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More "Knot" Quotes from Famous Books



... the St. Filipe shared with most other clubs the world over, that the doings of its committees in private session were always known within twenty-four hours and discussed by the knot of habitues of the house who kept close watch upon its affairs. It did not long remain a secret therefore, that the Executive Committee had taken a firm stand in regard to the troublesome matter of introducing strangers illegally, and that Fenton ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... I comprehended what was toward, and pulling gently at the string, I found, after some time, that it was attached to something heavy, on the outside of the casement. Therefore I set about drawing in string from above, and more string, and more, and then appeared a knot and a splice, and the end of a thick rope. So I drew and drew, till it stopped, and I could see a stout bar across the stanchions of the casement. Thereon I ceased drawing, and opening the little wallet, I found two files, one very fine, the other ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... curses thicken. Why, this Eve Who thought me once part worthy of her ear, And somewhat wiser than the other beasts,— Drawing together her large globes of eyes, The light of which is throbbing in and out Around their continuity of gaze,— Knots her fair eyebrows in so hard a knot, And, down from her white heights of womanhood, Looks on me so amazed,—I scarce should fear To wager such an apple as she pluck'd, Against one riper from the tree of life, That she could curse too—as a woman ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... "and you needn't try to coax me to change places with Nick any more. I've tried your boat, and I just don't like it. I've got to have room to stretch; and after a night aboard the Wireless I used to feel that I was tied up in a double knot all right. Nixy, I pass. Once ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... in that state of things and of opinions came the Austrian match, which promised to draw the knot, as afterwards in effect it did, still more closely between the old rival houses. This added exceedingly to their hatred and contempt of their monarchy. It was for this reason that the late glorious ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... a quantity of chamomile, and apply the hot fomentations. This dissolves the knot, and reduces the swelling ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... am not the author of The Irrational Knot. Physiologists inform us that the substance of our bodies (and consequently of our souls) is shed and renewed at such a rate that no part of us lasts longer than eight years: I am therefore not now in any atom of me the person who wrote The Irrational Knot in 1880. The last of that author ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... seeing the girl take a letter from her pocket, and, standing on tiptoe, drop it into a knot-hole ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... until he looked up and saw her great-great-granddaughter standing in the doorway, dressed in a cherry-colored gown, all gay with tarnished silver ribbons and yellowed lace. Because she didn't know any other way to dress her hair, she had tucked it in its usual knot at the nape of her lovely neck, but on top the neat parting was perched a narrow gold circlet with a tiny cherry-colored plume and she held her head audaciously high as she swept ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... Having written it, I pinned it proudly up in a corner of the room, and stood back awhile to look at it. My first effort at electioneering. There was no immediate sensation, for everybody else was too busy over his own affairs to notice my little poster, and so I went about from one little knot of talkers to another, hanging shyly on the outskirts in the hope that, when it broke up, I might lead the way casually towards my ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... strike in America—the telegraph operators' strike—and you have to find that the operators lost four hundred thousand dollars' worth of wages, and have had poorer wages ever since. Traps sprung suddenly upon employers, and violence, never took one knot out of the knuckle of toil, or put one farthing of wages into a callous palm. Barbarism will never cure the wrongs of civilization. ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... recollect what I have thence extracted of juice and substance, for the most part I find nothing but wind; for he is not yet come to the arguments that serve to his purpose, and to the reasons that properly help to form the knot I seek. For me, who only desire to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical and Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use. I would have a man begin with the main proposition. I know well enough what death and pleasure ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... returned quickly. He went to the pail of water and drank deeply with a consuming thirst. The water refreshed him, and he paced back and forth more and more swiftly, until he was breathing steadily and he could harden his muscles and knot his fists. He looked at the knife. It was a horrible necessity—the burying of that steel in a man's back, or his heart! Was there no other way, he wondered? He began searching the room. Why hadn't Marge brought him a club ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... stuck to it for another seven hours, when the crew called out "she sucks!" i.e., the well is dry. This was gladsome news. It is gladsome even under favourable circumstances, but here were men who had stood almost continuously up to the waist in water; and sometimes a knot of a sea would smash right over them. Their sleeves were doubled up and they had neither boots nor stockings on. Their hands were cut and their arms and legs were red raw with friction and salt water boils. Let him who may estimate the sufferings of ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... at a recalcitrant knot, then got it loose. Jerry stood up, hands still tied behind him. Rick fought with the knot and wished ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine

... ease, how lordly, or godlike rather, in the posture! Could one fancy a single curve bettered in the rich, warm, white limbs; in the haughty features of the face, with the golden hair, tied in a mystic knot, fallen down across the inspired brow? And yet what gentle sweetness also in the natural movement of the bosom, the throat, the lips, of the sleeper! Could that be diabolical, and really spotted with unseen evil, which was so spotless to the eye? The rude sandals of the monastic serf lay beside ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... distasteful, and wouldn't bear thinking about, much less arguing. I was too lazy to go and explain the matter, and writing was not my forte. Besides, I didn't want to thwart my mother in her plans, or hurt her feelings; and so the long and the short of it is, I solved the difficulty and cut the knot by crossing quietly over to Norway. I wrote a short note to my mother, making no allusion to her project, and since then I've been gradually working my way down to the bottom of the map of Europe, and ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... mow. The rope which went over the pulley-wheel up there in the roof ran out through a window under the eaves, and was made fast near the barn door outside, where anyone could haul on it. Creed testified the knot was one he had tied many days before. Ike was a timorous old man, with a wholesome fear of his employer, and he supported the testimony and made no reference to his eavesdropping of the previous evening, though he heard Creed swear before the jury that he did not ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... what has happened—I would—" He smiled, and Barbara knew he meant what he had said to her many times—about there being a parson in Lazette, a hundred miles or so northeastward—and of his eagerness to be present with her while the parson "tied the knot." His manner had always been jocose, and yet she knew of the ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... began to come. The first of them was a stout boy, with a white top-knot and spectacles. The housemaid brought him in and said, 'Compliments, and at what time was he to be fetched!' Mrs. Alicumpaine said, 'Not a moment later than ten. How do you do, sir? Go and sit down.' Then a number of other children came; ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens

... little ruffle at the neck, which would have made a dowdy of almost anybody but herself, was at once a fitting and becoming robe. Her lovely hair, which in the early days had hung in straight heavy plaits over her back, was now wound about her head, and kept in place by a band and knot of black velvet. She moved with the calm mien and serious grace of a woman at ease with herself and all the world. A faint hesitation, however, visited her when she stood without the closed door of the drawing-room. That curious prevision, which most of us experience at times, that ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... two Italian gendarmes, and pushing aside the little knot of idlers, he came into the centre of the group and stopped. Mordon lay on his face in a pool of blood, and one of the policemen was ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... 'Yessir' und 'No sir.' But you pe in der American ship, und you t'ink you are so good as der able seamen. Chris, mine boy, I haf ben a sailorman for twenty-two years, und do you t'ink you are so good as me? I vas a sailorman pefore you vas borned, und I knot und reef und splice ven you play mit topstrings ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... are made fast to the top of the packs. There is here to be learned a certain knot. In case of trouble you can reach from your saddle and jerk the whole thing free by a single pull ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... the more reckless and foolhardy, and more especially of those who were either merely hunters and not farmers, or else who were of doubtful character, lived entirely by themselves; but, as a rule, each knot of settlers was gathered together into a little stockaded hamlet, called a fort or station. This system of defensive villages was very distinctive of pioneer backwoods life, and was unique of its kind; without it the settlement of the west and southwest would have been ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... and activity to retrieve the fortune of the day. He was present in all parts of the battle; he charged in person both on horseback and on foot, where the danger was most imminent. His peruke, the sleeve of his coat, and the knot of his scarf, were penetrated by three different musket bullets; and he saw a great number of soldiers fall on every side of him. The enemy bore witness to his extraordinary valour. The prince of Conti, in a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... in passing? Some rascal had tried to burn down its beautiful old door from the inside, and the flames had left on all that high western wall smears like the fingermarks of hell, or the background of a Velasquez Crucifixion. Did he ever enter and stand, knotting his knot which never got knotted, in the dark loveliness of that grave building, where in the deep silence a dusty-gold little angel blows on his horn from the top of the canopied pulpit, and a dim carved Christ of touching beauty looks ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... striking that ever took place! We can only picture to ourselves the Roman tessellated pavement bestrewn with wine, bones, and fragments of the barbarous revelry. There were untamed Franks, their sun-burnt hair tied up in a knot at the top of their heads, and falling down like a horse's tail, their faces close shaven, except two moustaches, and dressed in tight leather garments, with swords at their wide belts. Some slept, some feasted, some ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... little knot of colored men and women who stood around Eliab Hill while he drew out the knife which was thrust through the paper into the coffin-shaped board laid across the front of his "go-cart," and with trembling lips read the message it contained—these silly creatures ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... work was not only very lucrative, but not at all difficult. Where Clive forded a deep water upon an unknown bottom, he left a bridge for his successors, over which the lame could hobble and the blind might grope their way. There was not at that time a knot of clerks in a counting-house, there was not a captain of a band of ragged topasses, that looked for anything less than the deposition of subahs and the sale of kingdoms. Accordingly, this revolution, which ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the deference which every one, old and young, paid to her, and at the house afterwards I looked on while a boisterous knot were ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... rather shortly, "I guess we've done our duty. We've taken a prisoner. I owe a duty to my backbone, which is sore from these rocks; and my right leg, which has been tied in a knot ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... problems required of a thorough sailing master. On the deck of a vessel he was in his element, and there was not a point in navigation or seamanship with which he was not familiar. He could not only hand, reef, and steer, but he could knot and splice, parcel and serve, as neatly and as skilfully as a veteran man-of-war's man. He was interested in such matters, and had spent hours and hours in making short and long splices, eye splices, Turk's heads, and other parts of ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... it was very hot, And the thread got in a knot, Drew the seam up in a heap— Polly calmly fell asleep. Then she had a lovely dream; Straight and even was the seam, Pure and spotless was the white; All the blocks were finished quite— Each joined to another one. Lo, behold! the quilt was done,— Lined and quilted,—and it seemed To cover Polly ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... finger idly some old Gordian knot, Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, And with much toil attain ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... and sunshine their lives passed on, until the appointed day arrived that was to see them bound, not by the graceful true-lovers' knot, which either might untie, but by a chain light as downy fetters if borne in mutual love, and galling as ponderous iron links, if heart answered not heart and the chafing spirit struggled ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur

... stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

... compression as literally to strangle it, until ultimately the vine becomes a stout tree and takes the place of that it has destroyed. The most noted and destructive of these vegetable boa-constrictors is the gigantic rope-like rata, whose Gordian knot nothing can untie. The tree once clasped in its coils is fated, yielding up its sap and life without a struggle to cast off its deadly enemy. Many trees are observed whose stems bear branches only, far above the surrounding woods, laden with bunches of alien foliage,—parasites ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... amount of wind, and so far this breeze that had come to us was a mere breathing, just enough perhaps to waft us along at a speed of about two knots, or two and a half, maybe, whereas what I wanted was at least a seven-knot breeze, that would take us clean out of sight of our starting-point before dawn. For I knew that, if the Bangalore was a clipper, so too was the Francesca; and if her people once caught sight of so much ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... man's hand, which had arisen above the eastern horizon grew and overspread the heavens in a pall that became ever more black and threatening. For a few days yet it seemed that perhaps even now the cataclysm might be averted, but gradually, in spite of all the efforts of diplomacy to loosen the knot, it became clear that the ends of the cord were held in hands that did not mean to release their hold till it was pulled tight. Servia yielded to such demands as it was possible for her to grant as an independent State; but the inflexible fingers never abated one jot of their strangling pressure. ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... heart to think of her, all shut up within herself." She withdrew the cloth that Hilda had drawn over the picture, and took another long look at it. "Poor sister Beatrice! for she was still a woman, Hilda, still a sister, be her sin or sorrow what they might. How well you have done it, Hilda! I knot not whether Guido will thank you, or be jealous of ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... side of the square. Having perused with no ordinary interest, though, I fear, with not much profit, this "Theory of a Future State," I crossed the quadrangle, passing right under the eastern towers of the Cathedral, and came suddenly upon a knot of persons gathered round a tall rectangular box, in which was enacting the melo-drama of Punch. These persons were enjoying the fun with a relish which was noways abated by the spectacle over the way. The whole thing was acted exactly as I had seen it before; but to me it was a novelty to hear ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... him in the face like an honest man, for a miracle was to make me one once more. My knot was cut—my course inevitable. Mine, after all, to prevent the very thing that I had come to do! My gorge had long since risen at the deed; the unforeseen circumstances had rendered it impossible from the first; but now I could afford to recognize the ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... for the roots of strength, comes upon the moral aspects at once.—War ennobles the age.—Battle, with the sword, has cut many a Gordian knot in twain which all the wit of East and West, of Northern and Border statesmen ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... several inches beyond the brim of his hat; his shirt-collar was tied with a piece of rope; his jacket was as much too short as his breeches were too long, one being out at the elbows, the other at the knees, the latter of which were tied with a wisp of straw tortured into a true lover's knot; his legs seemed nothing but a pair of short broom-sticks, of neither shape nor substance, ensconced in an old pair of spatterdashes; and the toes of his shoes curled upward like a pair of old-fashioned skates. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... what he should do if he were strong of will. A firm man in his place would cut the knot brutally—a letter to Mary, a letter to his people, and flight. After all, why should he sacrifice his life for the sake of others? The catastrophe was only partly his fault; it was unreasonable that he ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... ill-starred victim, in most instances the woman, herself,—and either party decides to separate, then, State and Church,—who never first inquire whether real love and natural, moral impulses, or only naked, obscene egotism tie the knot—now raise the greatest difficulties. At present, moral repulsion is but rarely recognized a sufficient ground for separation; at present, only palpable proofs, proofs that always dishonor or lower one ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... the subject when she met him out, and, disregarding his wrathful embarrassment, accused him in a loud voice of wearing his tie in a love-knot. She also called him a turtledove. The conversation ended here, the turtledove going away crimson ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... in the morning service for Yom Kippur, where it is said He showed "the knot of the phylacteries to the meek ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... i, we differ farder, and the knot harder to louse, for nether syde wantes sum reason. Thei in mihi, tibi, and sik otheres, pronunce it as it soundes in bide, manere; we as ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume

... our modern economic theory, the modern Teutonic state, is based on the belief: "Thou shalt covet, and the race that covets most and by power gets most, that race shall survive!" And here is the central knot of the whole dark tangle. The German coveting greater economic opportunities, knowing himself strong to survive, believes in his divine right to possess. It is conscious Darwinism—the survival of ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... intention of anchoring in them but the water was so deep and the ground so unfavourable for it that the stream anchor was eventually dropped in the offing in twenty-two fathoms: where during the night the tide set with unusual velocity and ran at the rate of one knot and ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... twelve miles off, now. It is four bells, and she has only got five hours' daylight, at most. However fast she is, she ought not to gain a knot and a half an hour, in this breeze and, if we are five or six miles ahead when it gets dark, we can change our ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... manner," said David, good-naturedly. "His heart is all right; I never met a better. What sort of a knot is that you are tying? Why, that is a granny's knot;" and he looked morose, at which she looked amazed; so he softened, and explained to her with benevolence the rationale of a knot. "A knot is a fastening intended to be undone again by fingers, and not to come undone without ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... mentioned me: she asked a number of questions, and my answers not displeasing her, I immediately entered into her service not, indeed, in the quality of favorite, but as a footman. I was clothed like the rest of her people, the only difference being, they wore a shoulder—knot, which I had not, and, as there was no lace on her livery, it appeared merely a tradesman's suit. This was the unforeseen conclusion of all my ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... admit there are tria juncta in uno, in this knot of savans) pretend to be governed by patriotic motives in attacking Mr. Schoolcraft. 'In what we have said, our object has been to expose error, and to shield ourselves from the imputation which would justly be thrown upon ourselves.' The construction of this ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... sharp passing disorder, which had, however, so much weakened her that she succumbed entirely to the blow. "Accountable for all," the words still rang in her ears, and the all for which she was accountable continually magnified itself. She had tied a dreadful knot, which Fanny, meek contemned Fanny had cut, but at the cost of grievous suffering and danger to her boys, and too late to prevent that death which continually haunted Rachel; those looks of convulsive agony came before her in all her waking and sleeping intervals. Nothing put them ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... supplied with a remarkable example of this combination of Aberdeen shrewdness with Aberdeen dialect. In the course of the week after the Sunday on which several elders of an Aberdeen parish had been set apart for parochial offices, a knot of the parishioners had assembled at what was in all parishes a great place of resort for idle gossiping—the smiddy or blacksmith's workshop. The qualifications of the new elders were severely criticised. One of the speakers emphatically laid down that ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... matches, filling and lighting her old man's pipe. They looked at the little child lying in her crib, and thought now they would do any thing in the world to make her happy and good. She was fast asleep now, and her little face had become untied—for you know it was in a knot when she lay down—and now she was smiling in her sleep. Perhaps she was dreaming about the old man with the beautiful voice, and thinking ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder

... with a knot of fashionable youths; among whom I was rather surprised to discover my at that ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... Ulys. That knot of friendship first must be untied, Ere we can reach our ends; for, while they love each other, Both hating us, will draw too strong a bias, And all the camp will lean that way they draw; For brutal courage is the soldier's idol: ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... hollowing out a bay here, and building a long point there; alluring the little bushes close to its side, and bending the tall slim trees over its current; sweeping a rocky ledge clean of everything but moss, and sending a still lagoon full of white arrow-heads and rosy knot-weed far back into the meadow. The shore guides and controls the stream; now detaining and now advancing it; now bending it in a hundred sinuous curves, and now speeding it straight as a wild-bee ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... had better picket Willis to-night," dryly remarked Ham. "He's liable to be floating off in his enthusiasm. But if he happens to be fortunate enough to lie on a friendly pine knot all night, he'll feel differently ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... desires. "I dare hardly look in the honest eyes of Le Gardeur after nursing such a monstrous fancy as that," said she; "but my fate is fixed all the same. Le Gardeur will vainly try to undo this knot in my life, but he must leave me to my own devices." To what devices she left him was a thought that sprang not up in her purely ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... like this, especially if you lose your head a bit, you get hold of the loose end of the rope that's hanging from the post with one hand, and the end of the line with the clothes on with the other, and try to pull 'em far enough together to make a knot. And that's about all you do for the present, except look like a fool. Then I took off the post end, spliced the line, took it over the fork, and pulled, while Mary helped me with the prop. I thought Jack might have come and taken the prop from her, but he didn't; he ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... that were wise and learned? Where is the troop readying their spears, that they do not smooth out this knot for me? Och, my grief, my ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... his plays had been acted, his hope was at an end; he solicited no addition of honour from the reader. He therefore made no scruple to repeat the same jests in many dialogues, or to entangle different plots by the same knot of perplexity, which may be at least forgiven him, by those who recollect, that of Congreve's four comedies, two are concluded by a marriage in a mask, by a deception, which perhaps never happened, and which, whether likely or not, ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson

... however, seek to explain, by various profound theories, the efficient causes of asserted mesmeric cures, a member of the Church of England, and popular preacher at Liverpool, the Rev. Hugh M. Neill, M.A., has cut the Gordian knot, by a sermon preached at St Jude's Church, on April 10th, 1842, and published in Nos. 599 and 600 of the Penny Pulpit, price twopence. By this sermon it appears to have occurred to the philosophic mind of the reverend divine, that mesmeric marvels ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... out like whip cracks, and he saw the yellow flame from the guns. There were two men in the dark room, standing at the bed where the boy lay rolled into a terrified knot. The guns cracked again and again, ripping the bedding, bursting the pillow into a shower of feathers, tearing the boy's pajamas from his thin body, a ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse

... dust like shoals of stars, the shining films of firmaments, that retreat and hover through all the boundless heights, the Nubecula nebula, looking like a bunch of ribbons disposed in a true love's knot, that most awful nebula whirled into the shape and bearing the name of the Dumb Bell, the Crab nebula, hanging over the infinitely remote space, a sprawling terror, every point holding millions of worlds, thinking of these all transcendent wonders, and then remembering his ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... forthwith, send Patty to her aunt's, and remain still at the academy myself till I should see what turn things would take at home. Accordingly, the next day good part of Patty's wages went to tie the connubial knot, and to the honest parson for a bribe to antedate the certificate; and she very soon after took up the rest to defray her journey ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... child! Come, wipe away thy tears, and show thy father A cheerful countenance. See, the tie-knot here Is off; this hair must not hang so dishevelled. Come, dearest! dry thy tears up. They deform Thy gentle eye. Well, now—what was I saying? Yes, in good truth, this Piccolomini Is a ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... imminent. But Murat was neither modest nor penetrating; he was a great and dashing cavalry general, at times an excellent commander-in-chief, but he was not a statesman. His conduct entangled the skeins of Spanish intrigue into a knot which ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... still survives in the court ceremonial though this by no means prevents the king from being a devout Buddhist. The priests are known as Bakus. They wear a top-knot and the sacred thread after the Indian fashion, and enjoy certain privileges. Within the precincts of the palace at Phnom Penh is a modest building where they still guard the sword of Indra. About two inches of the blade are shown to visitors, but except at certain festivals it ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... cousin Sally reeled off a 10 knot skane of yarn today. My valentine was an old country plow-joger. The yarn was of my spinning. Aunt says it will do for filling. Aunt also says niece is ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow

