under canvas flaps that ran the length of the gunwales. While I was busy arguing and persuading the woolly-headed cannibals to ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... is true, find statements and narratives of other men ready to hand; one person cannot be an eye-and-ear witness of everything. But, merely as an ingredient, they make use only of such aids as the poet does of that heritage of an already-formed language to which he owes so much; historiographers bind together the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... extraordinary unanimity. About 1870, a physician from Valencia by the name of Marti, who had visited Vienna, gave him an account of the bread they make there, and of the yeast they use to raise it, enlarging upon the profits which lay ready to hand ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... with a topic, the examples of which are ready to hand, and may easily be multiplied, to almost any extent, by the reader for himself—the better realisation of our duties to society at large as distinct from particular individuals. When the primary mischief resulting from a wrong act falls upon individuals, and especially upon ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... a true chief who knew his men. Always to go after what he wanted was the basic characteristic of Guynemer. And now various details concerning the combat came one by one to light. Guerder had been half out of the machine to have the machine-gun ready to hand. When the gun jammed, Georges yelled to his comrade how to release it. Guerder, who had picked up his rifle, laid it down, executed the maneuver indicated by Guynemer, and resumed his machine-gun fire. This episode lasted two minutes during which Georges maintained the airplane under ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... Government services or any professional calling that agents, merchants, officials and the professional classes find employment, so that if in exile we surround ourselves with such luxuries and enjoyments as are reserved for the wealthy at home it is because they are ready to hand at but little cost, and that they serve in a degree to compensate us for the sweet pleasures of home-life which are forfeited by those who leave Old England to push their ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... for a halt," he said, "for here is wood ready to hand. This tree has been lying here for years, I can feel that it is ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... to do much exploring yet," he answered. "If we have no wreck to supply us with all sorts of things, we have a house ready to hand, not exactly as we would either of us have ordered it, I fancy, but better than we could build. Do you know what there is in it? We might begin our ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... field, but his donkey is too heavily laden to accompany him: he looks apprehensively at my rapidly approaching figure, and then, as if a happy thought suddenly occurs to him, he quickly takes the finest bunch of grapes ready to hand and holds them, out toward me while I am yet a good fifty yards away. The grapes are luscious, and the bunch weighs fully an oke, but I should feel uncomfortably like a highwayman, guilty of intimidating the man out of his property, were I to accept them in the spirit in which they ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... had brought up with him a pair of opera-glasses, with the intention of taking them to bits, so he had informed Foljambe, and washing their lenses, but he did not at once proceed about this, merely holding them ready to hand for use. Hermy and Ursy had gone back to their golf again after lunch, and so callers would be told that they were all out. Thus he could wash the lenses, when he chose to ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... a god, a personal god. When he doesn't have one ready to hand, he makes one up—and look at the havoc that has caused. A god of vengeance, a god who cheers you on to kill your enemies.... You've studied history. Tell me about the gods of various nations. Tell me about Thor ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of activity in Mr Powell was released with great force. He jumped. The flare-up was kept inside the companion with a box of matches ready to hand. Almost before he knew he had moved he was diving under the companion slide. He got hold of the can in the dark and tried to strike a light. But he had to press the flare-holder to his breast with one arm, his fingers were damp and stiff, his hands trembled a little. One ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... number of navigable streams soon led to shipbuilding in the interior. It was obviously cheaper to build the vessel at the edge of the forest, where all the material grew ready to hand, and sail the completed craft to the seaboard, than to first transport the material thither in the rough. But American resourcefulness before long went even further. As the forests receded from the banks of the streams before ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... to perfectly understand each other. I never looked forward to our future—I was too quietly happy in the present. I only dated from one meeting to another—from the dinner to the party, when he would be ready to hand us from our carriage, to take me off my father's arm in compliance with my mother's constant inquiry and request of, 'Where's Harry Morton? Here, Harry, do take charge of Mary,' a request which he always seemed delighted to obey. Then, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... she takes the city lady aside, and talking softly, the mercer and his partner, seeing them talk together, withdrew, but waited at a distance to be ready to hand them to the coach. So they began ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... circumstances, entirely replace that more natural one adopted by our ancestors. How can its methods compare for a moment with the spontaneous and hearty interest that guided the tools of those more happily placed craftsmen, whose subjects lay around them, of daily familiarity; whose artistic language was ready to hand and without confusion, affording an endless variety of expression to every new and individual fancy. Many of these craftsmen were, owing to their invigorating surroundings, gifted with a high poetic feeling for their art—a quality which gives ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... and saucers, before her ear caught the sound of voices—of loud voices too—on the steps above the landing-quay: and almost before she could catch her breath there came a knock on the door fit to wake the dead. Susannah whipped up her best apron off the chair where she had laid it ready to hand, and hurried out, pinning it ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... been waiting some time, when Sir David whispered to me that the birds were coming, and crouched down under the wall of the butt. His loader was kneeling behind him ready to hand him his second gun, with two cartridges stuck between his fingers to reload the first one. We were all intent on the grouse, and no one noticed that that wretched dog had worked his head out of his collar and was roaming about behind us. Just at that moment a mountain ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... made by Robinson Crusoe's savage," whispered Gunson. "There, get out the revolvers, and mind how you handle them. Be ready to hand me one if I ask after ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... tempest is loosed, stones rain down, a fusillade breaks forth, many precipitate themselves to the bottom of the bank, and pass the small arm of the Seine, now filled in, the timber-yards of the Isle Louviers, that vast citadel ready to hand, bristle with combatants, stakes are torn up, pistol-shots fired, a barricade begun, the young men who are thrust back pass the Austerlitz bridge with the hearse at a run, and the municipal guard, the carabineers rush up, the dragoons ply their swords, the crowd ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... everything. Don't let him come upon me unawares like this. In a moment of weakness, I may suddenly find myself out of my depths in the Ocean of Renunciation. Poet! Don't give me time for that. Do something. Do anything. Have you got anything ready to hand? Any play toward? ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore
... your lives for your dollars, while you have been denied most of the comforts of living. Hasn't Duff been up at the Mansion House, living on the fat of the land and smiling to himself every time he thought of you men, who would be ready to hand him all of your money as soon as it came to you? Is the gambler, who grows fat on the toil of others, but never toils himself, any better than the vulture that feeds upon the animals killed by others? Isn't the gambler a parasite, pure and simple? On whose ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... "Bob, you're crazier than I'd have thought. Where's the difference? I mean between handin' these folks over to justice for justice sake, and taking the reward the folks who're most to benefit by it are ready to hand out to me? Say, you can't talk that way, Bob. You can't just do it. Aren't the folks who carry out the justice in the land paid for it—from the biggest judge to the fellow who handles the levers of the electric chair? Doesn't the country hand ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... has taken place? Late in the eighteenth century two things happened; the discovery of the potential inherent in coal and its derivative, steam, with electricity yet unexploited but ready to hand, and the application of this to industrial purposes, together with the initiating of a long and astounding series of discoveries and inventions all applicable to industrial purposes. With a sort of vertiginous ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... exclaimed Triggs in surprise. "Then take my word they's heerd that Jerrem's to be hanged, and Joan's comin' up to be all ready to hand for 't." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... serenely in the reception-room, ready to hand her to her carriage, and accompany her to ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... consequence, we shall have no need to trouble about forcing particular conditions into existence—they will grow spontaneously out of the seed we have planted. All we have to do now, or at any time, is to take the conditions that are ready to hand and use them on the lines of the sort of "being" towards which we are directing our Thought—use them just as far as they go at the time, without trying to press them further—and we shall find by experience that out of ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... intimated that the London solicitors were ready to hand over the money, and Mavis was talking to her ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... the defences had been built in former times it would be impossible to do without them now; but this does not touch the argument, which is not that demonstration is unwise but that as long as a demonstration is still felt necessary, and therefore kept ready to hand, the subject of such demonstration is not yet securely known. Qui s'excuse, s'accuse; and unless a matter can hold its own without the brag and self-assertion of continual demonstration, it is still more or less of a parvenu, which we shall not lose much by ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... cruel, and those who knew him best felt sure that his acting under Buck Tom was a mere ruse. There is little doubt that he had done so for the purpose of obtaining an influence over a gang of desperadoes, ready to hand, as it were, and that the moment he saw his opportunity he would kill Buck Tom and take command. The only thing that had kept him from doing so sooner, it was thought, was the fact that Buck had the power ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... room as she thought he might have liked it, in severe yet perfect taste. It was now her study as it had been his,—the heavy oak table had a great pewter inkstand upon it and a few loose sheets of paper with two or three quill pens ready to hand,—some quaint old vellum-bound volumes and a brown earthenware bowl full of "Glory" roses were set just where they could catch the morning sunshine through the lattice window. One side of the room was lined with loaded ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... that the touch of a passing leaflet on the hook produces some sort of excitement. Every cast goes out with a cluster of hopes in pursuit, and dreams as to possibilities; you keep looking round to be satisfied that the gaff is ready to hand, and everything in the boat shipshape for action. As it was after luncheon to-day, you think of anything but a fish taking hold; you swish on monotonously and mechanically; you muse of friends at home and abroad, of the sport you enjoyed ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... joy that women have when they be with a man who loveth them, ye would say that there is no joy so great; and for this cause I marvel much that ye love not par amours even as these other ladies who all love. But if it pleaseth thee the matter is ready to hand; whereas I wot of a knight, fair and valiant and wise, who will love thee with a good will; a much rich man is he, and fairer by far than the coward recreant who hath left thee. And if ye dare love ye may have whatso ye dare ask; and so much ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... stern towards the water, and her stem slightly raised above it. Under her bows lay all the material for use the next day. The spare pieces of timber that were to be put under her, and the wedges which were to be driven in to raise