... much as drew a knife. By force of brawn, he wedged his way toward the coach, reached it, leaned forward, and caught up the curtain. And what he saw was a poke bonnet. The bonnet was a bower of lace and roses, held by a filmy saucy knot under a lady's chin. He saw a face framed within, of a skin creamy white, of lips blood-red, of hair like copper, and he saw a pair of eyes. They were gray eyes, and as they opened suddenly and wider upon him whom she thought must be her captor, ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... him across the heath, a little tumbling-boy emerges in soiled tights. He is half asleep. His father scrapes the fiddle. The boy shortens his red belt, kisses his fingers to us, and ties himself into a knot among the glasses on ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... heiress, once, of Bowdale Hall, A lovely lass, I knew— A Dandy paid his morning call, All dizen'd out to woo. I heard his suit the Coxcomb ply; I heard her answer—"No;" A true love knot he ne'er could tie, Who could not bend ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various

... not answer him, and he heard her trying to get undressed, and wondering at her clumsiness he asked himself if he should propose to unlace her stays for her. But he was afraid of irritating her, and thought it would be better to leave her alone to undo the knot as best she could. She tugged at the laces furiously, and thinking she might break them and accuse him of unwillingness to come to her ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... the trail-rope—a heavy "pluck" sounded in my ears, and the next instant I saw my horse part from the tree, and scour off over the prairie, as if there had been a thistle under his tail. I had knotted the rope negligently upon the bit-ring, and the knot ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... f'r Gawd's sake, look at what it means to me! Anny minute I'm on the job I'd be lookin' to see some bull with a star on 'im holdin' a gun on me; and after that, it's this f'r mine"—with a jerk of the head and a pantomimic gesture simulating the hangman's knot under ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... revenged for the "insult" which the hateful martinet Guentz had inflicted on him. He gradually worked up a genuine hatred of Guentz, and this hatred took an important place in his previously empty life. He vowed Guentz must stand in front of his pistol, even if it cost him his officer's sword-knot. With every reprimand this fury increased, till Landsberg determined to pick a quarrel with Guentz and somehow positively insult him, when a ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... ostensible cause, and the attention of the patient is frequently directed to the case by mere accident; at other times, blows, bruises, or continued pressure upon a part, may often be traced as the exciting cause. In either case, however, it is generally found in the state of a hard lump or knot, varying in its size, it is loose and moveable, without pain or discolouration of the skin. It may continue in this state for many months, or even years; it then enlarges, the surface of the tumour becomes more or less knotty ...
— Observations on the Causes, Symptoms, and Nature of Scrofula or King's Evil, Scurvy, and Cancer • John Kent

... into every part of almost everybody's appearance [at Streatham].' And again she writes:—'his blindness is as much the effect of absence [of mind] as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at times. He can see the colour of a lady's top-knot, for he very often finds fault with it.' Mme. D'Arblays Diary, i. 85, ii. 174. 'He could, when well, distinguish the hour on Lichfield town-clock.' Post, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... a brand-new leader, and attached it to the line with great deliberation and the proper knot. Then I gave my whole mind to the important question of ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... later the Flying Fish was again in the air, and heading at a twenty-knot speed in the direction from which the sound of roaring appeared to proceed, while several vultures had already mysteriously appeared high in the air above the carcase of the leopard, and were rapidly ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... Queen in 1590 had made the new poet of the Shepherd's Calendar a famous man. He was no longer merely the favourite of a knot of enthusiastic friends, and outside of them only recognized and valued at his true measure by such judges as Sidney and Ralegh. By the common voice of all the poets of his time he was now acknowledged as the first of living English poets. It is not easy for us, who live in these late ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... Felix on reading this effusion was poignant recollection of the little lawyer's look after Derek had made the scene at Tryst's committal and of his words: 'Nothing in it, is there?' His second thought: 'Is this the cutting of the knot that I've been looking for?' His third, which swept all else away: 'My poor little darling! What business has that boy to hurt her again ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... to come through it: and vnder the fore-said ornament they couer the haires of their heads, which they gather vp round together from the hinder part therof to the crowne, and so lap them vp in a knot or bundel within the said Botta, which afterward they bind strongly vnder their throtes. Hereupon when a great company of such gentlewomen ride together, and are beheld a far off, they seem to be souldiers with helmets on their heads carrying their launces vpright: for the said Botta appeareth ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... there for the very impression of his face as it met her from an opposite door. Charlotte, half-way down the vista, held together, as if by something almost austere in the grace of her authority, the semi-scared (now that they were there!) knot of her visitors, who, since they had announced themselves by telegram as yearning to inquire and admire, saw themselves restricted to this consistency. Her voice, high and clear and a little hard, reached her husband and her step-daughter while she thus placed ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... while to those in the Montauk the motion was still slow and heavy; and yet, of the two, the actual velocity was rather in favour of the latter, both having about what is technically termed "four-knot way" on them. The officer of the boat was quick to detect the change that was acting against him, and by easing the sheets of his lug-sails, and keeping the cutter as much off the wind as he could, he was soon ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... way for a week's visit with some relatives just out of Philly—in Devon, I believe, a sort of house-party, she's chaperoning—and a whole bunch of the old friends are to be there. Well, I got the 'Little Mother' all to myself from Newark to Philly and we went a twenty-knot clip, I tell you, for big as I am, I was just bursting to unload my worries upon someone, and that little woman seems born to carry the major portion of all creation's. She gets them, any way, and they don't seem to feaze her a particle. ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... had accomplished his object; he had secured the safety of his prize, and his crew, now swarming aloft, set to work rapidly to knot and splice the rigging which had been ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... in the recovery of the property, and to make it difficult for the thief to dispose of it, a description of the stolen jewelry was given out, and summarized as follows: a pearl collar; a diamond bow-knot with pear-shaped pearl pendant; a ring set with two diamonds and a ruby; a ring set with diamond and ruby; a small diamond ring; a solitaire diamond ring; a diamond marquise ring; a ring set with two diamonds crosswise; a diamond bracelet; ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... place where they had just been sitting below the picture, all the inmates of Anna Markovna's house and several outsiders had gathered. They were standing in a close knot, bending down. Kolya walked up with curiosity, and, wedging his way through a little, looked in between the heads: on the floor, sideways, somehow unnaturally drawn up, was lying Roly-Poly. His face was blue, almost ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... in nape of neck, which support the mane, thread a large sewing needle with heavy thread for small birds, a darning needle with string for larger. Double the cord and knot its end heavily. Run the needle through ridge of body just back of shoulders, carry cord to a little below where skull will set to and run cord through neck from back to front so it will protrude between jaws when they ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray

... inclined[55] to cut the Gordian knot by considering the shoulder structure of the pterodactyle as independently educed, and having relation to physiology only. This conception is one which harmonizes completely with the views here advocated, and with those of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... that of all English Governments must) in not seeming too strong; which is allowed to do anything, only on condition of doing the minimum? Of course, a Government is morally bound to keep itself in existence; for is it not bound to believe that it can govern the country better than any other knot of men? But its only chance of self-preservation is to know, with Hesiod's wise man, "how much better the half is than the whole," and to throw over many a measure which it would like to carry, for the sake of saving the few which ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... go. Home have I none—and not a sympathising house to turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of the heaven pour down on a forlorner head. Yet I tried 10 days at a sort of a friend's house, but it was large and straggling—one of the individuals of my old long knot of friends, card players, pleasant companions—that have tumbled to pieces into dust and other things—and I got home on Thursday, convinced that I was better to get home to my hole at Enfield, and hide like a sick cat in my corner. Less than a month I hope will bring home ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... thrusting two poles through auger holes bored in the logs of the walls, setting a leg at the corner where these met and lacing the bottom with hickory withes. The fourth had some rude planks nailed in it for a table, and a knot-hole in one of the logs served the primitive purpose of a salt-cellar. A pack of gaunt hounds quarrelled under the floor, and the sick woman stirred uneasily on her bed and expressed a wish that ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... later produced an extensive handkerchief from his pocket. He folded it into a manner of bandage and soused water from the other canteen upon the middle of it. This crude arrangement he bound over the youth's head, tying the ends in a queer knot at the back of ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... admitted into the church without a card. Often "no cards" are issued, and the church is jammed by the outside throng, who profane the holy temple by their unmannerly struggles to secure places from which to view the ceremony. Two clergymen are usually engaged to tie the knot, in order that a Divorce Court may find it the easier to undo. A reporter is on hand, who furnishes the city papers with a full description of the grand affair. The dresses, the jewels, the appearance of the bride and groom, and the company generally, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... United States Senate for insertion in the journal does not appear. We only know that five thousand copies of this wearisome and stupid Exposition were ordered to be printed, and that in the hubbub of the incoming of a new administration it attracted scarcely any attention beyond the little knot of original nullifiers. Indeed, Mr. Calhoun's writings on this subject were "protected" by their own length and dulness. No creature ever read one of them quite through, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... now the political monitors of the community, as when, at the time of the Revolution, the election sermon preached in Boston, and printed in pamphlet form, was spelled by the light of the pine-knot in the cabin on the Berkshire plantation, inspiring the rustic breast with holy zeal to deliver the Israel of the New World from the yoke of the English Sennacherib. The newspaper has taken the place of the pulpit as a political beacon ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... Every cord and knot and color had its meaning—but what? I searched every avenue of memory to assist me; for I had latterly confined my studies exclusively to Eastern archeology, and what I had known of the two great autochthonous civilizations of the American Continent was packed in some dim and little ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... very nice, thank you; and yet I feel like a doll, helpless and fine, and fancy I was more of a woman in my fresh gingham, with a knot of clovers in my hair, than I am now. Aunt Pen was very kind to get me all these pretty things; but I'm afraid my mother would look horrified to see me in such a high state of flounce externally and so little room to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... then we liked our grown-ups best, for then they seemed half children again. Uncle Roger and Uncle Alec lolled in the grass like boys; Aunt Olivia, looking more like a pansy than ever in the prettiest dress of pale purple print, with a knot of yellow ribbon at her throat, sat with her arm about Cecily and smiled on us all; and Aunt Janet's motherly face lost its every-day look of ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... gratefully made to Doubleday, Page and Company for "The Gift of the Magi" from Stories of the Four Million by O. Henry; to Hamlin Garland for "A Camping Trip" from Boy Life on the Prairie, published by Harper and Brothers; to Henry Holt and Company for "A Thread without a Knot" from The Real Motive, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher; to Charles Scribner's Sons for "Friends" from Little Aliens by Myra Kelly, and for the story, "American, Sir," by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews; to Booth Tarkington ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... with a lock and key like most boxes, but with a strange knot of gold cord. There never was a knot so queerly tied; it seemed to have no end and no beginning, but was twisted so cunningly, with so many ins and outs, that not even the cleverest ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... a big hole, like a worm that has crawled into the knot of a lotush-root, and is looking for a hole to creep out at. Now who was I going to accuse of thish wicked deed? [He recalls something.] Oh, yesh! I remember. I was going to accuse poor Charudatta of thish wicked deed. Beshides, ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... further tears from him, no one saw them fall but me. When he was laid down again, I hovered about him, in a remorseful state of mind that would not let me rest, till I had bathed his face, brushed his "bonny brown hair," set all things smooth about him, and laid a knot of heath and heliotrope on his clean pillow. While doing this, he watched me with the satisfied expression I so linked to see; and when I offered the little nosegay, held it carefully in his great hand, smoothed a ruffled leaf or two, surveyed and smelt it with an air of ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott

... Come, my child! Come, wipe away thy tears, and shew thy father A cheerful countenance. See, the tie-knot here Is off—this hair must not hang so dishevelled. 60 Come, dearest! dry thy tears up. They deform Thy gentle eye—well now—what was I saying? Yes, in good truth, this Piccolomini Is a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... I winna quat it An' if ye mak' objections at it, Then han' in nieve some day we'll knot it, An' witness take, An' when wi' Usquabae we've wat ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... knot of these difficulties by arranging to have dinner served at small separate tables, thus securing several places of honour, but not even by these means could he satisfy ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... laid eyes on him—he who kept his napkin tied in a sailor's knot in my cupboard and came to breakfast, luncheon, or dinner when he pleased, waking up my house abandoned by the marsh with his good humour, joking with Suzette, my little maid-of-all-work, until her fair cheeks grew the rosier, and rousing me out of the blues with his quick ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... a knot of men surrounding the golden horse, and as his rider mounted, Oro put on a good show, rearing to paw the air with his forefeet as if he wished nothing better than to meet his gray rival in an impromptu boxing match. Then he nodded his head ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... her bare white arm, with its upturned sleeve, she carried a small split basket half filled with persimmons. She was of an almost pure Saxon type—tall, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed, with a skin the colour of new milk, and soft ashen hair parted smoothly over her ears and coiled in a large, loose knot at the back of her head. As he reached her she smiled faintly and a little brown mole at the corner of her mouth played charmingly up and down. After the first minute, Gay found himself fascinated by this ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... her fingers through her hair, making it a little more disordered than before. It was pretty hair,—or, rather would have been, if it were better cared for. Dark, almost black, with a slight inclination to curl, it was bunched into a tousled knot that ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells

... activity—wooden horses and most unseaworthy boats describing a jerky circle to the squeaking of tin whistles and purposeless thrumpings of a drum. Close by a crop-eared lurcher, tied beneath one of the vans, dragged choking at his chain and barked himself frantic under the stones and teasing of a knot of idle boys. A half-tipsy slut of a woman threatened a child, who, in soiled tights and spangles, crouched against the muddy hind-wheel of a wagon, tears dribbling down his cheeks, his arm raised to ward off the impending blow. From the menagerie—an ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... conscientious Scotchman, in early times, in Eastern Pennsylvania, who married his wife under protest against the constitution and laws of the Government, and especially, against the authority, power, and right of the magistrate who had just tied the knot.[93] ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... thoughts," said he, "it is the other street we must reconnoiter; and, if we don't see her there, we will enter the shop, and by dint of this purse we shall soon untie the knot of the Woffington riddle." ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... words and unspoken thoughts Hortense sat silent and watchful. Presently the talk lapsed: with the best will in the world a small knot of people cannot go on elaborately embroidering upon a trivial incident forever. There was a shifting of groups, a change in subjects. Yet Hortense continued to glower and to meditate. What had the incident really amounted to? What did the man himself really amount to? ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... introduce the arm, and shake up the contents. The only other furniture of the room was a chair with a broken back. On the floor lay the gipsy's wallet, and his abarcas, which he had taken off to avoid noise during his clandestine entrance into the house. The gipsy himself was busy tying slip-knot at the end of a stout rope about seven or eight yards long. Another piece of cord, of similar length and thickness, lay beside him, having much the appearance of a halter, owing to the noose already made at one of its extremities. The tiles and rafters covering the room ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... helplessly round and round with the eddying water, each circle bringing it nearer in-shore to our feet. I can see now its bright fearless eye, full of suffering, but yet unconquered: its slender neck proudly arched, and bearing up the small graceful head with its coronal or top-knot raised in defiance, as if to protest to the last against the cruel shot which had just been fired. I was but a spectator, having merely wandered that far to look at my eel-lines, yet I felt as guilty as though my hand had pulled the trigger. Just as the noble bird drifted to our feet,—for I could ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... walked forward next morning to summon Andy's assistance for his luggage, he found that gentleman the focus of a knot of passengers, to whom he was imparting information in his own peculiar way. 'Throth an' he talks like a book itself,' was the admiring comment of a woman with a child on one arm, while she crammed her tins into her red box ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... conducted her second venture in freshmen to the spot where a knot of girls stood patiently awaiting her tardy appearance. Helen alone was missing, having gone into the town ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... the heel and through the loop, then back round the heel and through a slit in the other or short end. The long end is then carried under the foot and round the instep and finally tied off with a knot. This has been improved upon by a ring and buckle being added to save slitting the leather or ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse

... embarrassed me. When you (most properly) insisted on my giving up some of my evenings to him, you necessarily made it impossible for me to appear on the stage. The one excuse I could make to the theater was, that I was too ill to act. It did certainly occur to me to cut the Gordian knot by owning the truth. But your father's horror, when you spoke of the newspaper review of the play, and the shame and fear you showed at your own boldness, daunted ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... corner—the old gentleman in nankeen, with the green shade over his eyes, and the fat little dame by his side; and those young ladies at the door of the large hotel opposite, and the spruce militaire there at the window, and that knot of men in long brown surtouts, one of whom is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... all a little knot of ragged newsboys stood their ground in front of the house. Until quiet was restored they had evaded each renewed command of officer or passer-by, and stayed there; whispering now and again in excited groups and pointing up to the house. Finally ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... a riddle with a vengeance. It is so easy to say "I'll cut that Gordian knot!" and then pack one's tooth-brush and start off unknotting, but it is quite another matter when one comes face to face with the problem and is met by the "buts" of those who have previously been essaying ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... Golden Plover Semi-palmated Plover Belted Piping Plover Wilson Plover Piping Plover Killdeer Willett Greater Yellow Legs Summer Yellow Legs Turnstone Red Phalarope Northern Phalarope Avocet Oyster Catcher Long-billed Curlew Jack Curlew Hudsonian Godwit Sanderling Black-necked Stilt Dowitcher Knot Stilt Sandpiper Solitary Sandpiper Spotted Sandpiper Red-backed Sandpiper White-rumped Sandpiper Least Sandpiper ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis

... and we may observe, that silken ringlets serve exceedingly well as thread, when the work in hand is the netting of a husband. Always employ the brightest colors you can, and the final operation will be the joining together, which should be neatly finished off with a marriage knot, and the husband will be ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... in silence they heard the sound of hoofs on the frozen ground, and a moment later Bailey's pleasant voice arose: "Hullo, the house!" Burke went to the door, and Blanche rose to meet the visitor with a smile, the knot in her forehead smoothed out. There was no alloy in her pure respect and friendship ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland

... think, or to hope, that he was a poet, and wrote Pindaric Odes to Temple, to the king, and to the Athenian Society, a knot of obscure men, who published a periodical pamphlet of answers to questions, sent, or supposed to be sent, by letters. I have been told that Dryden, having perused these verses, said, "Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet;" and that this ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... "'She has a knot of russet hair: It seems a simple thing to wear Through years, despite of fashion's check, The same deep coil about the neck, But there it twined When first I knew her, And learned with passion to pursue her, And if she changed it, ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Graham. It was no tumultuous revolt had occurred that night, no equal warfare, but a splendidly organised coup d'etat. Ostrog's grasp of details was astonishing; he seemed to know the business of even the smallest knot of black and red specks that ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... the great knot in his throat worked convulsively in the bondage of his shabby collar. He began again when he recovered ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... made up your mind,' said another man, who had been talking aside to a little knot of three; 'but for the life of me I couldn't make it out one way or the other. What did you think ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... together with the boys, gathered for a consultation. Tom Barnum, meantime, seeing that dawn had come, and that the first faint streaks of daylight were beginning to light up the woods outside, left the knot of sailors to whom he had been recounting the events of that exciting night and re-entering ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... of crocheting in order that she might construct a Tam o' Shanter cap. It had been a difficult task, and the result was far from satisfying. Dropped stitches and uneven rows were in evidence all over the creation of dark red, with its bushy little knot on top. But Janet had an eye for the impressionistic touch, and as she glanced in the mirror of Susan Jane's bureau, the general effect was gratifying. Under the dull red the splendid, dusky gold of the girl's hair shone exquisitely. Janet had trained ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... outward bravery is not everything with a woman. It may be that a man in selecting his wife rarely looks for much else;—for that in addition, of course, to money; but though he has looked for little else, some other things do frequently force themselves on his attention soon after the knot is tied; and as Caroline Waddington will appear in these pages as wife as well as maid, as a man's companion as well as his plaything, it may be well to say now something as to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... sea would in our day be exchanging long-range fire after a very few minutes of rapid approach. It was to be nearly six hours before Nelson and Villeneuve came within fighting distance. The wind had become so slight that the British fleet was often moving at a speed of barely more than a knot ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... out into the water, and with him Two Whistles. The rear guard passed up the trail, and the little knot of men with the officers stood halted on the bank. There were nine—the two Indian police, the two lieutenants, and five long muscular boys of K troop of the First Cavalry. They remained on the bank, looking at the thick painted swarm that ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... using the pole as a guide. The rope, attached to the pole, was perhaps two feet above the bottom. He freed the end of the rope, unwound a few feet, slipped the end through his belt, and secured it with a slip knot. Then, hands extended, he began the slow work of covering the cove bottom inch by inch, searching for the ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... "Bless my top knot!" exclaimed Mr. Damon a few days after this, as they were on the vessel. "I think for queer adventures this one of ours in the city of gold, Tom, puts it all over the ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton

... enough, how she had arranged the bedclothes to look as though, she slept under them: how she had got into the box because, by reason of the knot-hole in the lid, she had been able to draw it over her, and set the few nails that were hanging in it in their places. She told him how she had laughed to herself when he took her with such speed and care across the lake that was her ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... swarmed and passengers hurried to and fro. Now everything was silent and deserted, except for the still figures up on the bridge and below in the engine and fire rooms, guiding and powering the great vessel onward through the night at a twenty-four-knot clip. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, Familiar as his garter: that when he speaks, The air, a chartered libertine, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... sit in mother's lap, That she may untie your cap, For the little strings have got Twisted into such a knot; Ah! for shame,—you've been at play With the ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various

... Phrygians, they were directed by an oracle to choose a king, whom they should first see approaching in a wagon. Gordius and his son Midas were the first they saw approaching the town, and the crown was conferred upon them. The wagon was consecrated, and became celebrated for a knot which no one could untie. Whosoever should untie that knot was promised the kingdom of Asia. It remained untied until Alexander the Great ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... translucent film of smooth water. That sufficed. He thundered on ahead of Abdullah, who, perhaps, thought it advisable to leave this final development in the hands of a European. There was a scurry among a small knot of men on the beach. A sharp hail was answered at a considerable distance from the sea. Royson rode with such furious speed that he now made out a white-robed female figure struggling in the grasp of a man attired in the burnous and hood ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... against the parapet where palms wave luxuriously in the summer breeze. The newspaper drops from his hand; he closes his eyes and is in dreamland, where strikes come not. Mother knits contentedly in her seat, with a smile on her face that was not born of the Ludlow Street tenement. Over yonder a knot of black-browed men talk with serious mien. They might be met any night in the anarchist cafe, half a dozen doors away, holding forth against empires. Here wealth does not excite their wrath, nor power their plotting. In the roof garden anarchy is harmless, even though a policeman typifies its government. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... the flanking party. He'll have to come past, for I don't think there is any other way down. We've got one of your chaps up there—a funny old bird with a red top-knot. See you later, I hope! Good day, ladies!" He touched his helmet, tapped his camel, and trotted on after ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle

... first and chief care was to go clear of the rocks which lie on either side the harbour's mouth, and which they performed pretty well. Then, seeing no remedy, they consulted what to do next. They could carry no sail at first—no, not a knot; nor do anything but run away afore it. The only thing they had to think on was to keep her out at sea as far as they could, for fear of a point of land called the Dead Man's Head, which lies to the eastward ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe

... bowed my head meekly enough while Chepa—the smiling, good-natured negress—gathered up the rustling folds of the green silk petticoat and slipped it over my shoulders. I made no demur while she looped and twisted the long tresses of my yellow hair, fastening it high with a tall comb, and tying a knot of black velvet riband upon each of the wilful little bunches of curls that ever come ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock

... together before her, and she sat back on her stool. A fluttering, long-drawn sigh escaped her. Now, if she could slip out and make her escape! Now—she looked round. She was not far from the door; to withdraw seemed easy. But a staring, whispering knot of gentlemen and pages blocked the way; and the girl, ignorant of the etiquette of the Court, and with no more than a week's experience of Paris, had not the courage to rise and pass alone ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... the knot of the veins and the fountain of the blood which races through all the limbs, was set in the place of guard, that when the might of passion was roused by reason making proclamation of any wrong assailing them from without or being perpetrated by the desires within, quickly ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... on a sunny afternoon late in the summer of 1866 that a little knot of loafers and hangers-on of the hotels gathered in the yard of the town's larger hostelry and watched Bill Kenna show an admiring world how to ride a wild, unbroken three-year-old horse. It was not ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... seemed to express determination, from her firm chin to her dark curly hair, which would always look rough, although it was brushed back from her forehead and fastened up securely in a knot at the back of her head. Nothing could make it lie flat and smooth, however, and in spite of all Delia's efforts, it curled and twisted itself defiantly wherever it had a chance. Perhaps, by doing so, it helped to soften a face which would have been a little hard without ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton

... Cornelia had four young'uns and dem chillen fat and slick as I ever seen. All de niggers have to stoop to Aunt Rachel jes' like dey curtsy to Missy. I mind de time her husband, Uncle Jim, git mad and hit her over de head with de poker. A big knot raise up on Aunt Rachel's head and when Marse 'quire 'bout it, she say she done bump de head. She dassn't tell on Uncle Jim or Marse sho' beat him. Marse sho' proud dem black, slick chillen of Rachels. You couldn't find a yaller chile on he ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... enjoyed her triumph with a frank and girlish pleasure. She had conquered her audience before opening her lips. She is of rather tall stature, a figure slight but perfectly modeled, her well-shaped head dressed Greek fashion with the simple knot behind, her arms, which the Greek costume displayed to the shoulder, long, white, and of a roundness seldom attained so early in life, her walk and all her attitudes consummately graceful and expressive. A more general form of disparagement is that which pretends to account for all ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... went back up the tree, his claws pattering lightly on the bark. He had a fine knot hole high up the trunk, and his family were sound asleep in it, surrounded by a great store of nuts. There was a warm place for him, the head of the family, but he could not stay in it. After a while he was compelled to go out again, and look at the ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... variety of spoken words and unspoken thoughts Hortense sat silent and watchful. Presently the talk lapsed: with the best will in the world a small knot of people cannot go on elaborately embroidering upon a trivial incident forever. There was a shifting of groups, a change in subjects. Yet Hortense continued to glower and to meditate. What had the incident really ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... lariat rope, or simply "rope," in the West, is thirty-five or forty feet long. Usually it is five-eighths, four-ply manilla, but the best are of braided rawhide. Those bought at stores have a metal knot or honda through which the slipnoose runs; but cowboys and Boy Scouts do not need this. They tie their own honda, which should be a small fixed loop with space enough for the rope to pass freely. The inside of the loop, ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... my child! Come, wipe away thy tears, and shew thy father A cheerful countenance. See, the tie-knot here Is off—this hair must not hang so dishevelled. 60 Come, dearest! dry thy tears up. They deform Thy gentle eye—well now—what was I saying? Yes, in good truth, this Piccolomini Is a most ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... their offices. In that case they would have waited long for the recognition of their talents or a demand for their services. Out of this characteristic of the times also grew the street discussions I have adverted to. There was scarcely a day or hour when a knot of men might not have been seen near the door of some prominent store, or about the steps of the court-house eagerly discussing a current political topic—not as a question of news, for news was not then received ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... declared, he would make over one half of his estate immediately to his son, and that his daughter-in-law should be secured in a jointure of four hundred — Tabby proposed, that, considering their youth, they should undergo one year at least, of probation before the indissoluble knot should be tied; but the young gentleman being very impatient and importunate, and the scheme implying that the young couple should live in the house, under the wings of his parents, we resolved to make them happy without ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... been effusive, and who took it for granted that anyone Mr. Winthrop Adams invited to the house was welcome. Her forehead was high and rather narrow, her brown hair was combed straight back and twisted in a little knot high on her head, in which in the afternoon, or on company occasions, she wore a large shell comb. Her features were rather long and spare, and she wore plain little gold hoops in her ears because ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... it off her mother's shoulders and wound it carefully round her own, tying the two ends in a knot at the back. After all, she reflected, if she had to go to bed at half past eight she would keep the shawl on. Which resolution ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield

... the sun in my eyes, I peered at him as he passed, noting the strange cut of his regimentals, the silver buttons stamped with a motto in relief, the curious sword-knot of twisted buck-thong heavily embroidered in silver and scarlet wampum. Wampum? And what was that devil's device flashing on ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... a new frock of heavy white crepe with a wide white hat for this occasion. Instead, with last-moment decision, she had come in one of the straight blue frocks, the wide patent-leather belt, a knot of orange and blue ribbon, representing her active membership in a local canteen service, at her throat. She came glowing through the daring simplicity, flamboyantly and to the nth power of Lilly's ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... man exercised a physical influence upon her, which quivered in her very heart, and troubled it. But the trouble was pleasure. The purple mantle which celebrity had draped for a moment round Nathan's shoulders dazzled the ingenuous young woman. When tea was served, she rose from her seat among a knot of talking women, where she had been striving to see and hear that extraordinary being. Her silence and absorption were noticed by ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... hour When Britain's belt was tightly buckled Against the prowling U-boat's power, Thou earnest to us newly suckled; And oh! if interest ties the knot That binds us to our fellow-creatures, Be sure we loved thee on the spot, My pigling ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various

... of an apple-tree, much nearer the house than they usually build, a pair of high-holes took up their abode. A knot-hole which led to the decayed interior was enlarged, the live wood being cut away as clean as a squirrel would have done it. The inside preparations I could not witness, but day after day, as I passed near, I heard the bird hammering away, ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... shove from behind precipitated me into the bosom of the speaker, who returned me with thanks, and before I could apologise, into the hands of the sender. Thence I found myself passed on by a side impetus to a knot of juveniles, who, not requiring my presence, passed me on to a senior standing by, who shot me back to a friend, who sent me forward among the boxes into the arms of the matron, who indignantly hustled me up the passage, where finally I pulled up short in the grasp of a gentleman who at that ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... mountain. The first was clothed in a shirt of mail, the other in the Circassian dress: except that he wore a Persian sabre instead of a shashka,[38] suspended by a laced girdle. His left arm was covered with blood, bound up with a handkerchief, and supported by the sword-knot. The faces of both were concealed. For some time he rode behind them along the slippery path, which overhung a precipice; but at the first open space he galloped by them, and turned his horse round. "Salam aleikom!" said he, opposing their passage along ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... before, was a revolution for honest ends. Fools saw only its outer form—its laughable aspects; but at bottom it was a serious business, a moral reaction. In August, 1647, with the first breath of freedom, Parliament stepped forward and cut the knot. It ordered, in the first place, the destruction of the Louviers Sodom; the girls were to be dispersed and sent back to their kinsfolk. In the next, it decreed that thenceforth the bishops of the province should, four times a-year, send ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... boy's part: he's so eager to save his neck as you or me either. Awnly Jonathan's bin here and tawld up summat that makes un want to be off to wance, for he says, what us all knaws, without he's minded to it you can't slip a knot round Jonathan's clapper; and 'tain't that Jerrem's afeared o' his tongue, awnly for the keepin' up o' pace and quietness he fancies 'twould be better for un to make ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... was submitted to the eyes and hands of persons experienced in such matters, and it was declared on all sides that the thing was not of English manufacture. It was about a foot long, with a leathern thong to the handle, with something of a spring in the shaft, and with the oval loaded knot at the end cased with leathern thongs very minutely and skilfully cut. They who understood modern work in leather gave it as their opinion that the weapon had been made in Paris. It was considered that Mealyus had brought it with him, and concealed it in preparation ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... in his ill-health and dejection, Kaid drank deep of the cup of Mahomet, the red eyes of fanaticism would be turned upon the Armenian, as upon the European Christian. He had forgotten it for the moment, but when, coming into Kaid's Palace, a little knot of loiterers spat upon the ground and snarled, "Infidel—Nazarene!" with contempt and hatred, the significance of the position came home to him. He made his way to a far quarter of the Palace, thoughtfully weighing the circumstances, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... night I set off with the captain to Portsmouth. As he had promised to make me a sailor, and I wished to become one, I soon picked up a fair amount of nautical knowledge; and by the time the ship was ready for sea, I could not only knot and splice, but had acquainted myself with every portion of her from ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... real as another," said the marine; "but on we go, and on we did go for the whole of the rest of that day, at the rate of about half a knot an hour, as near as I could guess at it. The weather changed, and a dirty sort of fog came down on us, so that we couldn't see ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... the splendid landscape, which extended far away in the distance. Her hair was dressed, but she wore a morning dress of thin material, white, with narrow blue stripes; a large handkerchief of plain cambric falling upon her shoulders, left visible the two ends and the knot of a little silk cravat, of the same blue as the girdle of her dress. Seated in a large, high-backed elbow chair made of carved ebony and cramoisie velvet, her elbow supported by one arm of this seat, her head a little bent down, she supported her cheek upon the back of her small white hand, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... of them sat round a lantern, in the dark bowels of the ship, like a knot of charcoal burners in a pine forest ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... given another inspection and then staked to the ground with a strong rope, fastened by a slip knot. Then the engine was started up and the three lads ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer

... Charles Warren's camp, and there found a gang of prisoners—forty-eight of them—all in a row almost the same number that the Boers had taken in the armoured train. Looking at these very ordinary people, who grinned and chattered without dignity, and who might, from their appearance, have been a knot of loafers round a public-house, it was difficult to understand what qualities made them such a ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... I said, "never seem to have the courage to retrench. Why not take your family to a cheap boarding-house for a year or two? Cut the Gordian knot and get right down to bed rock? Boarding-house food may be bad for the spirit, but it's good for the body. My father had dyspepsia one spring, and his doctor told him to spend six weeks in a summer hotel—any summer hotel—and take all his meals ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... spoke—in the direction of a racking cough, that rose above the confused, murmuring, whispering, shaken voices on every hand; and in a little knot of people he was, for a moment, pressed close ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... and praises from these lonely and lowly homes in the wilderness. Thus characters were formed for heaven, and life was ennobled, and often far more of true nobility of soul and more real and satisfying enjoyment were found in those log huts, illumined only by the blaze of the pitch pine knot, than Louis XIV. and his courtiers ever experienced amidst the splendors and the luxuries ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... went farther out upon the lake, and I soon had all that was necessary to enable me to keep a "respectful distance" between the Splash and the row-boat. By this time my anger had abated, and I had begun to enjoy the affair. With a six-knot breeze I could have it all my own way. I could still see the boys on the shore, watching the chase with the liveliest interest and satisfaction. They were not silent observers, for an occasional cheer or shout was borne to my ears over the lake, and I could see the waving of hats, and the swinging ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... found all over our continent, Europe, and Asia, is the familiar KNOT-GRASS or DOORWEED (P. aviculare), often trailing its leafy, jointed stems over the ground, but at times weakly erect, to display its tiny greenish or white pink-edged flowers, clustered in the axils of oblong, bluish-green leaves that are considerably less than ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... I'll make ye snug enough. So saying he procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning like an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last the plane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven's sake to quit — the bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... I reached the point where I had joined the poor man who had fallen,—it was a Mr. Turner, formerly a captain in the army, and a person deservedly held in high esteem by all his friends and neighbors,—a knot of two or three armed men stopped me, and after a short parley directed me to some one in authority, who would hear my story. The guard who escorted me to the great man was garrulous and kind enough to tell me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... but he must not do it once for all or he would rob the critics of their most cherished phrase. He reminds me of the constructors of our Atlantic "greyhounds," each longer by a yard or two than the last, each swifter by a fraction of a knot, each with a few more tons displacement, all pronounced to be the final word in scientific invention, yet all reserving something for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various

... that is how to get into your garden. She catches glimpses of it over the fence or through the pickets, and her imagination or epigastrium is inflamed. When the spot is surrounded by a high board fence, I think I have seen her peeping at the cabbages through a knot-hole. At last she learns to open the gate. It is a great triumph of bovine wit. She does it with her horn or her nose, or may be with her ever ready tongue. I doubt if she has ever yet penetrated the mystery of the newer patent fastenings; ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... degraded. She was a magnificently proud and noble-looking creature, but perhaps even the noblest women could stoop to trick from—love! And this thought caused him to jump up suddenly—much to Zara's astonishment. And she saw the veins show on the left side of his temple as in a knot, a peculiarity, like the horseshoe of the Redgauntlets, which ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... hindrances to marriage were much more stringent with the mother's relations than with the father's. Divorce was frequent and easy; the power to exercise it rested with the husband; but the wife could, and often did, run away, and thus compel a divorce. A Malagasy proverb compared marriage to a knot so lightly tied that it could be undone by a touch. Such freedom was due to the great desire for children; every child was welcome in the family, whatever its origin.[178] The children belonged to the husband, and so complete was this possession, that in the case of a divorce not only the children ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... newspaper offices, and there's always somebody coming in for soda-water, or cigars, or something or other. The store is a bright, warm place for the night editors and reporters to meet together and talk and drink hot soda, and there's always a knot of 'em around the stove about the time the papers begin to go to press. And they're a lively set, I can tell you, sir. I've heard some of the best stories I ever heard in my life told in our place after three ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... latitudes, the black wart, or knot, is fatal to many plum-trees. It is less prevalent at the South: its origin is not known. Many theories respecting it are put forth by different cultivators; they are unsatisfactory, and their enumeration here would be useless. It may be ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... cracked in twain, and hollowed by the footsteps of six generations. In the very spot where it now lies it has lain ever since the first framed meeting-house was built in Belfield, in the reign of good King William III. There, gathered in a little knot, on Sundays and public days, the forefathers of the settlement used to talk over the current news; how the first Port Royal expedition had failed; or how New England militiamen, without aid from home, had captured the great fortress of Louisburg, after ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... maid, a cross cook, and other servants that were continually changing. She was one of those excellent housekeepers who spend most of their time "giving notice" and "taking up" characters. She nearly always wore a hard-looking black silk dress. She had parted black hair, long earrings, and a knot of rare old imitation lace at her throat. Eagerness, impatience, love of teasing and sharp wit were visible in her face to one who could read between the lines. But, notwithstanding this, as she had a soft heart and plenty of hard cash, she ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... little clay lamps, and between them were stuck the green leaves of palm-trees, which, dripping with the evening dew, gleamed prettily with the many twinkling lights. And few went to sleep that night until the morning hours, for every house held a knot of eager talkers, and much betel-nut was consumed, and endless were the conjectures what would come ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... no time just now for doubts. The horses were half-broken broncos. They traveled the first hundred yards tied in a knot, the buckboard sometimes on four wheels, but ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... are others. It is curious to compare this knot of near relations with the scanty families among the Tuaricks. The fertility of the human race seems to be as that of the soil on which its several tribes are located. Deserts may produce conquerors, but the fat lands ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... silenced with a rough shake and a threat of being thrown into the pond. Having divested the child of most of her garments, the woman took from a dirty bundle which she carried a draggled grey wool shawl, which she wrapped tightly, crosswise, around Marian's body, and tied in a hard knot behind her back. ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... mild stimulant he mounted a tree, carrying in his hand a long rope formed of a kind of stringy vine of tough texture. One end of this rope he fastened to a bough, and the other he placed in a running knot over his neck. Then, quite pleased at being the centre of observation of the multitude, even on such a gruesome occasion, the criminal harangued his tribesmen in a great speech, finally declared the justice of his sentence, and leaped into space. Should the rope break, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... up a piece of rope, passed it around her arms, outside the shawl, tied it in a running knot, and quietly lifted her from his ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott

... embodied is of the essence of the situation; only that in the complete destruction of a force or purpose when it has been embodied in a strong desperate character, the death of that character is usually involved. There is no solution but to cut the knot. The tragic has been defined as "that quality of experience whereby, in and through some serious collision, followed by fatal catastrophe or inner ruin, something valuable in personality becomes manifest, either ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... shall always think about it when I come up here, and feel as I did then, punching poor old Dicksee's big fat head. I say, won't it do him good and make him civil? Look here," he continued, making a bound and pointing to a knot on the rough floor boards, "that's the exact spot where his head came ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... of December Natasha, pale and thin, dressed in a black woolen gown, her plaited hair negligently twisted into a knot, was crouched feet and all in the corner of her sofa, nervously crumpling and smoothing out the end of her sash while she looked at ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... familiar words in their religious experience. To descend into that region implied the same process with the "anxious-seat" of the camp-meeting. When a young girl was supposed to enter it, she bound a handkerchief by a peculiar knot over her head, and made it a point of honor not to change a single garment till the day of her baptism, so that she was sure of being in physical readiness for the cleansing rite, whatever her spiritual mood might be. More than ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... frightful herd was now circling rapidly and with bewildering speed about the little knot of victims. Their prodigious bounds and the shrill, screeching purr of their uncanny mouths were well calculated to confuse and terrorize their prey, so that as two of them leaped simultaneously from either side, the mighty sweep ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... grew by the kitchen door, while her wavy hair was brown, like the chestnuts they used to gather from the trees, in the rocky pasture land. It was wavy still, and soft and luxurient, but it was iron grey, and she wore it plain, in a knot at the back of her head, and only a few short hairs, which would curl about her forehead in spite of her, softened the severity of her face. Just when the change began in his sister. Burton could not remember, for, on the rare occasions when he visited his home he had not been a close ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... handkerchief which mother gave him last Christmas Day? Well, there is one exactly like it round its neck. I was too frightened to look closer, but Tom always wore his handkerchief round his neck in a sailor's knot. And then, too,' and here Will's eyes filled with tears and he began to sob, 'it had bright red hair... it had ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... until nearly midnight that Roger heard the expected signal. No sooner was the second call given, than he pulled the knot which kept the cords together, raised himself noiselessly to his feet, and sprang upon the Aztec. Taken by surprise, the man was no more than a child in Roger's strong grasp. In a moment he was thrown down, his cloth was twisted round his mouth, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... of foreign customers for Grand'mere Gomard speedily collected a small group of interested spectators. A knot of children relinquished their tantalising occupation of hanging round the pan of charcoal over whose glow chestnuts were cracking appetisingly, and the stall of the lady who with amazing celerity fried pancakes on a hot plate, and sold them dotted with butter and ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd

... Chavinillo, which issues from the lake Llauricocha in a longitudinal valley bounded by the western and the intermedial chain of the Andes. To form an accurate idea of these hydrographical relations, it must be borne in mind that a division into three chains takes place in the colossal group or knot of the mountains of Pasco and Huanuco. The western chain, which is the loftiest, and takes the name of the Cordillera Real de Nieve, directs its course (between Huary and Caxatamba, Guamachuco and Luema, Micuipampa and Guangamarca) ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... sitting or standing in a waggon, with his back to the horses, his confessor by his side, and the executioner behind him. He bore three ropes round his neck; two the size of the little finger, and called tortouses, each of which had a slip-knot; the third, called the jet, was only used to pull the victim off the ladder, and so to launch him into eternity (Fig. 350). When the cart arrived at the foot of the gallows, the executioner first ascended the ladder backwards, drawing ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... incense and benjamin of friendship. Blow again the sparks now so nearly extinguished of our happy boyish days; revive again the holy flames of our youthful affections; and, above all things, have the scissors ready which are to cut the Gordian knot of my complicated diseases. Soon, in shaking you by the hand, my shadow shall say ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... fast. We've had a splendid time of it at Charley Foster's, and we stayed till the last minute, so we hurried home at last." Where-upon Jack drew out his pocket-handkerchief to wipe his hot face, forgetting all about the little frogs. The loose knot slipped, and you may guess what happened. The frogs, delighted to get out of Jack's warm pocket, were soon hopping about ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley

... done with the polite music of their time. It was the period of highest development in ecclesiastical music, and the climax of artificiality. The professional musicians to whom they turned scorned their theories and would not help them; so they fell back on their own resources. They cut the Gordian knot and invented a new style of music, which they fancied was like that used by the ancients in their stage-plays. They abolished polyphony, or contrapuntal music, in everything except their choruses, and created a sort of musical declamation, using variations of pitch and harmonies built ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... {354} same or a different kind, and separate it from the Nerve of the Eighth pair, and lay it bare above an inch. Then make a strong Ligature on the upper part of the Arterie, not to be untied again: but an inch below, videl. towards the Heart, make another Ligature of a running knot, which may be loosen'd or fastned as there shall be occasion. Having made these two knots, draw two threds under the Artery between the Ligatures; and then open the Artery, and put in a Quil, and tie the Artery upon the Quill very fast by those two threds, and stop the Quill with a stick. ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... discourse presents serious exegetical difficulties. Many cut the knot by assuming that Mk. xiii. and ||s contain a little Jewish apocalypse written shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, which has been blended with genuine predictions of Jesus concerning his second coming. See Charles, Eschatology, 323-. 329; WendtLJ I. 9-21; HoltzmannNtTH ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees

... what you were doing; it was what you were undoing that bothered me. You were undoing the knot with which I fastened my rope before I descended your air shaft to get ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter

... wore tonight a little frock made by her own fingers, of some crimson woolen stuff, without a vestige of ornament save a bit of lace, yellow with age, at the throat. Her hair was parted above the placid brow, looped over her ears and twisted in a loose knot at the back of her head, in the prevailing fashion for a young matron; which with her youthful face, gave her a most quaint ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... of boys was often among these scenes, where at home the evenings were spent in studying by the light of a pitch-pine knot. ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various

... was not quite the customary one. Standing about the room was the little knot of men who formed the chief part of the Egdon coterie, there being present Fairway himself, Grandfer Cantle, Humphrey, Christian, and one or two turf-cutters. It was a warm day, and the men were ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... fascination whatever in his present gaze. He found himself regarding instead, with a kind of detached curiosity, the little knot of men in frock-coats and silk-hats who stood talking in the doorway. It was barely ten o'clock, yet clearly business was proceeding within. One of these persons whom he beheld might be a Rothschild, for aught he knew; at ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... up to him, and he saw that her cheeks were without trace of color. At the same time he reaffirmed all that he felt before with regard to the potent quality of her being. She had a lustrous mass of warm brown hair twisted into a loose knot that had slid forward over a broad, low brow; a pointed chin; and pale, disturbing lips. But her eyes were her most notable feature—they were widely opened and extraordinary in color; the only similitude ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... a great bony knot of an elbow, the Captain made polite inquiry respecting my journey, and then asked in what could he serve me. But when I had explained that I wanted to meet the owner of the Santa Rosa Ranch, and contemplated going out to see it, it was only to learn, to my ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... which are now in bloom, are small and numerous, with white and umbellifferous petals: there are no root leaves. As soon as the seeds have matured, the roots of the present year as well as the stem decline, and are renewed in the succeeding spring from the little knot which unites the roots. The sunflower is also abundant here, and the seeds, which are now ripe, are gathered in considerable quantities, and after being pounded and rubbed between smooth stones, form a kind of meal, which is a ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... little further on he met some young urchins of about his own age who teased him and made fun of him. The further he got the more difficulties he found. Alone and unprotected he was at the mercy of everybody, and he found to his great surprise that his shoulder knot and his gold ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... Various plans should be tried to keep the child from sleeping on its back. The reason of this is because it has been found that the child wets the bed only when sleeping on its back and never when sleeping on its side. The simplest method, of tying a towel or cloth around the child with a knot over the spinal column, so that it will hurt and waken it, if it turns on its back, is a very good one and should be carefully tried for some time. The nervous system of these children should never be overtaxed at home or at school. Early hours and plenty of ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... long lock upon the shaven poll is a very ancient practice: we find it amongst the old Egyptians. For the Shshah or top-knot of hair, see vol. i. 308. It is differently worn in the several regions of the Moslem world: the Maroccans of the Rf country grow it not on the poll but on one side of the head. As a rule, however, it is confined to boys, and is ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... his face as it met her from an opposite door. Charlotte, half-way down the vista, held together, as if by something almost austere in the grace of her authority, the semi-scared (now that they were there!) knot of her visitors, who, since they had announced themselves by telegram as yearning to inquire and admire, saw themselves restricted to this consistency. Her voice, high and clear and a little hard, reached her husband and her step-daughter ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... And he drew out his hammer and crowbar; but a block of granite close by stood up so much like a thick, blunt post that there seemed to be no need for the crowbar to be driven in; so, making one end fast round the block with a well-tried mooring knot—one which old Daygo had taught them might be depended upon for securing a boat—they calculated how much rope would be necessary to well reach the bottom of the broken-off slope, and at the end of this the line was knotted round Vince's chest and he ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... said Gerald with every possible absence of gallantry. "Don't you see? It's turned into a wishing ring. I knew something different was going to happen. Get my knife out of my pocket this string's in a knot. Jimmy, Cathy, those Ugly-Wuglies have come alive because Mabel wished it. Cut out and pull ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... perplexities, the Convention tried to cut the Gordian knot. It decreed that any person selling gold or silver coin, or making any difference in any transaction between paper and specie, should be imprisoned in irons for six years:—that any one who refused to accept a payment in assignats, or accepted assignats at a discount, ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White

... charged once just before the knot was tied, and Loveless had to jump into the branches through the thorns to escape. He charged again, rather feebly this time, trying to get free, but the rope held well and tripped him up. After that he stood quietly at the end ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... throbbed; I was almost strangled. One minute more, and I would have breathed my last. The man must have realized it, for he relaxed his grip, but did not remove his hand. Then he took a cord, in which he had prepared a slip-knot, and tied my wrists together. In an instant, I was bound, gagged, ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... with Captain Roberts, Kennedy went off in his ship, the Rover, and sailed to Barbadoes. His first prize, a Boston ship, was a distinct novelty, being commanded by one Captain Knot, a Quaker, who lived up to the principles of his sect by allowing no pistol, sword, or cutlass, or other weapon aboard his vessel. The crew, finding Kennedy had no knowledge whatever of navigation, threatened to throw ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... Sunday hymn, at dinner, I was too often unable to give the least report of the sermon. Withdrawn into my corner of the pew, I gave myself up, after the enunciation of the text, to a complete abstraction, which took no note of time or place. Fixing my eyes upon a knot in one of the panels under the pulpit, I sat moveless during the hour and a half which our worthy old clergyman required for the expounding of the seven parts of his discourse. They could never accuse me of sleeping, however; for I rarely even winked. The closing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... the climax of his suspense. Gathering all his muscles in a knot he prepared to leap upon Colter as he mounted the ladder. But, Ellen Jorth screamed piercingly and snatched her rifle from its resting place and, cocking it, she held it ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... indicated by the eating of cream and honey? The erroneous answer to this question, which has become current ever since Gesenius, has put everything into confusion, and has misled expositors such as Hitzig and Meier to cut the knot, by asserting that ver. 15 is spurious. Cream and honey can come into consideration as the noblest food only; the eating of them can indicate only a condition of plenty and prosperity. "A land flowing with milk and honey" is, in the books ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... large fee, if he succeeds in finding a suitable bride for Johannes. The latter is quite willing to marry, provided he finds a girl that pleases him and his mother gives him sound advice about the qualities that should be found in a good wife. {472} First she must never cut a knot but untie it, she must be content to take the second part in ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... hands, changed his attitude from one that was awkward to another still more so, and finally drew the trigger with a sort of desperate indifference, without having, in reality, secured any aim at all. The consequence was, that instead of hitting the knot which had been selected for the mark, he missed the ark altogether; the bullet skipping along the water like a stone ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... The last line alludes to a charming custom of which mention is made in the most ancient Japanese literature. Lovers, ere parting, were wont to tie each other's inner girdle (himo) and pledge themselves to leave the knot untouched until the time of their next meeting. This poem is said to have been composed in the seventh year of Y[o]r[o],—A.D. 723,—eleven hundred and ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... who know what it is to be evil; I am he who knew what it was to be evil; I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, Blabbed, blushed, resented, lied, stole, grudged; Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak; Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant; The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me; The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... made a good hit, bawls out, "Haul away! haul away!" upon which the men stationed at the line run away with it, and the struggling wretch is raised high into the air. Two or three of the smartest hands have in the mean time prepared what is called a running bowline knot, or noose, the nature of which may be readily described by saying that although it slips up, or renders, very easily, it is perfectly secure, without being subject to jamming. This running bowline, of which several are always previously ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... trouble, as the result of various considerations, but it is forbidden by reliable testimony. The characteristic of Marcion's teaching is just this, that as soon as we seek to raise his ideas from the sphere of practical considerations to that of a consistent theory, we come upon a tangled knot of contradictions. The theoretic contradictions are explained by the different interests which here cross each other in Marcion. In the first place, he was consciously dependent on the Pauline theology, and was resolved to ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... first class named above, but more modern in equipment and construction, having been built between the years 1900 and 1902. Their motive power was heavier, being 13,500 horsepower, and their speed was almost a knot faster. Increase in the power of naval guns had made unnecessary any increase in the thickness of their armor, and consequently ranged from 6 to 12 inches in thickness. Their armament was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... hurry, children," he admonished. "Save your wind for the flight to the rear." Suddenly, Hippy bent forward and when he rose his hand held a pine knot fully five feet long, the limb ablaze almost from end to end. Not more than two feet separated the burning part ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower

... monstrous. In the dead ashes of the Judge's pipe, scattered on his shelf, still lived his old fire; in the whittled and carved edges of the Left Bower's bunk still were the memories of bygone days of delicious indolence; in the bullet-holes clustered round a knot of one of the beams there was still the record of the Right Bower's old-time skill and practice; in the few engravings of female loveliness stuck upon each headboard there were the proofs of their old extravagant devotion—all a mute protest ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... blowing out his cheeks and fixing us with his little eyes with an expression of dignity that would have pleased me vastly if I had been free to enjoy it. But the reflection that Laval's presence, which would cut the knot of our difficulties, would also place me at the mercy of his wit, did not enable me to contemplate it ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... studded with large diamonds, encircled her throat. She wore large diamond ear-rings, and her light-brown hair was combed down on her face, parted through the middle, and covering her ears, a Grecian knot confining her hair at ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... of the Arthurian cycle have been Gildas, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, Robert de Borron, Marie de France, Layamon, Chrestien de Troyes, Benoit de St. Maur, Gaucher, Manessier, Gerbert, Knot de Provence, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Strassburg, Hartmann von der Aue, Malory, Tennyson, Swinburne, Howard Pyle, Matthew Arnold, and Wagner. Still, almost every writer of note has had ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... uncleaned. The small square panes of the window, too, hardly let in any light, they were so obscured by dust inside and snow frozen on to them without. By the stove sat a young woman, in whose face ill-health and beauty struggled together for predominance. Her hair, twisted into a loose knot at the back of her head, was of the lightest gold colour, like a young child's, and her face brought to one's mind the idea of milk and violets, the skin was so white and smooth and the eyes so blue. This was the beauty which no disease could kill, but ill-health triumphed ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... same day when Dr. Pitts arrived at the rooms Ferriss and Bennett had taken he found the anteroom already crowded with visitors—a knot of interviewers, the manager of a lecture bureau, as well as the agent of a patented cereal (who sought the man of the hour for an endorsement of his article), and two ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... indeed to the slightest detail. You would fancy you saw a stalwart, strapping Hindoo before you. He turns round, and lo, a bashful maiden. Her eyes are stained with henna (myrtle juice) or antimony. Her long-hair neatly smoothed down is tied into a knot at the back, and glistens with the pearl-like ornaments. The taper arm is loaded with armlets and bracelets. The very toes are bedecked with rings. The bodice hides the taper waist and budding bosom, the tiny ear is loaded with jewelled ear-rings, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... cluster of ivory cupids clambered,—and she looked critically at her white drawn features, and the disordered masses of her hair. Loosening these abundant locks, she shook them down and gathered them into her one uncrippled hand, preparatory to twisting them into the usual knot at the back of her head, the while she looked at the little sculptured amorini set round the mirror, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... in Elizabethan times to wear "posie rings" (or poesie rings) in which inscriptions were cut, such as, "Let likinge Laste," "Remember the ? that is in pain," or, "God saw fit this knot to knit," and the like. These posie rings are so called because of the little poetical sentiments associated with them. They were often used as engagement rings, and sometimes as wedding rings. In ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... of that pirate mass so much as drew a knife. By force of brawn, he wedged his way toward the coach, reached it, leaned forward, and caught up the curtain. And what he saw was a poke bonnet. The bonnet was a bower of lace and roses, held by a filmy saucy knot under a lady's chin. He saw a face framed within, of a skin creamy white, of lips blood-red, of hair like copper, and he saw a pair of eyes. They were gray eyes, and as they opened suddenly and wider upon him whom she thought must be her captor, the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... the brothers, bent on ill! Neela yet kind and calm, Beholds a knot of Snakes, that fill A basket ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley

... manner, most of the relatives, of both families, bring to the babe gifts of money, jewels, gold and silver ornaments, etc., which is termed Tam Kwaan. Even so early the infant's hair is shaved off, except the top-knot, which is permitted to grow until the child has arrived at ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... upon the table, and playing with his sword-knot, the Lieutenant, with a bland firmness, repeated his demand. At last, the whole case being so plainly made out, and the person in question being so accurately described, even to a mole on his cheek, there ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... commence its operations by charging the poor of Paris twelve-pence for a penny's worth of whatever they wanted; and would end its operations by offering them twelve-pence worth for a penny, of whatever they didn't want. Whereupon it was concluded by the committee that the tiny knot, on this special occasion, was scarcely "dignus vindice," by the divine principle of demand and supply: and that we would venture, for once, in a profane manner, to provide for the poor of Paris what they wanted, when they wanted it. Which, to the value of the sums entrusted to us, it will ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... dance; wasting eloquence in persuading a man to participate in amusement whose reputation depends on his social sullenness; exacting homage with a restless eye, and not permitting the least worthy knot to be untwined without their divinityships' interference; patronizing the meek, anticipating the slow, intoxicating with compliment, plastering with praise that you in return may gild with flattery; in short, energetic without ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... boldly cut the knot which philosophy had failed to unravel for him. Supposing the doctrine of necessity to be settled on a clear and firm basis, he resolved our feelings of liberty into "a deceitful sense" which he imagined the Almighty had conferred on man for wise and good purposes. He concluded ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... very small minority, and whilst his two brothers pressed into the ring, he wandered away elsewhere to see what was to be seen. His attention was attracted by a little knot of persons gathered together under the shade of a great oak tree, rather far away from the green that was the centre of attraction. The shade looked inviting, now that the heat was growing greater, and the boy felt some ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... mischievous but for the lack of words: instead of being astonished at his inspirations in private, he might have clad his addled originalities, disjointed commonplaces, blind denials, and balloon-like conclusions, in that mighty sort of language which would have made a new Koran for a knot of followers. I mean no disrespect to the ancient Koran, but one would not desire the roc to lay more eggs and give us a whole wing-flapping brood to ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... "Untie that knot! Why do you leave that dreadful thing fast to her? Untie it, I say, it is killing me; I can not bear the sight." And from trembling she passed to shuddering till her whole ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... that neither those who administer but one kind, nor those who receive it, are guilty of sin. We have, indeed, exonerated those from blame, who receive but one kind; but as to those who administer but one,—there is the knot. The Synod of Basil conceded the whole sacrament to the Bohemians, on condition that they would acknowledge that it may, with propriety, be taken and received in one kind only. This confession they also wish to extort from us. Eckius says ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker

... money;" but he took the table-cloth with him. The host could not imagine what this could mean, and being curious, stole after him, and as the guest bolted the stable-door, he peeped through a hole left by a knot in the wood. The stranger spread out the cloth under the animal and cried, "Bricklebrit," and immediately the beast began to let gold pieces fall, so that it fairly rained down money on the ground. "Eh, my word," said the host, "ducats are quickly coined there! A purse like that is ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... stuffs'' which are used on board a ship— such as spun-yarn, marline, seizing-stuff, &c., &c.— are made on board. The owners of a vessel buy up incredible quantities of "old junk,'' which the sailors unlay, and, after drawing out the yarns, knot them together, and roll them up in balls. These "rope-yarns'' are constantly used for various purposes, but the greater part is manufactured into spun-yarn. For this purpose, every vessel is furnished with a "spun-yarn winch''; which is very simple, consisting of a wheel and spindle. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... to tend the calves in the kraal, while his fellows sport and romp about, is selected by lot: "As many blades of grass as there are boys are taken, and a knot is made on the end of one of them. The biggest boy holds the blades between the fingers and thumb of his closed hand, and whoever draws the blade with the knot has to act as herdsman" (543. 221). Nowadays, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... come to another question: Has the Church of the Brethren maintained the succession from the time of Stephen to the present day? Here again the historian has a very tight knot to untie. At one point (if not two) in the history of the Brethren's Church, 1500 and 1554, there is certainly the possibility that her Episcopal succession was broken. For the long period of eleven years the Brethren ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... imperceptible sarcasm of her smile, seemed to indicate mingled pleasure, defiance and contempt. The visitor who entered was resplendent in the gay scarlet and glittering lace of the British uniform, and his redundancy of ruffles, powder and sword-knot betokened the military exquisite, his bearing presenting a singular mixture of high breeding and haughty insolence. With his right hand laid upon the spot where his heart was supposed to be, while his left daintily ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... round, and by chance, thirsty and eager to get a nearer sight of the crowd, Philip installed himself at a little table outside the Cafe de Versailles. Every other table was taken, for it was a fine night; and Philip looked curiously at the people, here little family groups, there a knot of men with odd-shaped hats and beards talking loudly and gesticulating; next to him were two men who looked like painters with women who Philip hoped were not their lawful wives; behind him he heard Americans loudly arguing on art. His soul was thrilled. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... that name is quite undone; This true-love knot cancels both maid and Nun. When first you told me I should act that part, How cold and bloody it crept o'er my heart! To Chesson with a smiling brow I went; But yet, dear sir, it was to this intent, That my sweet Raymond might find better means To steal me thence. In brief, disguised he came, ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare

... the street I heard a thumping; and I knew it was the stumping Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden leg he wore, With a knot of women round him,—it was lucky I had found him,— So I followed with the others, and the Corporal ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... maybe whiles the hert o' man may gang the wrang. gait by bein' ower wise in its ain conceit o' expeckin' ower little, jist as weel's in expeckin' ower muckle, an' sae I'm b'un' to tell ye, laird,'at yer expectations frae this knot o'metal,—for metal we maun alloo it to be, whatever else it be or bena—yer expectations, I say, are a'thegither wrang, for it's no more siller ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... point I had been looking into his face, but now I turned away. Instinctively I felt that, if he were going to, speak of his transactions with Freedham, he would be abashed by my gaze. He rested his elbows on his knees, and began to tie knot after knot ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... to dress. And now a happy thought struck me. Glancing at the portrait on the wall, I saw that the fair girl was dressed in green. Was it? Yes, it must be—it was—the very same dress! Quickly, and as neatly as I could, I arranged my hair in two great puffs, with a butterfly knot on the top of my head, in the style of the picture; if only I had the high comb! I slipped on the gown, which fitted me well enough. I put on the slippers, and tied the green ribbons round and round my ankles; then I lighted all the candles, and looked at myself. A perfect ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards

... was blotted from the mind of Vic Gregg by the thud of a heavy heel on the veranda, and then the broad shoulders of Blondy Hansen darkened the doorway, Blondy Hansen dressed for the dance, with the knot of his black silk handkerchief turned to the front and above that the gleam of his celluloid collar. It was dim in the saloon, compared with the brightness of the outdoors, and perhaps Blondy did not see Vic. At any rate he took his place at ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... which served to distinguish men in battle, now figure on the carriage panels of retired grocers. Once a badge of high military rank, the shoulder-knot has become, on the modern footman, a mark of servitude. The name Banneret, which once marked a partially-created Baron—a Baron who had passed his military "little go"—is now, under the modification of Baronet, applicable to any one favoured by wealth or interest ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... seat on the inside, while the old man, who was hardy and tough as a pine knot, took his place on the outside, right where you are sittin' now. It was pretty cold, and we had to bundle up pretty well, but the old man didn't mind it a bit. He smoked his pipe and passed his bottle—thankee', yes, ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... the rest were volunteers." "No doubt. But these are the men—many of them—who had to balance duties—who had wives and children to leave, and businesses which depended on them personally. Compulsion has cut the knot and eased their consciences. They'll make fine soldiers! But we want more—more!" And then follows talk on the wonderful developments of training—even since last year; and some amusing reminiscences of the early days of England's astounding effort, by ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... sensible, and so was her hair. Amy had run to fluffiness. Hortense had often favored heavy waves and emphatic bandeaux. But Carolyn's hair was drawn back plainly from her forehead, and was gathered in a small, low-set knot. "Still, it's no concern of mine," he reminded ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... fellow of twenty-six or seven, of homely features, with black hair, in clothes which he had outgrown. It was a bitter night, but he had no coat over his flannel jacket. He walked straight down the store, between the dry-goods counters, to the snug corner at the rear, where the knot of talkers sat; nodded, without a smile, to each of them, and then asked the storekeeper for some simple articles of food, which he wished ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... and the battles of the Romans and the Scots and Picts; the dome-shaped hill of Tinto, in Lanarkshire, 60 miles from Stirling, and 2,336 feet in height; Arthur's Hill, a circular mound of earth, surrounded by seats of turf in the royal gardens, sometimes called the king's knot, where the court held fetes, and where James used to amuse himself with the pastime called the Knights of the Round Table; Ben Lomond, 3,240 feet above the lake, which is 32 feet above the level of the sea; Ben Venue, and Ben Ledy, or the hill of God, in Perthshire, 3,009 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various

... inquisitive about the heart, Search'd all the motives, all the incidents In which it was unfolded; fencing still Each treacherous failing with a double guard, And oft repeated warnings; well conceal'd, Or given with so much kindness, that they serv'd To draw more closely every knot of love. Nor did she cease to urge her pious cares By constant vigilance, till riper age Had fix'd the moral sense, when, as a bow For a long active season tightly strain'd Relaxes, tumult and contention o'er, She sunk into indulgence, ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham

... "Sailor's knot, please; keeps better so," said Thorny, holding up his chin to have a blue silk scarf tied to suit him, for he was already beginning to be ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... thinking about, much less arguing. I was too lazy to go and explain the matter, and writing was not my forte. Besides, I didn't want to thwart my mother in her plans, or hurt her feelings; and so the long and the short of it is, I solved the difficulty and cut the knot by crossing quietly over to Norway. I wrote a short note to my mother, making no allusion to her project, and since then I've been gradually working my way down to the bottom of the map of ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... the confession very prettily and simply, and, with quaint, childish earnestness, drew the sketch-book away close to her own side of the table. Miss Halcombe cut the knot of the little embarrassment forthwith, in ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... Torrismond, The world contains not so forlorn a wretch! Let never man believe he can be happy! For, when I thought my fortune most secure, One fatal moment tears me from my joys; And when two hearts were joined by mutual love, The sword of justice cuts upon the knot, And ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... A knot of King's boys, also bound for the baths, hailed them, beseeching them to wash—for the honor of ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... to be our country's 'vantage; Have traversed land and sea in constant duty, Through almost sixty years, and still for Venice, My fathers' and my birthplace, whose dear spires, Rising at distance o'er the blue Lagoon, It was reward enough for me to view Once more; but not for any knot of men, Nor sect, nor faction, did I bleed or sweat! But would you know why I have done all this? 440 Ask of the bleeding pelican why she Hath ripped her bosom? Had the bird a voice, She'd tell thee 'twas for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... Conduct which God and Nature purposely has endued you with, to serve the Royal Interest: You, Sir, who are obliged by a double Duty to Love, Honour, and Obey his Majesty, both as a Father and a King! O undissolvable Knot! O Sacred Union! what Duty, what Love, what Adoration can express or repay the Debt we owe the first, or the Allegiance due to the last, but where both meet in one, to make the Tye Eternal; Oh what Counsel, what Love of Power, what fancied ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... rope off the stump by which Duster had been tied securely, wound and strapped it to the tilted saddle, and instead of this former tether, made a weak knot in the reins, and tossed them over the stump. He entered the cabin with a countenance ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... said, still very much annoyed. 'They almost hurt me, and somebody had the impertinence to double-knot the handkerchief after I had arranged it! I'll send for Schreiermeyer at once, I think! If I hadn't solid nerves a thing like that might ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... riders wrapped up and went out over the wind-swept mesas to look after the cattle cowering in draws or drifting with the storm. When Bob could sleep snugly in the bunkhouse he was lucky. There were nights when he shivered over a pine-knot fire in the shelter of a cutbank with the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... are long at sea, and people gladly welcome anything that provides entertainment, so Lloyd and Betty were often called aside as they walked, and invited to join some group, and tell to a knot of interested listeners all they knew of Hero and the Major, and the training ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston

... spot in half a dozen vigorous blades. Cutting down and pulling up is what it thrives on. Extermination rather helps it. If you follow a slender white root, it will be found to run under the ground until it meets another slender white root; and you will soon unearth a network of them, with a knot somewhere, sending out dozens of sharp-pointed, healthy shoots, every joint prepared to be an independent life and plant. The only way to deal with it is to take one part hoe and two parts fingers, and carefully dig ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... win some stubborn maid, Still does the wanton god assume The martial air, the gay cockade, The sword, the shoulder-knot, and plume. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... having its own particular signification. The color for soldiers was red; for gold, yellow; for silver, white; for corn, green, &c. This writing by knots was especially employed for numerical and statistical tables; each single knot representing ten; each double knot stood for one hundred; each triple knot for one thousand, &c.; two single knots standing together made twenty; and two double knots, ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... again, and began to dress. And now a happy thought struck me. Glancing at the portrait on the wall, I saw that the fair girl was dressed in green. Was it? Yes, it must be—it was—the very same dress! Quickly, and as neatly as I could, I arranged my hair in two great puffs, with a butterfly knot on the top of my head, in the style of the picture; if only I had the high comb! I slipped on the gown, which fitted me well enough. I put on the slippers, and tied the green ribbons round and round my ankles; then I lighted all the candles, and looked at ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards

... confronted with a difficult and disagreeable situation, of saying anything that came into his head which seemed to offer a solution; the child does not invent an elaborate falsification; it simply says whatever will untie the knot quickest, without reference to facts. If we bear in mind this natural and instinctive childlikeness in Shelley, we have the clue to almost all his inconsistencies and entanglements. Most people, as they grow up, and as the complicated fabric of society makes itself ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the stranger was directed to the bar-keeper, who stood at the door. The man asked where he should find one Mary Ann Russell,—a question which excited general and hardly suppressed mirth; for the said Mary Ann is one of a knot of women who were routed on Sunday evening by Barker and a constable. The man was told that the black fellow would give him all the information he wanted. The black ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Burmah, there is a race of cats known as the Malay cat, with tails only half the ordinary length and often contorted into a sort of a knot that cannot be straightened, after the fashion of the pug dog ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... Goliath, Vengeance, Ocean, Albion, and Glory—2,000 tons lighter than the first class named above, but more modern in equipment and construction, having been built between the years 1900 and 1902. Their motive power was heavier, being 13,500 horsepower, and their speed was almost a knot faster. Increase in the power of naval guns had made unnecessary any increase in the thickness of their armor, and consequently ranged from 6 to 12 inches in thickness. Their armament was about the same as that of the older class, but each carried ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... preceding wars,—Indian and French,—had gained their liberty, that swelled the ranks of the colonial militia; but slaves, inspired by the hope of freedom, went to the front, as Attucks had done when he cut the Gordian knot that held the colonies to Great Britain. "From that moment we may date the severance of the British Empire," said Daniel Webster, in his Bunker Hill oration, referring to the massacre on the 5th of March, 1770. The thirst for freedom ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... thank you; and yet I feel like a doll, helpless and fine, and fancy I was more of a woman in my fresh gingham, with a knot of clovers in my hair, than I am now. Aunt Pen was very kind to get me all these pretty things; but I'm afraid my mother would look horrified to see me in such a high state of flounce externally and so little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... not been considerably diminished by the certain gay and swaggering look which we have already noticed. His dress was not so completely military as that of the first, though there was scarf and sword-knot, and gold-fringed belt and leathern gloves, with wide cuffs, which swallowed up the arms almost to ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... there entered Prince Baratinski, who commanded the Guard. Orloff, who had already thrown down the Tsar, pressed upon his chest with his own knees, holding him fast at the same time by the throat. Baratinski and Teplof then passed a table-napkin with a sliding knot round his neck, and the murderers accomplished the work of ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... McCorquodale on the run. It needed but a glance over the rock to observe two members of the gang approaching the base of the hill through the woods, one carrying a flaring pine-knot torch, the other a piece of white canvas tied to a stick. They were ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... up the violin and bow from the end of the counter. He leaned against the counter and tucked the violin under his chin. There was only a brown light in the dusky store, and the dust danced in the single band of sunlight that searched out a knot hole in the wall of the back room—the shed between the store proper and the cottage in ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... away as soon as it was daylight, and carried me so high that I could not discern the earth; she afterward descended with so much rapidity that I lost my senses. But when I found myself on the ground, I speedily untied the knot, and had scarcely done so, when the roc, having taken up a serpent of a monstrous length in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... other side. A little knot of men and one lady were standing near the fire in an expectant sort of way, ready to be introduced to Margaret. She saw the bony head of Paul Griggs, and she smiled at him from a distance. He was talking to a very handsome and thoroughbred ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... enough, no word was needed; the message explained itself; and when we went to take a last look at the dear child, the scrap of cardboard lay in the still hand, the needle threaded with yellow wool, the childish knot, soiled and cumbersome, hanging below the pattern just as she had left it. It was her only funeral offering, her only funeral service, and was it not something of a sermon? It told the history of her industry, her sudden call from earthly things, and her mother's tender thought. It ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... Interest to do so and so, that they might consider in Time what they had to do, and the like: When he talk'd with any of the Whig Lords, for there was a Squadron of them left, that had a great sway yet in the Country, then he would talk of him, and Party and Queen, as one Knot, in the plural Number, most haughtily, thus: We are resolved to do so and so, and we must have none but ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe

... harpooner, the instant he has made a good hit, bawls out, "Haul away! haul away!" upon which the men stationed at the line run away with it, and the struggling wretch is raised high into the air. Two or three of the smartest hands have in the mean time prepared what is called a running bowline knot, or noose, the nature of which may be readily described by saying that although it slips up, or renders, very easily, it is perfectly secure, without being subject to jamming. This running bowline, of which several are always previously made ready, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... that had just begun a dozen yards away, where a big red-faced man was holding a very fluffy white hat in his hand and brushing it with his arm, and bandying angry words with a rough-looking young market porter, who, with a great flat basket under one arm and his other through a knot, was speaking menacingly— ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... is introduced into a branch or knot of the tree—an odd, rather far-fetched effect. The effectively outlined church in the background ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald

... kindly softness spreading over her rough face, "good luck's deceitful! If I had the strands o' your fortin' in my hands, may be I wouldn't twist 'em even; but I ha'n't, and my fingers is too thick to manage anything smaller 'n a rope-knot. You're goin'? Well, look out for me bright and early o' Monday, and my sarvice to ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... evening meal. A huge Newfoundland dog sits upon his haunches near this circle, his eyes eagerly watching for a morsel to be thrown him, the which, when happening, his jaws close with a sudden snap, and are instantly agape for more. A green and gold parrot also wanders about this knot of men, sometimes nibbling the crumbs offered it, and anon breaking forth into expressions which, from their tone, evince no great respect for some of the commandments in the Decalogue. Between the long-boat and the fore-hatch ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... him do such a thing. Of course, I don't know either of them very well, but, from what little I've heard, I should say they know as much about what they would be supposed to do as—as you do about tying a necktie. For mercy sakes let me fix it! The knot is supposed to be under your chin, not under your ear as if you were going to ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... 'a' knowed it!" a voice at once fond and threatening called to Reverdy's quailing figure. The owner of the voice was a young woman unkempt as to the pale hair which escaped from the knot at her neck, and stuck out there and dangled about her face in spite of the attempts made to gather it under the control of the high horn comb holding its main strands together. The lankness of her long figure showed in the calico wrapper ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... already appeared in print, in the terrible year 1828 which was marked by the first conscription of Jewish recruits, the ominous turn in the ritual murder trial of Velizh and the constant tightening of the knot of disabilities. ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... them. Before starting out to look at the lines—possibly while Sherman's horse was being saddled —there were many questions asked about the late campaign, about which the North had been so imperfectly informed. There was a little knot around Sherman and another around me, and I heard Sherman repeating, in the most animated manner, what he had said to me when we first looked down from Walnut Hills upon the land below on the 18th of May, adding: "Grant is entitled ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... have no doubt Ferrari considered himself a sufficiently injured man. But of that you will judge for yourself, though, if I might venture so far in the way of friendship, I should recommend you to give careful consideration to the inclosed correspondence before tying the matrimonial knot to which you alluded the other evening. It is not wise to walk on the edge of a precipice with one's eyes shut! Captain Ciabatti was the first to inform me of what I now know for a fact—namely, that Ferrari left a will in which everything he possessed is made over ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... bearing visible evidence of duels a-plenty in earlier days. And there was Diantha Bell—receiving, with Mrs. Porne and Mrs. Weatherstone. All Orchardina stared. Diantha had been at the dinner—that was clear. And now she stood there in her soft, dark evening dress, the knot of golden acacias nestling against the black lace at her bosom, looking as fair and sweet as if she had never had a care in ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... of extreme simplicity or carelessness. The dark colour of their cloaks, varying from absolute black to what was called sad-coloured—their steeple-crowned hats, with their broad shadowy brims—their long swords, suspended by a simple strap around the loins, without shoulder-belt, sword-knot, plate, buckles, or any of the other decorations with which the Cavaliers loved to adorn their trusty rapiers,—the shortness of their hair, which made their ears appear of disproportioned size,—above ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... handkerchief tied in a sailor's knot round his neck, and as Norman passed close to the bank, he threw the end to him. Norman grasped it, and held on tightly while Robby kept a firm hold of the other end. But Robby was small, and the stream bore Norman onward. As long as he could, Robby scrambled along the bank, ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston

... whether a man's imagination is at work or not. Nevertheless, there are innumerable stories of what famous men did when their imagination was at work. Napoleon had to cut things to pieces. Lenau used to scrape holes in the ground. Mozart used to knot and tear table-cloth and napkins. Others used to run around; still others used to smoke, drink, whistle, etc. But not all people have these characteristics, and then we who are to judge the influence ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... the two sheets of his letter and tied them with a silk string, of which he squeezed the knot into pasty red wax, which he worked with his fingers, and upon this he pressed the iron seal of the guild, using both his hands and standing up in order to add his weight to the pressure. The missive was destined for the Podesta of Murano, which ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... the perfect, the eternal, the infinite. The doctrine of creation alone explains how the universe subsists in presence of its first cause. In ignorance of this doctrine, some bold thinkers have cut the knot which they could not untie. They have declared that reason alone is right, and that experience is wrong: the world does not exist, it is but an illusion of the mind. Whence proceeds this illusion? If perfection alone exists, how comes that imperfect mind to exist ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... with it, and gave it her doll at once. There is nothing selfish about the Modoc. She is fascinated with the new baby. The Modoc rips and tears around out doors, most of the time, and consequently is as hard as a pine knot and as brown as an Indian. She is bosom friend to all the ducks, chickens, turkeys and guinea hens on the place. Yesterday as she marched along the winding path that leads up the hill through the red clover ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... worth anything as an education, it wouldn't seem likely that you could trip Methuselah; and yet if that old person could come back here it is more that likely that one of the first things he would do would be to take hold of one of these electric wires and tie himself all up in a knot. Now the surer thing and the wiser thing would be for him to ask somebody whether it was a good thing to take hold of. But that would not suit him; he would be one of the self-taught kind that go by experience; he would want to examine for himself. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... jungle: the village contains probably fifteen houses. The Gohain, or chief, is a most respectable-looking man, and of very fair complexion. His people are for the most part stout. The women also of very fair complexion, with their hair tied in a large knot on the top of the head, in a peculiar way, putting one in mind of fat Norman damsels. Temperature in the boat to-day 76 degrees, the sky beautifully clear. The B. pooter seems still the only river, the temperature of which ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... its nest in my golden hair, A knot of ribbon blue; He placed on my hand a jewel rare, And whispered soft, as he held it there, "Tender and ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... Six sons and one daughter are her jewels; and of these, the third son, Vladimir, is almost ideally handsome. Her dress was at once simple and superb,—a cloud of snowy tulle, with a scarf of pale-blue velvet, twisted with a chain of the largest diamonds and tied with a knot and tassel of pearls, resting halfway down the skirt, as if it had slipped from her waist. On another occasion, I remember her wearing a crown of five stars, the centres of which were single enormous rubies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... water. At this moment those in the cutter saw the bubbles glide swiftly past them, while to those in the Montauk the motion was still slow and heavy; and yet, of the two, the actual velocity was rather in favour of the latter, both having about what is technically termed "four-knot way" on them. The officer of the boat was quick to detect the change that was acting against him, and by easing the sheets of his lug-sails, and keeping the cutter as much off the wind as he could, he was soon within a ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... Master Craftsman died, but the design was left, and willing fingers toiled upon it, through the long years, each day putting new beauty into it and new dreams. Then, one day, the final knot was tied, by a Veiled Lady, who sighed softly in the pauses of her song, and wondered at its surpassing loveliness." "And—" ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed

... "never seem to have the courage to retrench. Why not take your family to a cheap boarding-house for a year or two? Cut the Gordian knot and get right down to bed rock? Boarding-house food may be bad for the spirit, but it's good for the body. My father had dyspepsia one spring, and his doctor told him to spend six weeks in a summer hotel—any summer hotel—and take all his meals ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... principle, Hobbes, a royalist, affirmed that the state of nature between man and man was a state of war, whence it followed that government originated in conquest. This theory is directly opposite to that of Jesus Christ. It cuts the gordian knot with the sword, extinguishes all the rights of man, and makes fear the corner-stone of government. It is the only theory upon which slavery can be justified, as conformable to the law of nature. This is Sir John ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... carriage at the palace gate; a knot of people, a small crowd, perhaps, collects to salute me and gape at the horses and livery. I sweep up the stoop, lined by my own, and the Countess's, servants. The bronze doors open. The Countess advances with stately curtsy; a few words sub rosa, and I—fly ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... the interior chambers of the palace, Marmaduke, with the frank simpleness which belonged to his youth and training, had already won much favour and popularity, and he was laughing loud with a knot of young men by the shovel-board when Warwick re-entered. The earl, though so disliked by the courtiers more immediately about the person of the king, was still the favourite of the less elevated knights and ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Evans, regaining his coolness, managed to slacken the cord which bound his wrists. Little by little the knot slipped, his fingers slipped over each other, and his ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne

... to be seen. You English have no sympathy with a people who claim to be at least your equals. The clown has trod upon the courtier's heels till the clown is clown no longer, and the courtier has hardly a court in which he may dangle his sword-knot." ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... there, in the center of the room. She raised her arms and passed a hand over her forehead and across her hair until it rested on the glossy knot at the back of her head. It was the weary little gesture of a weary, ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... in twisting the lash of his whip into a knot, and takes no more notice of the question: clearly signifying that it is anybody's business but his, and that the passengers would do well to fix it, among themselves. In this state of things, matters seem to be approximating to a fix of another kind, when another inside ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... me to gather together a few loose strings, and tie them together in a knot, so that my work may not become untwisted. Early in July, Henry Grantly and Grace Crawley were married in the parish church of Plumstead,—a great impropriety, as to which neither Archdeacon Grantly nor Mr Crawley could be got to assent ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... Mercer. "I shall always think about it when I come up here, and feel as I did then, punching poor old Dicksee's big fat head. I say, won't it do him good and make him civil? Look here," he continued, making a bound and pointing to a knot on the rough floor boards, "that's the exact spot where his ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... nothing to either except a one-inch board and a thickness of lath and plastering. I passed the two lines of fuse through the two holes, and into the other building, which was a drug store. In the other building I tied a loose knot in the ends of the fuse and left it lying on the floor behind the counter ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth

... "faith unfaithful kept him falsely true." But Stephen Coburn was no Lancelot, any more than his siren was a Guinevere or her slain husband a King Arthur. He was simply a well-meaning, hot-headed, madly enamoured young fool. The proof of this last was that he took a revolver to his Gordian knot. Revolvers, as he found too late, do not solve problems. They make a far-reaching noise, and their messengers cannot ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... and decidedly elegant figure, which was set off to advantage by the cut and fit of the pale lavender silk dress she wore. They were progressing slowly towards the gate leading into Hyde Park; their conversation was somewhat interrupted by a knot of passing Guardsmen and other fashionable loungers, to be again resumed when they were beyond ear shot. They continued their walk along the bank of the Serpentine, and could the passer by have peered through the lady's veil, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... direct from Europe—save one German family and a knot of Cornish miners who kept grimly by themselves, one reading the New Testament all day long through steel spectacles, the rest discussing privately the secrets of their old-world mysterious race. Lady Hester Stanhope believed she could make something great of the Cornish; for my ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... to let you down, father," said he; "and, as soon as you touch the ground, you must undo the knot. Take care of the first-story windows; beware of the concierge; and, once in the street, don't walk too fast. Make for the Boulevard, where you will be sooner ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... her eyes. Her groping left hand ceased its aimless plucking at a yarn knot in the patchwork comforter. Her breath came evenly—Mary Hope wondered if she slept. A hand fell on Mary Hope's shoulder, though she had not heard a footfall. She seemed prepared, seemed to know what she must do. She slipped out of the chair, and Belle slipped into it. ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... Doc gets back. I ain't one of the presumin' kind, but I think I'd better stay. An' you—I think you'd better go in an' have another good look at this Desert Rat o' yours. He's breathin' like the north wind sighin' through a knot-hole." ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... Barbara knew he meant what he had said to her many times—about there being a parson in Lazette, a hundred miles or so northeastward—and of his eagerness to be present with her while the parson "tied the knot." His manner had always been jocose, and yet she knew of the ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... have held commissions in our service), any footboy who can exchange his shoulder-knot for an epaulette, may perform all this and more against the Catholic by virtue of that very authority delegated to him by his sovereign for the express purpose of defending his fellow-subjects to the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... is bound About by it, as by a Gordian knot, Inseparable, until Death's sharp blade Divide its inmost coil. There is a time When all that sweeten'd youth and childhood dulls And fades to nothingness, as the faint moon Pales at the bright foreshadowing of morn, And leaves heaven void, when every chord is dumb That once made music in the soul, ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... ship's royal yards. Still, the latter continued the chase; and that evening both vessels were beating down along the southern margin of the Florida Reef, against the trades, but favoured by a three or four knot current, the brig out of sight to windward. Our narrative leads us to lose sight of both these vessels, for a time, in order to return to the islets of the Gulf. Eight-and-forty hours had made some changes in and around the haven ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... wrists and then the feet. Quickly knotting a third towel, he wedged and drilled a sharp knuckle joint into the flesh of the colorless cheek, between the upper and lower incisors. When the jaw had opened he thrust the knot into the gaping mouth, securely tying the ends of the towel at the back ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o' the world, Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen? Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled, You that's a lord's own son, Tom Thorne — what does ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... swim in a minuet, with the eyes of fifty well-dressed beaux upon me, to trip it in the Mall, or walk on the Battery give me the luxurious, jaunty, flowing bell-hoop. It would have delighted you to have seen me the last evening, my charming girl! I was dangling o'er the battery with Billy Dimple; a knot of young fellows were upon the platform; as I passed them I faltered with one of the most bewitching false steps you ever saw, and then recovered myself with such a pretty confusion, flirting my hoop to discover ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler

... appeared over the hill leading between them a woman about fifty-five years of age. She was a strong, thin-visaged woman, whose cheek had been bronzed by sun and weather. She was bareheaded, and her hair was gathered in a knot at the back. Her gown, of a thick woollen stuff, fit closely to her person, as if it had been made on purpose for the punishment she had been adjudged to receive. She was talking in a loud voice and gesticulating angrily with her head, for ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... McNeil. Thus far the feud merely smouldered, finding occasional expression in sarcastic speech, and the severance of former friendly relations, but it boded more serious trouble for the near future. To a loyal henchman, Moffat merely condescended to remark, glancing disdainfully at a knot of hard riders disconsolately sitting their ponies in front of the saloon door, "We 've got them fellers roped and tied, gents, and they simply won't be ace-high with the ladies of this camp after our fandango is ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... more reckless and foolhardy, and more especially of those who were either merely hunters and not farmers, or else who were of doubtful character, lived entirely by themselves; but, as a rule, each knot of settlers was gathered together into a little stockaded hamlet, called a fort or station. This system of defensive villages was very distinctive of pioneer backwoods life, and was unique of its kind; without it ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... hearing this, observed, O great Rishi, it was only when I had not heard this from thee that I had sought to act in the way I told thee of. Now, however, that I know all, I cannot be indifferent to what hath been ordained by the gods. Therefore do I resolve to accomplish what thou hast said. The knot of destiny cannot be untied. Nothing in this world is the result of our own acts. That which had been appointed by us in view of securing one only bridegroom hath now terminated in favour of many. As Krishna (in a former life) had repeatedly said, 'O, give me a husband!' the great god himself even ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... intelligence of wrath and wicked temper in her face, because she was herself in a manner the cause of the dissension. Suddenly Andrew Brewster, with a fiery outburst of inconsequent masculine wrath with the whole situation, essayed to cut the Gordian knot. He grabbed the little dress of bright woollen stuff, which lay partly made upon the table, and crammed it into the stove, and a reek of burning wool filled the room. Then both women turned upon him with a combination of anger to which his wrath ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... without holding the same fundamental view, could yet adopt its result. He specially refers to the circumstance that, in ver. 24, Jehoiachin is addressed as king,—a circumstance by which Berthold also supports his view, who, cutting the knot, advances the position that vers. 1-19 belong to the reign of Jehoiakim, but vers. 20—xxxii. 8 to the time when Jehoiachin was carried away to Babylon. (Maurer and Hitzig too suppose that vers. 20 ff. were added at a later period, under the reign of Jehoiachin). But what difficulty ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... England will bear in favour of efforts for reconciliation, and he nowhere shows any sign that he is thinking of unconditional submission. How, then, can he be expected to mince matters and speak smoothly when he comes to what he regards as the real knot of the difficulty, the real and fatal bar to all possibility of a mutual understanding? If his charges are untrue or exaggerated in detail or colouring, that is another matter; but the whole of ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... so madly. The knot that the Church ties it can unloose. This matter must to his Holiness the Pope; it shall be my business to lay it before him; yea, letters shall go to Avignon by the first safe hand. Moreover, it well may happen that God Himself will free you, ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... and a big jewel, somewhere in the back. The other side, taking warning, starts off in an absolutely different way, color, and effect, and explodes at the waist under the opposite arm in a diamond sunburst and a knot of tulle, on accidentally meeting its opponent half." It really is quite like that, too! Will is as amusing as ever. And he was so sweet about the party. Of course, at first, I had to be very diplomatic and get his consent without his knowing. He still hates ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch

... by this time, waiting expectantly, while Anthony opened the door admitting Neil, who kissed Bessie twice, and told her how glad he was to see her again, and how well her stuff dress of dark claret became her, or would, if she had left off that knot of Scotch plaid ribbon at the throat, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... them now; let him do his worst, and while Amy is Guy's wife, I don't think we shall easily be made to quarrel. I am glad the knot is tied, for I had a fatality notion that the feud was so strong, that it was nearly a case of the mountains bending and the streams ascending, ere she was to be our ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Joe,' said Ally; 'my head, yere, am sore, an' dis ankle p'raps am broke. Leff me see;' and he rose to his feet, and tried his leg. 'No, massa Joe; it'm sound's a pine knot. I hain't ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... crests of the black waves. Watch was impatiently kept from the different look-outs. Towards eleven o'clock in the morning a ship, with sails full set, was signalled as in view; two others followed at the distance of about half a knot. They approached like arrows shot from the bow of a skillful archer; and yet the sea ran so high that their speed was as nothing compared to the rolling of the billows in which the vessels were plunging first in one direction and then in another. The English fleet was soon ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... at last constructed with much labor a close shed, within which her poultry were nightly housed. This worked well for a season. But one evening a commotion in the hennery informed her that the depredators were again at work. Hastily seizing an axe in one hand and carrying a lighted pitch pine knot in the other, she hurried to the scene of action, and found Grimalkin feasting sumptuously on her plumpest pullet. The banqueters were evidently a mother and her well-grown son, whom she was instructing in the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... of the room were made of new pinewood and only varnished with oil, so that all the knots were visible. And the knots in the knot-holes looked for all the world like ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg

... Deum" and several hymns in Ojebway. Then we sat round the camp fire, which blazed up cheerily and gave light enough for us to see our books. I was pleased to find how many of the people had their Ojebway prayer-books and testaments with them, carefully wrapped up in a pocket handkerchief. Each little knot of people lighted a small smouldering mosquito fire in the midst, so that smoke was rising on all sides. About ten o'clock I concluded with prayer; the people shook hands and departed. Rain was beginning to fall heavily. This ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... given it to her one day when Mary Rose told her of a letter she had received from Gladys. The letter to the owner of the Washington was not as easy to write as the answer to Gladys' note had been. She screwed her face into a frowning knot as she tried to think what it was best ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett

... had gathered in one or two groups—one a little crowd towards Woking, the other a knot of people in the direction of Chobham. Evidently they shared my mental conflict. There were few near me. One man I approached—he was, I perceived, a neighbour of mine, though I did not know his name—and accosted. But it was scarcely a ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... in the west, but its rays, though not so scorching as at mid-day, were sickening, and productive of extreme lassitude. On the first low range of hills they crossed the bodies were not numerous, and down in the valley at the foot of them they only came upon one group. A knot of Arabs retreating to their last position had evidently been overtaken by a shell bursting in their midst, and their fearfully mangled bodies showed what modern science can effect when applied in earnest to the work of war. On the next ridge the Soudanese dead lay thicker; lying dotted ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... from the conservatory she introduced the two young men in her stateliest manner. Bessie was beginning now to understand what all this meant. Throughout the dinner my lady never relaxed. She was formally courteous, elaborately gracious, but grande dame from her shoe-tie to the top-knot of ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... had gone, the Colonel ordered me to guard the door, and this gave me the chance of putting on my boots again. The Colonel, cutting off with his sword a good length of bell rope, made a swift and most workmanlike job of tying the spy into a knot. He then opened the window, and, Margaret taking my place meanwhile, he and I cautiously bundled Weir on to the balcony, shut down the window, and left him ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... nearly in that state of things and of opinions came the Austrian match, which promised to draw the knot, as afterwards in effect it did, still more closely between the old rival houses. This added exceedingly to their hatred and contempt of their monarchy. It was for this reason that the late glorious queen, who on all accounts was formed to produce general love and admiration, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... head against the side of the britchka, and, catching my breath with a sinking of the heart, I listen despairingly to the movements of Philip's fat black fingers, as he slowly ties a knot, and straightens out the traces, and strikes the side horse with palm ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... Rhiannon unto Gawl, the son of Clud, "Rise up quickly." "I will willingly arise," said he. So he rose up, and put his two feet into the bag. And Pwyll turned up the sides of the bag, so that Gawl was over his head in it. And he shut it up quickly, and slipped a knot upon the thongs, and blew his horn. And thereupon, behold, his knights came down upon the palace. And they seized all the host that had come with Gawl, and cast them into his own prison. And Pwyll threw off his rags, and his old shoes, and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... skein, sleeve, felt, lace; wicker; mat, matting; plait, trellis, wattle, lattice, grating, grille, gridiron, tracery, fretwork, filigree, reticle; tissue, netting, mokes[obs3]; rivulation[obs3]. cross, chain, wreath, braid, cat's cradle, knot; entangle &c. (disorder) 59. [woven fabrics] cloth, linen, muslin, cambric &c. [web-footed animal] webfoot. V. cross, decussate[obs3]; intersect, interlace, intertwine, intertwist[obs3], interweave, interdigitate, interlink. twine, entwine, weave, inweave[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... was still blushin' from answerin' questions. I had that paper with the city seal on it in my inside pocket, though. My next job is on the Reverend Percey, the one who did the job for Mr. Robert the time I stage-managed his impromptu knot-tyin'. Course, I couldn't sign him up for anything definite, but I got a schedule of his spare time from six o'clock on, ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... attention, and the material put into them is more expensive. To make those the girls take the centers and submerge each one in melted chocolate with a dipping-fork, finishing the pieces with a certain little twist or decoration on top; it requires no small amount of skill to make this top-knot, which not only serves to render the candy more attractive but to distinguish one variety of filling from another. Each kind has its own particular decoration. After some practice any of us might, I suppose, learn to make ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... As to content me well. "Whenever one Faileth of these, that in the keyhole straight It turn not, to this alley then expect Access in vain." Such were the words he spake. "One is more precious: but the other needs Skill and sagacity, large share of each, Ere its good task to disengage the knot Be worthily perform'd. From Peter these I hold, of him instructed, that I err Rather in opening than in keeping fast; So but the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... also much more disorderly style), the rare geographers (of whom the chief is Richard Eden, the first English writer on America), and the rest. Of this rest the most interesting, perhaps, are the small but curious knot of critics who lead up in various ways to Sidney and Harvey, who seem to have excited considerable interest at the time, and who were not succeeded, after the early years of James, by any considerable body of critics of English till John Dryden began to write in the last third of the following ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... asked, suddenly stopping before a knot of women. They were in the act of discussing her, and started ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... and meek; but at least he had great provocation, for Marilla, when that poor man came to the door, red as a beet, with perspiration streaming down his face, he had on one of his wife's big gingham aprons. 'I can't get this durned thing off,' he said, 'for the strings are tied in a hard knot and I can't bust 'em, so you'll have to excuse me, ladies.' We begged him not to mention it and went in and sat down. Mr. Blair sat down too; he twisted the apron around to his back and rolled it up, but he ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Burling. Every knot that has been tied in the threads during winding, dressing, beaming, and weaving, must be looked for and felt for during burling, carefully drawn to the surface of the cloth, and then clipped off with the scissors, leaving the ends long ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... Masie," he said at last, drawing her to him, "see what happens to those who are forced into traps! It was the big knot that held it back! And ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... that hath alwayes bene accompted with euery countrey and nation of neuer so barbarous people, the highest & holiest, of any ceremonie apperteining to man: a match forsooth made for euer and not for a day, a solace prouided for youth, a comfort for age, a knot of alliance & amitie indissoluble: great reioysing was therefore due to such a matter and to so gladsome a time. This was done in ballade wise as the natall song, and was song very sweetely by Musitians at the chamber ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... With her propellers working to the limit, and every volt of electricity that was available forced into the forward and aft plates, the Advance surged through the water, about ten feet below the surface. But the Wonder kept after her, giving her knot for knot. The course of the leading submarine was easy to trace now, in the morning light which penetrated ten ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... are curt, plain-spoken, practical-in everything antipodal to the knot of hapless men, who, unable from some defect or morbidity to help on the real movement of their nation, are fain to get their bread with tongue and pen, by retailing to 'silly women,' 'ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth,' second-hand ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley

... did at first. We used to meet at dinner every day; but then she fell in love with an acrobat—I suppose you would call him an acrobat—I mean one of those gutta-percha men who tie their legs in a knot over their heads. The child was deformed. I was awfully cut up about it at the time, but it's ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... Quite a little knot of people there was, in a hotel parlor; and while the blooming Miranda, now Mrs. Morris, was taking her share of talk very well with the ladies, Ham was every bit as busy with ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard

... made leaning caressingly against the charmed and patient Bess! She was so slight, yet round and supple—strong, too, with the strength of perfect health! The thick fluffed black hair was rolled away from her face and gathered into a low knot in the nape of her neck. Her dress cut low at the throat enhanced the white purity of her face and the slim round grace of her neck which showed to advantage against the ebony flank of the mother of many milky ways. Her lips were red and full; the nose was a saucy stub; the eyes ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... to himself, as he got the knot of his tie to his liking at last,—"keep a grip of yourself and go steady. Such a thing is enough to throw any man a bit off the rails. Ca' canny, ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... more exalted rank. The latter clapped her hands; outside the door a shuffling and a low groan were heard—the groan came from the sleepy lackey, roused from his deep slumber, as he uncoiled himself from the close knot into which his legs and body were knit in the curve of the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... vivacity, her market-woman's wit, had all been remarked by the marine store-dealer. He thought at first of taking La Cibot from her husband, bigamy among the lower classes in Paris being much more common than is generally supposed; but greed was like a slip-knot drawn more and more tightly about his heart, till reason at length was stifled. When Remonencq computed that the commission paid by himself and Elie Magus amounted to about forty thousand francs, he determined to have La Cibot for his legitimate spouse, and his thoughts ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... spencer, men of forty or fifty mentally invested the wearer with top-boots, pistachio-colored kerseymere small clothes adorned with a knot of ribbon; and beheld themselves in the costumes of their youth. Elderly ladies thought of former conquests; but the younger men were asking each other why the aged Alcibiades had cut off the skirts of his overcoat. The rest of the costume was ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... men think very little of what has to follow courtship and marriage. They think little of the seriousness of the step. They forget that when the pledge has once been given, there is no turning back, The knot cannot be untied. If a thoughtless mistake has been made, the inevitable results will nevertheless follow. The maxim is current, that "marriage is a lottery." It may be so if we abjure the teachings of prudence—if we refuse to examine, inquire, and think—if we are content ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... is next door to Solomon. It's all one." Halicarnassus can creep through the smallest knot-hole of any man of his size it has ever been my lot to meet, provided there is anything on the other side he wishes to get at. If there is not, and especially if anything is there which he wishes to shun, a four hundred and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... known as "knot celery" and "turnip-rooted celery." The roots, which are about the size of a white turnip, and not the stalks are eaten. They are more often used as a vegetable ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

... recognized by the characters cited. The extent of lime deposit at the capillitial nodes varies; sometimes very little. This accounts for Berkeley's generic reference. On the other hand, Lister makes the rounded lime knots "each knot with a red centre surrounded by yellow, round, lime-granules" diagnostic. This pied condition does not come out in any of our specimens. The capillitium in broken specimens soon fades, tends ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride

... "He twined this knot for your comfort. Throw it over your left shoulder, and it shall write the first letter of your gallant's name. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... preparing the family breakfast table, had fallen to skirmishing for the temporary possession of the loaf, and were buffeting one another with great heartiness; the smallest boy of all, with precocious discretion, hovering outside the knot of combatants, and harassing their legs. Into the midst of this fray, Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby both precipitated themselves with great ardour, as if such ground were the only ground on which they could now ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens

... salvages be learning civilization fast. An' I had done it myself, I could not have tied the knot ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... mingled attractions of opera and travestie; while the BOWERY AMPHITHEATRE and ROCKWELL'S Circus at NIBLO'S, have shared abundantly in the favor bestowed now-a-days upon popular entertainments. . . . 'DRESS always and act to please your partner for life, as you were fain to do before the nuptial-knot was tied.' This is an old maxim, and here is 'a commentator upon it.' A newly-married lady is suddenly surprised by a visit from a newly-married man, when she straightway begins to apologize: 'She is horribly chagrined, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... pair, and lay it bare above an inch. Then make a strong Ligature on the upper part of the Arterie, not to be untied again: but an inch below, videl. towards the Heart, make another Ligature of a running knot, which may be loosen'd or fastned as there shall be occasion. Having made these two knots, draw two threds under the Artery between the Ligatures; and then open the Artery, and put in a Quil, and tie the Artery upon the Quill very fast by those two threds, and stop the Quill with a stick. After ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... moment Emma stirred. Handicapped as she was by a mouthful of nineteen pins and her bow-knot attitude, Smalley still could voice ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... making a living to give careful thought to the social side of aesthetics and recreation, and, secondly, because the ministry of social recreation has fallen almost entirely under the dominance of the same trend; it has been thoroughly commercialized. We cannot cut the puzzling knot by simply prohibiting all forms of public theatrical entertainment. For one reason, these forms shade off imperceptibly from the church service to the extremes of the vaudeville. But the simple fact ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... necklace and a band of green in her fashionably done fair hair. Alexina's gown was a soft white satin that fitted closely and made her look very tall and slim and round, the corsage trimmed with the only color she ever wore. Her hair was done in a classic knot and held with a comb—a present from Aileen—designed from periwinkles and ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... Blanka. The strange visitor was of tall and slender form, and suggested, in her closely fitting gown of soft material, a statue of one of the pagan goddesses. Her thick blond hair was carelessly gathered into a knot behind; her complexion was pale, her blue eyes were bright and vivacious, and her coral lips were parted in a coquettish smile. Every movement was fraught with grace and charm, every pose commanded admiration. She followed up her self-introduction with a laugh—a laugh ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... buckles at the knees. His vest was of some bright yellow material; a white taffety cap was set jauntily on one side of his head; and, to complete his equipment, a blood-red silk handkerchief enveloped his throat, and fell down, in a dainty manner, upon his bosom, in a fantastic bow-knot ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... one side, and disclosed to view the entrance to a natural cave, into the wall of which was stuck a naming, pitch-pine knot. Entering, the blanket was dropped, and preceded by a man, whose features the fitful glare of the torch failed to reveal, the two adventurers were ushered into the main portion of ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... the hotel, Rose and another girl had just come up from the rink together. A little knot of people were gathered on the verandah. Dinah and Billy kept behind Rose and her companion; but in a moment ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... difficulty, when every tie held fast, every button was slippery, and the tighter garments fitted like skins. Kate was subdued and frightened; she gave no trouble, but all the help she gave was to pull a string so as to make a hopeless knot of the bow that her friend had ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge

... some a poet's name, Others a sword-knot and laced suit inflame. But lofty Lintot[299] in the circle rose: 'This prize is mine; who tempt it are my foes; With me began this genius, and shall end.' He spoke: and who with Lintot shall contend? Fear ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... of this glorious and beneficent career, at the age of fifty-five (57?), Caesar, whose frank and fearless spirit disdained suspicion or precaution, was assassinated by a knot of rancorous, perfidious aristocrats, whom he had pardoned and promoted. Their purblind spite was powerless to avert the inevitable advent of monocracy. What they did effectually extinguish for more than a century, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... him. In his heart he felt that in this love affair also he had been a failure. No matter how he contradicted himself, and said it was absurd to imagine he was a failure as Helena's lover, yet he felt a physical sensation of defeat, a kind of knot in his breast which neither reason, nor dialectics, nor circumstance, not even Helena, could untie. He had failed as lover ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... that my hair was very long. If I stood it touched the ground, although if I was sitting it only reached my ears. I seized a knife and cut off a large lock, which I plaited together, and when night came tied it into a knot, and prepared to use it for a pillow. But what was I to do for a fire? A tinder box I had, but no wood. Then it occurred to me that I had stuck a needle in my clothes, so I took the needle and split it in ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... says Jurgen, "is the principle and the end of all: it reveals the sublime knot which binds together the chain of causes: it is the symbol of identity, of equality, of existence, of conservation, and of general harmony." And Jurgen emphasized these characteristics vigorously. "In brief, ONE is a symbol of the union of things: it introduces ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... can e'er divide The Knot that sacred Love hath ty'd. When Parents draw against our Mind, The True-Love's Knot they faster bind. Oh, oh ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay

... any sort are worn by them, their long and beautiful hair being considered a sufficient protection to the head, which they arrange in something like the European fashion, it being fastened by a comb, or some gold ornament in a knot at the back ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... of these teachers was scrupulous even to minutiae, and everywhere found some subject to raise a question; for the smoothest surface presented inequalities to him, and there was no rod so smooth that he could not find a knot in it, and shew how it might be got rid of. The other of the two was prompt in reply, and never for the sake of subterfuge avoided a question that was proposed; but he would choose the contradictory side, or by multiplicity of words would show that a simple answer could not be given. In all questions, ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton

... head would go when he was delivering his blows upon the limb! His beak wore the surface perceptibly. When he wished to change the key, which was quite often, he would shift his position an inch or two to a knot which gave out a higher, shriller note. When I climbed up to examine his drum, he was much disturbed. I did not know he was in the vicinity, but it seems he saw me from a near tree, and came in haste to the neighboring branches, and with spread plumage and a sharp note demanded ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... be much obliged," said she, her eye flashing quickly about the room before settling down upon the knot ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... shuffling about in the bedroom. Chance stalked in quietly and stood gazing at his master. Sundown had evidently been taking a bath,—not in the pail of water that stood near him, but obviously round and about it. At the moment he was engaged in tying a knot in the silk bandanna about his neck. Chance became animated. His master was going somewhere! Sundown turned his head, glancing at the dog with a preoccupied eye. The knot adjusted to his satisfaction, he knelt and drew a large box from beneath the bed. ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... to disturb them, and accordingly came into the inner room, where she found Hsueeh Pao-ch'ai in a house dress, with her hair simply twisted into a knot round the top of the head, sitting on the inner edge of the stove-couch, leaning on a small divan table, in the act of copying a pattern for embroidery, with the waiting-maid Ying Erh. When she saw her enter, Pao Ch'ai hastily put down her pencil, and turning ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... rendered futile by this uproarious rapping Wildeve withdrew, passed out at the gate, and walked quickly down the path without thinking of anything except getting away unnoticed. Half-way down the hill the path ran near a knot of stunted hollies, which in the general darkness of the scene stood as the pupil in a black eye. When Wildeve reached this point a report startled his ear, and a few spent gunshots fell among ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... strong cloth by two of the corners to an iron hook in the wall; make a knot with the other two ends, so that a stick might pass through. Put the butter into the cloth; twist it tightly over a dish, into which the butter will fall through the knot, so forming small and pretty ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... he is seen with arms outstretched and in rapid play, as though he were setting her free. Far from that, however, is his intention. He but undoes the knot around her neck, and raising the poncho, clutches at something which encircles her throat. He had noticed this something while throttling her when first caught; it had rattled between his fingers as the beads of a rosary, and he ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... were never found plodding in their offices. In that case they would have waited long for the recognition of their talents or a demand for their services. Out of this characteristic of the times also grew the street discussions I have adverted to. There was scarcely a day or hour when a knot of men might not have been seen near the door of some prominent store, or about the steps of the court-house eagerly discussing a current political topic—not as a question of news, for news was not then received quickly or frequently, as it is now, but rather for the sake ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... get their necks in a slip knot and pull them up to a key-hole. They can't hurt you, you know, because you are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 4, 1841 • Various

... deuce take it, I ask so little! There's the rub! I hear your upbraiding voice, 'Pooh, man, catch her up and kiss her!' Ah, my dear Varvilliers, you suffer under a confusion. She is a duty; and who is impelled by duty to these sudden cuttings of a knot? And she does a duty, and would therefore not kiss me in return. And I also, doing duty, am duty. Thus we are both of us strangled in the black coils of ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... beads in his chaplet of vices? The seven deadly devils wanton in his heart; his spirit is of an incredible lewdness; he is prouder than the Pope, more cruel than a mousing cat—all which I complacently forgave him till he touched at my top-knot, ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... made king, dedicated his wagon to the deity of the oracle, and tied it up in its place with a fast knot. This was the celebrated Gordian knot, which, in after times it was said, whoever should untie should become lord of all Asia. Many tried to untie it, but none succeeded, till Alexander the Great, in his career of conquest, came to Phrygia. He tried ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... Papists,) wish us to admit, that neither those who administer but one kind, nor those who receive it, are guilty of sin. We have, indeed, exonerated those from blame, who receive but one kind; but as to those who administer but one,—there is the knot. The Synod of Basil conceded the whole sacrament to the Bohemians, on condition that they would acknowledge that it may, with propriety, be taken and received in one kind only. This confession they also wish to extort from us. Eckius says ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker

... any one should ask what course Napoleon ought to pursue, it was easy to reply "that the mass of the French army being already assembled in Bavaria, it should be thrown upon the left of the Prussians by way of Grera and Hof, for the gordian knot of the campaign was in that direction, no matter what plan they ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... what it was in Kentucky at the same time. [Footnote: Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, xi., No. 2, pp. 160-165, Letters of Levi Allen, Ethan Allen, and others, from 1787 to 1790.] In each territory there was acute friction with a neighboring State. In each there was a small knot of men who wished the community to keep out of the new American nation, and to enter into some sort of alliance with a European nation, England in one case, Spain in the other. In each there was a considerable but fluctuating separatist party, desirous that ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... to find a hiding-place for Jill so that if or when the invaders searched for her, they would not find her. But he expected his muscles to knot in spasm and cramp before ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... the hoops of their barrel cut, and the turpentine spread on the ground. I have been told by an inhabitant of Tyngsborough, who had the story from his ancestors, that one of these captives, when the Indians were about to upset his barrel of turpentine, seized a pine knot and flourishing it, swore so resolutely that he would kill the first who touched it, that they refrained, and when at length he returned from Canada he found it still standing. Perhaps there was more than one barrel. However this ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... the insignificant detail of life interested Sartorius; his indifference no longer struck her as strange. Firmly she tied the last knot about ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... hair something long, and cut before either with stone or knife, very disorderly. Their women wear their hair long, knit up with two loops, showing forth on either side of their faces, and the rest faltered upon a knot. Also, some of their women tint their faces proportionally, as chin, cheeks, and forehead and the wrists of their hands, whereupon they lay a colour ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt

... like a guest at a mask, and in some measure enjoyed the show, though with an uneasy consciousness that I was pledged to become, sooner or later, a part of the spectacle. I saw a shepherdess fresh from Arcadia wave back a dozen importunate gallants, then throw a knot of blue ribbon into their midst, laugh with glee at the scramble that ensued, and finally march off with the wearer of the favor. I saw a neighbor of mine, tall Jack Pride, who lived twelve miles above me, blush ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... case will be brought out at the inquest," replied Mitchell politely, and Foster, his curiosity unsatisfied, walked away. He found the room used for inquests crowded to the doors, and made his way through the knot of men standing about, to the reporters' table, where a seat had been reserved for him by the morgue master. Across the east end of the room was the raised platform upon which stood a long table and chairs for the coroner, the deputy coroner, ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... happen?" she asked, suddenly stopping before a knot of women. They were in the act of discussing her, and ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... showed them their danger it showed them too that those on shore had not been unmindful of them. The ugly cliffs, steep and inaccessible, were not very high, and on the nearest point to the wreck, not indeed one hundred yards away, a little knot of men were getting ready the rocket apparatus. There were women there too, with shawls thrown over their heads, and Harpers heart beat as he thought of seeing his love again. Surely now—now that he came to her from the very jaws of death—cast up out of the cruel sea—she would not reject ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... conspired to make this Irish question a Gordian-knot which no man can untie, and but few would dare to cut. The past extravagance of the landlords, absenteeism, rack-renting, injustice of all kinds; the past jealousy of England and her over-shadowing all native industries and ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton

... of Indiana in regard to the glorious Union of these Republics. May God preserve it for ever! But precisely because you, the favourite son of Indiana and the honoured representatives of the sovereign people of Indiana—in one accord of perfect harmony esteem the Gordian knot of the Union above all, allow me to say once more, that if the United States permit the principle of non-interference to be blotted out from the code of nations on earth, foreign interference mingling with some domestic discord, ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... stood thinking. His officers had fallen out of earshot, and were talking together in a little knot some four yards behind. I was still standing on the spot to which the King had called me. He looked round, and saw my ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards

... deep," he said; "But still me trusty sloop Each hour, I wot, goes many a knot And many ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... bowsing at her bow-line, But always making lee-way to the ditch, And yaw'd her head about all sorts of ways. The devil sink the craft! And wasn't she trimendus slack in stays! We couldn't, no how, keep the inn abaft! Well—I suppose We hadn't run a knot—or much beyond— (What will you have on it?)—but off she goes, Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond! There I am!—all a-back! So I looks forward for her bridle-gears, To heave her head round on the t'other tack; But when I starts, The leather parts, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... for a moment one saw the far flat desert, the struggling knot of men and horses, the stampede of the three across the plain, and the high sun flaming inextinguishable laughter-over all!—and it had happened nigh ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... frsoning, strlande Valhalla? 6 Blgde Balder, tar du ingen bot? Bot tager mannen, nr hans frnder falla, de hga gudar sonar man med blot. Det sgs, du r den mildaste av alla: bjud, och vart offer ger jag utan knot. Ditt tempels brand var icke Fritiofs tanka, tag flcken bort ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner

... dust cart did bring good luck. We had a real piece of luck to-day! In the big interval I noticed a little knot of girls in the hall, and suddenly I felt as if my heart would stop beating. Frau Doktor M., I should say Frau Professor Theyer, was standing among them, she saw us directly and held out her hand to us so we kissed it. She has come to visit her parents and her husband is with her; since she ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... of how Bernstorff handled the newspaper men, and thus worked the American people, ... He ought to get out of the newspaper men themselves, and he can, the whole atmosphere of the Washington situation since Dernberg left,—Bernstorff's little knot of society friends, chiefly women, the dinners that they had, his appeals for sympathy, the manner in which he would offset whatever the State Department was attempting to get before the American people. He would give away to newspaper men news that he got from his own ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... is raised a few inches above the rest of the floor, and which is regarded as the place of honour—his reverence took his seat at the table, and adjusted his robes; then, tying up the muscles of his face into a knot, expressive of utter abstraction, he struck the bell upon the table thrice, burnt a little incense, and read a passage from the sacred book, which he reverently lifted to his head. The congregation joined in chorus, devout but unintelligent; ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... to feel a westerly current, which increased to a knot and a half as we got near Rottee; the winds being ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... golden knot Which angles' hands have tied, By heavenly skill its textures wrought Who shall ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... contemptuous expression. Poor Pat! What a world of useless sighing and trouble! Nannie sits meantime in her chamber working upon the chain for a surprise to thee on the morrow, and her heart's honest love is inwoven with every knot; until there is not a link from beginning to end but is fraught ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... The wreath is very large, being made up, on one side, of a laurel branch with leaves of frosted silver and berries of gold, and, on the other, of an oak branch with silver leaves and gold acorns, both boughs being tied together at the bottom by a large knot of ribbon in silver gilded, bearing the arms of the Netherlands and the United States on enameled shields, and an ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... had fought and won the battle of the Granicus. In this battle nearly all of the Persian leaders were slain, and its result spread terror throughout Persia. Halicarnassus was next reduced. The march of Alexander was ever onward. In the citadel of Gordium he cut the "Gordian knot," and prophecy marked him ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... Justine, and Justine found him, at a tournament at Modena! This parallel adventure disconcerted our two grave English critics—they find a tale which they wisely judge improbable, and because they discover the tale copied, they conclude that "it is not singular!" This knot of perplexity is, however, easily cut through, if we substitute, which we are fully justified in, for "Poete du XV. Siecle"—"du XIX. Siecle." The "Poesies" of Clotilde are as genuine a fabrication as Chatterton's; subject to the same objections, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... years of our abode here. . . . The good old Archbishop of York is dead, and I am glad I paid my visit to him when I did. Mr. Rogers has paid me a long visit to-day and gave me all the particulars of his death. It was a subject I should not have introduced, for of that knot of intimate friends, Mr. Grenville, the Archbishop, and himself, he ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)

... And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the weeping women, Mr Dombey passes through the hall to the other carriage that is waiting to receive him. He is not 'brought down,' these observers think, by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect, his bearing is as stiff as ever ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... be loosened to dry. I let everything fall forward with my own hands, and, when we came to roll up the canvass again, I actually managed all three of the royals alone; one at a time, of course. My father had taught me to make a flat-knot, a bowline, a clove-hitch, two half-hitches, and such sort of things; and I got through with both a long and a short splice tolerably well. I found all this, and the knowledge I had gained from my model-ship at home of great use to me; so much so, indeed, as to induce even ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... and Aunt Lydia, hypnotized as she was by the telephone conversation, had presence of mind enough to open the door and receive a square box tied with purple ribbon. She dexterously untied the loose bow knot, and withdrew from its tissue wrappings, a fragrant bouquet of violets. An envelope enclosing a card fell to the floor. With suppleness hardly to be expected from one of her years, she stooped to pick it up, and in a twinkling had the ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... own office appliances to increase efficiency. His fountain pen was made by running a hose from a barrel of ink and with it he could "daub out a walk" quicker than the recipient of the pay-off could tie the knot in his ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead

... manner as shown in our diagram, at (a), this being for the balance weight. The [Page 133] latter may consist of a small stone, piece of lead, or the like, and should be suspended by means of a wire bent around it, and secured in a hole in the tin by a bend or knot in the other extremity. Further explanations are almost superfluous, as our main illustration fully ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... mought 'a' knowed it!" a voice at once fond and threatening called to Reverdy's quailing figure. The owner of the voice was a young woman unkempt as to the pale hair which escaped from the knot at her neck, and stuck out there and dangled about her face in spite of the attempts made to gather it under the control of the high horn comb holding its main strands together. The lankness of her long figure showed in the calico wrapper which seemed her sole garment; and her large ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... stamp duty reduced on newspapers to twopence, and the advertisement duty to one shilling; and in 1827 he tried to gain an exemption from the stamp act for political pamphlets; but he was defeated on each occasion. In 1827, The Standard was started as a Tory organ, under the auspices of a knot of able writers, the chief of whom were Dr. Giffard, the editor, Alaric Attila Watts, and Dr. Maginn. It has always possessed a good connection among the Conservative party, but has never been a very profitable concern. After the abolition of the stamp duty its price was reduced to twopence, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... was not one of those slow-minded men who take weeks to consider a difficulty. When he could not untie a knot, he would ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... people hath not authorized, they actually introduce a state of war, which is that of force without authority: and thus, by removing the legislative established by the society, (in whose decisions the people acquiesced and united, as to that of their own will) they untie the knot, and expose the people a-new to the state of war, And if those, who by force take away the legislative, are rebels, the legislators themselves, as has been shewn, can be no less esteemed so; when they, who were set up for the protection, and preservation of the ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... common, knowledge is the bond, The seale, and crowne of our united mindes; And that is rare and constant, and for that, To my late written hand I give thee this. See, heaven, the soule thou gau'st is in this hand. This is the Knot of our eternitie, Which fortune, death, nor ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... become indispensable to him. They mingled, too, with their adroit manoeuvres, familiar and delicate attentions, likely to touch an old man. They sat on his knees like children, played gently with his moustache, and arranged in the latest style the military knot of his cravat. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... matches or smoking," he said, turning to Crane. "This rocket will tie them up in a knot. Step back, everybody." ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... to the veteran, coolly, "is one of those scrupulous gentlemen, who, like the madman in the play, will not tie his cravat without the warrant of Mr Justice Overdo; but I will let him see, before we part, that my shoulder-knot is as legal a badge of authority as the mace of the Justiciary. So, waving this discussion, you will be pleased, young man, to tell me directly when ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... left the denouement in Henley's hands. He had left it ostensibly in Henley's hands, but the latter, reading the manuscript again with intense care, saw that matters had been so contrived that the knot of the novel could only be cut by murder. As it had been written, the man must inevitably murder the woman. And Andrew? All through the night Henley thought of him as he had last seen him, opening the door of the red house with the ...
— The Collaborators - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens

... an open space, now closely filled with sitting listeners, stood a Hebrew, not older than thirty-five. A knot of flaming pitch, stuck in a crevice of rock near him, lighted his face and figure. His frame had the characteristic stalwart structure of the Israelitish bondman. The black hair waved back from a placid white forehead; ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... precious eyesight with the small-pox, or a flash of forked lightning, or fall down a three-story stair dead drunk, smash his legs to such a degree that both of them required to be cut off, above the knees, half an hour after, so far all right and well—for he could just tear off his shoulder-knot, and make a perfect fortune—in the one case, in being led from door to door by a ragged laddie, with a string at the button-hole, playing 'Ower the Border,' 'The Hen's March,' 'Donald M'Donald,' 'Jenny ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... mount into her cheeks as she twisted the handkerchief she held into a knot. Then, ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... far-fetched dainties which they expected, that Timon's epicurean table in past times had so liberally presented, now appeared under the covers of these dishes a preparation more suitable to Timon's poverty, nothing but a little smoke and lukewarm water, fit feast for this knot of mouth-friends, whose professions were indeed smoke, and their hearts lukewarm and slippery as the water with which Timon welcomed his astonished guests, bidding them, 'Uncover, dogs, and lap'; and before they could recover ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... another county, and knit the left garter about the right legged stocking (let the other garter and stocking alone) and as you rehearse these following verses, at every comma, knit a knot. ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... their patience, therefore, they waited for nearly two hours, without examining the net. Then Norman and Basil crawled back upon the ice, to see what fortune had done for them. They approached the spot, and, with their hearts thumping against their ribs, untied the knot and ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... little thing, you! See, my mouth's the same way, too. Feels like a knot. Gee! you cute little thing, you—all puckered up ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... Enfants-Rouges. He found the house of Madame Etienne Gruget and examined it. There, the mystery on which depended the fate of so many persons would be cleared up; there, at this moment, was Ferragus, and to Ferragus all the threads of this strange plot led. The Gordian knot of the drama, already so bloody, was surely in a meeting between Madame Jules, her husband, and that man; and a blade able to cut the closest of such knots ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... his few intervals of leisure, in a little knot of relations and friends, he delighted in quiet conversation, through which occasionally ran an undercurrent of pleasantry, not unmixed with caustic wit. At his table he was the least heard among the company, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... slim in her scanty blue cotton frock and the apron far too large for her. The hair, tidily caught in a firm little knot, was making brave efforts to escape in wild little curls, and the girl's big eyes had the expression seen in the eyes of an animal that has ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... agreed Fibsy. "It may yet cut the Gorgian knot! Why, Mr. Stone, the sewing lady knew that knife. She was here to lunching a few days before the moider, an' she says she always sat at the table in the dining room to eat, after Miss Van Allen got through. An' she says that ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... fair abaft, and they made good way. Estelle began gradually to like the smooth motion. Her spirits came back as she felt that every knot brought her nearer home and Aunt Betty. Jack had done his best to make her comfortable, but the smack was not a large vessel, and its accommodation was necessarily limited. Nevertheless, all that could be done to make her voyage ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... finest threads. The thread-maker passes each strand through her mouth to moisten it, then places it upon her bare thigh, and with a quick movement rolls it with the flat of her hand to twist it. Passing it again through her mouth, she ties a knot at one end, points the other, and puts it away to dry. The result is a thread like ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... tied his ears in a hard knot, as he always did when he was thinking, and then, putting on his fur coat and taking his rheumatism crutch with him, he went ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis

... the twilight, was obliged to wish them good even, after having obtained a solemn repetition of their promise to meet him at the appointed time and place, and then retreated to his apartment, where he spent the whole night in various conjectures on the subject of the letter, the Gordian knot of which he could by no means untie. One while he imagined that some wag had played a trick on his messenger, in consequence of which Emilia had received a supposititious letter; but, upon farther reflection, he could not conceive the practicability of any such deceit. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... me is a knot-hole, which doth open to the outer air; and upon the opening is a flat stone, which, little by little, more or less, I remove and replace in accordance with certain laws, allowing just the proper amount of atmospheric air to enter from below. This oil maketh ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... his astonishment, at seeing the girl take a letter from her pocket, and, standing on tiptoe, drop it into a knot-hole in the magnolia! ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... strength is an important consideration. The weakening effect is much more serious where timber is subjected to bending and tension than where under compression. The extent to which knots affect the strength of a beam depends upon their position, size, number, direction of fibre, and condition. A knot on the upper side is compressed, while one on the lower side is subjected to tension. The knot, especially (as is often the case) if there is a season check in it, offers little resistance to this tensile stress. Small, knots, however, may be so located in a beam along the neutral plane ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... was all I needed there. It would suffice to right my wrongs; To cut the knot of all those thongs With which she'd bound me to despair, That woman with her midnight hair, Her Circe snares and Siren songs. My sword ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein

... point there; alluring the little bushes close to its side, and bending the tall slim trees over its current; sweeping a rocky ledge clean of everything but moss, and sending a still lagoon full of white arrow-heads and rosy knot-weed far back into the meadow. The shore guides and controls the stream; now detaining and now advancing it; now bending it in a hundred sinuous curves, and now speeding it straight as a wild-bee on its homeward flight; here hiding the water in a deep cleft overhung with green branches, and there ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... Carvelin, where his distribution commenced. He went quickly, following the course of the narrow river, which frothed, murmured, and boiled along its bed of grass, under an arch of willow-trees. The big stones, impeding the flow, had around them a cushion of water, a sort of cravat ending in a knot of foam. In some places, there were cascades, a foot wide, often invisible, which made under the leaves, under the tendrils, under a roof of verdure, a big noise at once angry and gentle; then, further on, the banks ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... would—— Marjorie took a deep breath of sheer dismay. Of what use would it be to plan to help Mignon find her better self, then deliberately turn the one girl who liked her against her by relating her past misdeeds? Here indeed was a problem. She knitted her brows in troubled thought over this new knot in the tangle. One thing she was resolved upon, however. She would open her heart to Connie. Perhaps she might be able to suggest a ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... man entered, leaning on the arm of an indescribably beautiful woman. Not thirty yet, tall and nobly molded, with straight black brows over magnificent eyes; rippling dark hair gathered up in a great knot, and ornamented with a single band of gold. A sweeping dress of wine-colored velvet, set off with a dazzling neck and arms decorated like her stately head with ornaments of Roman gold. At the first glance she seemed a cold, ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard

... village parson, there had been three young clergymen in attendance and more or less in active service while the nuptial knot was being tied. Indeed, so many were there of them and so active were they in their ministrations that poor Mrs. Brenton, down in the front pew and painfully shiny between her proud maternal tears and the reflected lustre of her new black satin frock, was never quite certain in her ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... declared that he was "tougher than a knot," and "dirtier than any greaser," a statement, which we readily believed when he informed us "that he hadn't washed for ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... of a rope was made into a running knot and hove round the body of the animal; when, the men hauling away with a will at the other end of the line, which was passed through a snatch-block hung in the rigging, the captive was soon bowsed up to ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... by the off-wheel-rein, and add the near leader's blinkers to the result. Then pass your left thumb under your right middle finger, taking care at the same time to tie the off-leading-rein round your neck in a sailor's knot. Add six yards of whipcord to the near leader's shoulders, subtract yourself from the box, and send us your doctor's bill, for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various

... speak, home-bred. Agassiz had gradually gathered about him, chiefly from among his more special students, a staff of assistants who were familiar with his plans and shared his enthusiasm. To these young friends he was warmly attached. It would be impossible to name them all, but the knot of younger men who were for years his daily associates in scientific work, whose sympathy and cooperation he so much valued, and who are now in their turn growing old in the service of science, will read the roll-call ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... blessed be the time set That thou wast born in thy degree: For now is the knot surely knit And God conceived in Trinity. Now farewell lady of might most, Unto the Godhead I ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... the weary look and the crooked nose, got a knot in her twine and this is how it happened. I was crossing this Minnie-something street, when a shrill siren and the cannonade of a powerful exhaust warned me to stay my tootsies. I wasn't looking for a big white aseptic machine ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... from the fact that you do not know the Mauprat race. It is a tameless, incorrigible race, from which naught but Headbreakers and Hamstringers may issue. Even in those who have been most polished by education there remains many a stubborn knot—a sovereign pride, a will of iron, a profound contempt for life. Look at my father. In spite of his adorable goodness, you see that he is sometimes so quick-tempered that he will smash his snuff-box on the table, when you get the better of him in some political argument, or when you win a game of ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake. They looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot, and a few stragglers higher up; but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity, unity, and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances, and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... fair Eyes I still have read The story of a supream Monarchy, To which all hearts with mine gladly pay tribute, Photinus's Name had long since been as great As Ptolomies e'r was, or Caesars is, This made me as a weaker tye to unloose The knot of Loyalty, that chain'd my freedom, And slight the fear that Caesars threats might cause, That I and they might see no Sun appear But Cleopatra in ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... "Now for a race," he cried, "to Martin's Mill; The boats are here; behold, the lake is still. Here, Gilbert, take your oar; I'll follow soon, Though sunset's nigh—to-night is harvest-moon. Let go the rope, the knot's inside; take these, Arrange a seat, adjust it at your ease. She's here. Miss Mercome, you will help him win The race, and will not count my wager sin." And he was gone; the pair were face to face. "I'll take the oars," he gasped; "we'll ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard

... pointing to where a small knot of men worked on a terrace fifty feet below. "They will tell you what ...
— Daughters of Doom • Herbert B. Livingston

... whip's contempt for a sledge. But he was warmly seconded by Thatcher, who had the next best thing to experience, the instinct that taught him to read character, and take advantage of another man's experience. "Them that wants to stop kin do so," said Bill authoritatively, cutting the Gordian knot; "them as wants to take a sledge can do so,—thar's one in the barn. Them as wants to go on with me and the relay will come on." Mr. Wiles selected the sledge and a driver, a few remained for the next stage, and Thatcher, with two others, ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... mean," said Bert, "and exchange the lover's life for the benedict's. Going to hunt out a good, sensible girl and marry her." And as the young man concluded this desperate avowal he jerked the bow of his cravat into a hard knot, kicked his hat under the bed, and threw himself on the ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley

... the dome-shaped hill of Tinto, in Lanarkshire, 60 miles from Stirling, and 2,336 feet in height; Arthur's Hill, a circular mound of earth, surrounded by seats of turf in the royal gardens, sometimes called the king's knot, where the court held fetes, and where James used to amuse himself with the pastime called the Knights of the Round Table; Ben Lomond, 3,240 feet above the lake, which is 32 feet above the level of the sea; Ben Venue, and Ben Ledy, or the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various

... it was time, for a knot of bats just then detached itself from the main body and flew full-face towards me. My shot caught the middle one on the snout, and as I swung the squirt to left and right, it disabled four or five others, and discouraged the rest. Meanwhile the ball was cloven ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James

... holding the reel, and another who stands by ready to help him, instantly stop the line, and begin to draw it in. They observe how many knots have run out, and they know from this how many miles an hour the ship is going. Each knot ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott

... much, had been called in vain. Of course there are differences in aristocratic marriages. All earls' daughters are not married at St. George's, Hanover Square, nor is it absolutely necessary that a bishop should tie the knot, or that the dresses should be described in a newspaper. This was essentially a quiet marriage,—but it was quiet with a splendid quietude, and the obscurity of it was graceful and decorous. As ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... insure good behavior; for the slaves were well aware of the difference between life in the well-managed establishments in Virginia and that in some of the other Southern States. Handing his horse to Dan, Vincent joined a knot of four or five of his acquaintances who had strolled in ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... re-reading the Works; thence she passed to the writers of the same school, those whose rhetoric bloomed perennial in First Readers from which her grandfather's prose had long since faded. Amid that clamor of far-off enthusiasms she detected no controversial note. The little knot of Olympians held their views in common with an early-Christian promiscuity. They were continually proclaiming their admiration for each other, the public joining as chorus in this guileless antiphon of praise; and she discovered no ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... returned to the poultry cellars they found old Madame Palette in front of her storeroom, removing the cords of a large square hamper, in which a furious fluttering of wings and scraping of feet could be heard. As she unfastened the last knot the lid suddenly flew open, as though shot up by a spring, and some big geese thrust out their heads and necks. Then, in wild alarm, they sprang from their prison and rushed away, craning their necks, and filling the dark cellars with ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... one to meet with the characteristic announcement from this editor that he has "concluded not to insert deaths and marriages (except of very distinguished persons) in the Spectator. We can see but little use in thus giving to the world the names of the crowd who are tying the marriage knot, and going down to the silent tomb." There is some poetry at the end of the paper, excellent for a boy, but without the easy inspiration ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... forethought was great and pathetic. He took care that she should learn to caress him with her finger tips alone. He remembered the fatal touch of Cad Sills's kiss at Pull-an'-be-Damned, which had as good as drawn the soul out of his body in a silver thread and tied it in a knot. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... credit of the peasant? At an inn in Naganoken a Japanese artist on holiday showed me his sketch book. Among his drawings was a representation of a shrine festival which he had witnessed in a remote village. A festival car was being pushed by a knot of youths and by about an equal number of young women and all of them were nude. But no enlightened person believes that either decency or morals depends on clothing, or would expect to find more essential indecency and immorality in that village than in a modern city. What one would ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... and in silence. "The fires went out early in the evening, and the cold became intense. Some managed to get blankets from their friends," in the apartment above, "but the guards soon put a stop to that. One man called down to a friend through a knot-hole in the floor, asking him if he wanted a blanket. The guard heard him, cocked his gun, and aimed at the hole; but a call from below gave the man warning and he fled." And all this for singing a song written by a Southerner, in praise of the flag under whose aegis Major ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... recedes. It never could have been a beautiful face Robert and I agree, but noble and expressive it has been and is. The complexion is olive, quite without colour; the hair, black and glossy, divided with evident care and twisted back into a knot behind the head, and she wore no covering to it. Some of the portraits represent her in ringlets, and ringlets would be much more becoming to the style of face, I fancy, for the cheeks are rather over-full. She was dressed in a sort of woollen ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... coasting down Southampton Water by Netley Hospital and the Hamble-mouth, having said not one word about anything at the telephone, or even to my own guilty heart not a word. But in the silent depths of my being I felt this fact: that this must be a 35-knot boat, and that, if driven hard, hard, in spite of the heavy garment of seaweed which she trailed, she would do 30; also that Havre was 120 miles away, and at 7 P.M. I should ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... towards me with a triumphal laugh, 'cuts the Gordian knot.' An air of satisfaction spread over his countenance such as I had not seen for some time. 'I can dispose of this subject now without difficulty,' he added, as he turned in his chair; 'I see my ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... that he had. He treated me now confessedly as a cipher. The prince, the princess, my grandfather, and me—he had gathered us together, he said. I heard from him that the prince, assisted by him in the part of an adviser, saw no way of cutting the knot but by a marriage. All were at hand for a settlement of the terms:—Providence ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... in a white velvet coat, with puffed sleeves, slashed with scarlet satin, as were the short, also puffed breeches meeting his long white knitted silk stockings some way above the knee; large scarlet rosettes were in his white shoes, a scarlet knot adorned his little sword, and his velvet cap of the same colour bore a long white plume, and was encircled by a row of pearls of priceless value. They are no other than that garland of pearls which, after a ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... would the giant utter. Like a bronze statue he stood erect, guiding the cutter to a small landing with a silent gesture. And as the boat swept alongside and the yachtsmen began to experience the thrill of near expectancy, Pearse caught sight of a knot of men loitering on the nearby slopes, ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... crowne, fit for the spire to come through it: and vnder the fore-said ornament they couer the haires of their heads, which they gather vp round together from the hinder part therof to the crowne, and so lap them vp in a knot or bundel within the said Botta, which afterward they bind strongly vnder their throtes. Hereupon when a great company of such gentlewomen ride together, and are beheld a far off, they seem to be souldiers with helmets on their heads carrying their launces vpright: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... Loosening the slip-knot they fastened into it the rope which had been coiled about my body, and giving it a jerk as a signal the whole was drawn up out of sight. Then, binding my feet again, they laid me on the hard rock near the mouth of the cave, and climbed nimbly back ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... himself, and then a slim lad of about twelve years of age was admitted to his presence, whose clothing, except his snowy ruff and the laces about his wrists, was of black, —doublet, hose, and all. He bore no badge of mourning but a knot of purple ribbon on his shoulder. He advanced hesitatingly, with head bowed and bare, and dropped upon one knee in front of Tom. Tom sat still and contemplated him soberly a moment. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... beautiful long hair which was as soft as velvet and raven black. She parted it in the center and brought it low at the back of her ears, and the back braid was brushed up on the top of her head and made it into a tight knot. When she had finished doing this, she was ready to have the Gu'un Dzan (Manchu headdress) placed on and pinned through the knot with two large pins. Her Majesty always dressed her hair first and then washed her face. She was as fussy and particular as a young girl and would give it to the ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling

... flabby men, an oily sort of shabby gentleman, who was blind of an eye, and had very disordered red hair, and a bruise on the end of a very red nose, which looked like a birch knot growing upon a redder face, now came jauntily forward, and having doffed a much damaged hat, that sat on the side of his head with a challenging air, and approaching the major, who had arranged his uniform ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... was a piper's son, He learned to play when he was young, But all the tunes that he could play, Was "Over the hills and far away"; Over the hills, and a great way off, And the wind will blow my top-knot off. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... religion and revelation, as we are dealing with facts and phenomena in the natural life of man, rather than with creeds and dogmas that undertake to cut the "Gordian Knot," these questions stare everyone in the face, and in every age man has tried to solve them by ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck

... how he felt," he continued. "When Betsy died—we was only four years married—I could have crawled into a knot-hole an' died there. You got to save him, Jinny, but"—he came suddenly to his feet—"he ain't safe here. They might come any minute, if they've got back on his trail. I'll take him up the gorge. You ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... expression in sarcastic speech, and the severance of former friendly relations, but it boded more serious trouble for the near future. To a loyal henchman, Moffat merely condescended to remark, glancing disdainfully at a knot of hard riders disconsolately sitting their ponies in front of the saloon door, "We 've got them fellers roped and tied, gents, and they simply won't be ace-high with the ladies of this camp after our fandango is over with. We're a ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... although so strong and powerful. Rudy fastened his eyes on it, held himself with his whole strength firmly by one hand, and with the other threw the noose around it. It was captured alive, its legs were in the knot; Rudy cast the rope over his shoulder, so that the animal dangled some distance below him, and sustained himself by another rope which hung down, until his feet touched the upper ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen

... nobles, the commoners—all are adjusted to match the same colour. They dress them in gray and teach them all the same subjects. They grow man even as they grow a tree. Why do they do it? No one knows. Even a log could be told from another by its knot at least, while here they want to plane the people over so that all of them should look alike. The coffin is already waiting for us old people. Ye-es! It may be that about fifty years hence, no one will believe that I lived in this ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... and Mme. Dupin hoped to prove some informality in the civil rite. In this, however, she did not succeed, and after long resistance, and ill-concealed displeasure, she concluded by acknowledging the unwelcome alliance. It was the little Aurore herself whose unconscious hand severed the Gordian knot of the family difficulties. Introduced by a stratagem into her grandmother's presence, and seated in her lap as the child of a stranger, the family traits were suddenly recognized, and the little one (eight months old) effected a change of heart which neither ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... she said. "But I must admit it irritates me to see our Tim lose his head over a stranger. I can only picture her as he does—a superior being, who lives in Brooklyn, whose name is Edith, and who wears her hair in a small knot on top of her head. Can you conceive her smile, Mark, if she saw us now—if this fine Brooklyn girl with her city ways dropped ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... toast of health, happiness, and prosperity to the "happy pair"; and after some few more circuits of the enlivening liquor had been performed, the women retired to the dwelling-house, whose sanded parlour was put in immediate readiness for the celebration of the nuptial knot between Matty and the ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... in the street of a little town, when a poor inoffensive dog passed me. He went quietly along without a thought of doing anyone an injury, when he happened to pass a knot of boys just come out of school. At once one of the urchins took up a stone and threw it at him, the others clapped their hands, and hooted after him, "Hit him! Knock him over! Mad dog!" Away ran the unhappy cur, and all the boys yelling after him, throwing dirt, and striking at him with ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould

... frankly these conditions seemed an inferior or an unholy thing, then what was to be said for the art itself? What an implication, if the criticism was tolerable only so long as it was worthless—so long as it remained vague and timid! This was a knot Peter had never straightened out: he contented himself with feeling that there was no reason a theatrical critic shouldn't be a gentleman, at the same time that he often dubbed it an odious trade, which no gentleman could possibly follow. The best of the ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... few yards off, in the direction in which it was moving, lay a long black snake asleep on the sand. When directly over its victim the jelly globule again sank till it touched the middle of the reptile's back. The serpent immediately coiled itself in a knot, but was already dead. The jellyfish did not swallow, but completely surrounded its prey, and again rose in the air, with the snake's black body clearly visible within it. "Our Will-o'-the-wisp is prettier by night than ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... slowly, reckoning up his gains, smiling at his mask of a face in the large mirror, and hatching his little plots every knot he untied, every button he released. At last he got into bed, and slept as easily and ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... is a significant fact, that in the knot of five the ex-councillors of the movement party were included; and that had they been in the Council still, a majority would to a certainty have voted in the wake of the Edinburgh Town Council. There is much instruction in facts such ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... warm, and comfortable, even in the eager and the nipping air of Miss Marlett's shuddering establishment, and by the frosty light of a single candle. This young lady was tall and firmly fashioned; a nut-brown maid, with a ruddy glow on her cheeks, with glossy hair rolled up in a big tight knot, and with a smile (which knew when it was well off) always faithful to her lips. These features, it is superfluous to say in speaking of a heroine, "were rather too large for regular beauty." She was perfectly ready to face the enemy (in which light she humorously regarded her mistress) when the ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... analogous to the American boy's "I hope to die." Generally speaking, the mountaineers use angry imprecations and personal abuse of all kinds sparingly. Instead of standing and cursing one another like enraged Billingsgate fish-women, they promptly cut the Gordian knot of their misunderstanding with their long, double-edged daggers, and presently one of them is carried away on a ladder. When, as a Caucasian proverb asserts, "It is only a step from the bad word to the kinjal," even an angry man is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... since it is to me they owe their victory; or nothing is changed, and Monk, transported with joy at finding his camp still in the same place, will not prove too severe in his settlement with me." Whilst thinking thus, the two travelers advanced, and began to mingle with a little knot of sailors, who looked on with sorrow at the burning house, but did not dare to say anything on account of the ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Lupton—The Baker’s Arms,” and on the reverse side, “Of Cunsby, 1663—J. A. L.” {220d} Mr. Caswell adds a note that “where three initials are given, as in this case, the issuer’s wife is included, sometimes joined in a true lover’s knot. Mr. John Lupton (in the present day) is a well-known and respected farmer of Pinchbeck West. His daughter married T. A. Roberts, Esq., M.R.C.S., late ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... dram-drinking. I take the pledge, and then go and drink again. I am the weakest of mankind. But it cannot make very much difference. She knows I am engaged—and—Lady Laura is right. The sooner the marriage comes off, the better. I shall never be safe till the knot is tied; and then duty, honour, feeling, and a dozen other motives, will hold me ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... Commencement week, was covered with booths, erected in lines, like streets, intended to accommodate the populace from Boston and the vicinity with the amusements of a fair. In these were carried on all sorts of dissipation. Here was a knot of gamblers, gathered around a wheel of fortune, or watching the whirl of the ball on a roulette-table. Further along, the jolly hucksters displayed their tempting wares in the shape of cooling beverages and palate-tickling confections. There was dancing ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... till I began to fear obesity, while his tail took on a handsome curl. Altogether, I was rather proud of him. But the result of my crude attempt at surgery became manifest when I finally removed the splints. The limb had grown together, it is true, but it was dreadfully crooked, and a large knot appeared where the fracture had been. When he tried to walk, I discovered that this leg was a trifle shorter than its mate, and poor Fido limped a little, but I believe this only added to ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey

... this from thee that I had sought to act in the way I told thee of. Now, however, that I know all, I cannot be indifferent to what hath been ordained by the gods. Therefore do I resolve to accomplish what thou hast said. The knot of destiny cannot be untied. Nothing in this world is the result of our own acts. That which had been appointed by us in view of securing one only bridegroom hath now terminated in favour of many. As Krishna (in a former life) had repeatedly said, 'O, give me a husband!' the great ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... habit of storing away nuts in the knot-holes of trees, between cracks in the bark, or in decayed fence rails—too often a convenient storehouse at which the squirrels may help themselves. But it is the black snake that enters the nest and eats the young family, and that is a more deadly foe than even ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... the preparations were completed, suggested that, in order to test the strength of the cable, a boy should be the first to make a trial of it; accordingly, a young lad was firmly secured to a sort of cradle or bowling knot, and drawn on shore in safety. The success of the attempt was announced by a loud cheer from the strand, and the captain then took upon himself to direct the landing of the rest of the crew by the same means. He ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... filigree work with pendant pearls, and around her neck is a string of pure amber beads and a gold necklace. She wears a jacket of black velvet, and a gilt belt embroidered with blue, and fastened with a silver gilt filigree buckle in the form of a bow knot with pendants. On her finger is a gold ring set with sapphire, and others with turquoises and amethysts. Her dress is of brown satin, and on her arms are solid gold bracelets which cost 1400 piastres or fifty-six dollars. You ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... sweet potatos. A few "razor-back" hogs —a species so gaunt and thin that I heard a man once declare that he had stopped a lot belonging to a neighbor from crawling through the cracks of a tight board fence by simply tying a knot in their tails—roam the woods, and supply ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... elderly for Jane's years, and of a Quakerish form. But this was less the cause for the general difference in Jane's aspect than the fact that her brown hair, parted smoothly on the broad, benignant brow, now had its ends tucked up in a neat knot. ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... forenoon I descend into a canon-like valley where, among a few scattering vineyards and jujube-trees, nestles Ayash, a place which disputes with the neighboring village of Istanos the honor of being the theatre of Alexander the Great's celebrated exploit of cutting the Gordian knot that disentangled the harness of the Phrygian king. Ayash is to be congratulated upon having its historical reminiscence to recommend it to the notice of the outer world, since it has little to attract attention nowadays; it is merely the shapeless ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... Maynard loosened the knot Miss Lawrence had tied, and hastily pulled off the veil. Meantime, Midget had thrown off her coat, and stood revealed in ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... The first of them was a stout boy, with a white top-knot and spectacles. The housemaid brought him in and said, 'Compliments, and at what time was he to be fetched!' Mrs. Alicumpaine said, 'Not a moment later than ten. How do you do, sir? Go and sit down.' Then a number of other children came; boys by themselves, and girls by themselves, and boys ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens

... been! I should have been born here and not there; here my makeshift distinctions would have found things they'd have been true of. How it was I never got free is more than I can say. It might have cut the knot, but the knot was too tight. I was always out of health or in debt or somehow desperately dangling. Besides, I had a horror of the great black sickening sea. A year ago I was reminded of the existence of ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... to hoping that once across the threshold of Courcelles he should find an expedient for unfastening this Gordian knot of his own tying. There are believers in the omnipotence of necessity who never turn back; the close presence of danger is an inspiration that calls out all their powers for victory. Gaston de ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac

... to look