her forward, were ready to hand, as were the jacks and levers. Everything, in fact, down to the long-handled mauls was ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... few years ago it was the custom of penmen to grind their India ink themselves; but, besides the difficulty of always ensuring the proper consistency, it was a cumbersome method, and is now little resorted to, especially as numerous excellent prepared inks are ready to hand. The better known of these prepared inks are, "Higgins' American" (general and waterproof), Bourgeois' "Encre de Chine Liquide," "Carter's," "Winsor & Newton's," and "Rowney's." Higgins' and Carter's have the extrinsic advantages of being put up in bottles which ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... more refined than her rosy-cheeked, merry-looking younger sister Polly, who gave promise of some day growing into the goodly proportions of her mother. Mr Deane, with full wig, lace coat, and sword by his side, stood in the old oak hall, accompanied by his son Jasper, ready to hand the ladies from their sedan-chairs as they were brought into the hall. The last to arrive, who was received with all due honour, was a Dr Nathaniel Deane, a cousin of Mr Deane's, the only physician, and one of the greatest ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... original. As far as epic poetry was concerned, Rome had poor material with which to deal: neither her mythology—the most prosaic and business-like of all mythologies—nor her history seemed to give any real scope for the epic writer. The Greek mythology was ready to hand, but it was hard for a Roman to treat it with high enthusiasm, and still harder to handle it with freshness and individuality. The purely historical epic is from its very nature doomed to failure. Treated with accuracy ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... calmly returned; "the name was ready to hand, and so I took it. I don't imagine it will make any difference to him. It's only a whim of mine, and with me there's no accounting for a whim. I make it a point to gratify every one that strikes me. I confess to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a romance, seems ever threatening to appear upon my monotonous horizon; a regular intrigue seems ever ready to explode in the midst of this little world of mousmes and grasshoppers: Chrysantheme in love with Yves; Yves with Chrysantheme; Oyouki with me; I with no one. We might even find here, ready to hand, the elements of a fratricidal drama, were we in any other country than Japan; but we are in Japan, and under the narrowing and dwarfing influence of the surroundings, which turn everything into ridicule, nothing ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... discovered some portion of truth or wisdom, after spending a great deal of time and trouble in thinking it over for himself and adding thought to thought; and it may sometimes happen that he could have found it all ready to hand in a book and spared himself the trouble. But even so, it is a hundred times more valuable if he has acquired it by thinking it out for himself. For it is only when we gain our knowledge in this way that it enters as an integral part, a living member, into the whole system of our ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... obtaining a broadside. But this she carefully avoided to expose, presenting only her full front. I had given Stofulus my Moore rifle, with orders to shoot her if she should spring upon me, but on no account to fire before me. Kleinboy was to stand ready to hand me my Purdey rifle, in case the two-grooved Dixon should not prove sufficient. My men as yet had been steady, but they were in a precious stew, their faces having assumed a ghastly paleness, and I had a painful feeling that I could place no reliance ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... places in his own armour, and even sometimes, it appears to me, to make admissions against himself which are quite unnecessary. A critic who desires to attack Mr. Darwin has only to read his works with a desire to observe, not their merits, but their defects, and he will find, ready to hand, more adverse suggestions than are likely ever to have suggested themselves to his own sharpness, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... at the many blacks who toiled for them and belonged to them. In the living-room, where were the eating-table, the billiard-table, and the phonograph, stood stands of rifles, and in each bedroom, beside each bed, ready to hand, had been revolvers and rifles. As well, Mister Haggin and Derby and Bob had always carried revolvers in their belts when they left the house to go among ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... in food purchasing may be enumerated as follows: Ordering by telephone. This permits the butcher or grocer, who has no time to make selection of foods, to send what comes ready to hand; whereas if the housekeeper did her own selecting, she could take advantage of special prices or "leaders"—food sold at cost or nearly ...
— Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918) • C. Houston Goudiss and Alberta M. Goudiss
... closet" of the philanthropic clergyman was found to work well, and was acceptable to his parishioners. One reason why it was so was because dry earth was ready to hand, or could be easily procured in a country district where labor was cheap. But where labor was dear and dry earth scarce, those who had to pay for the carting of the earth and the removal of the deodorized increment found it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... preserve himself, abstain from food, as the Roman noble did, in the tortures of the gout, and by abstaining end them? I answer, a man's taking food periodically is as much part of his life as the coursing of the blood in his veins. It is doing himself no less violence to refuse food ready to hand, when he is starving, on purpose that he may starve, than to open a vein on purpose to bleed to death. This, when the food is readily accessible: the case is otherwise when it is not procurable except by ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... opens—the jury enter the box. A murmur, swelling to almost a roar, from the crowded audience, is instantly followed by a deathlike stillness. The judges are called; but by this time it is noticed that the foreman has not the "issue-paper" ready to hand down; and a buzz goes round—"a question; a question!" It is even so. The ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... for active and useful service not to be lost. Dave immediately cast about to scrape up and collect such mud as came ready to hand, and with it began to build up an intercepting embankment to stop the foremost current, that was winding slowly, like Vesuvian lava, on the line of least resistance. Dolly followed his example, filling a ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan |
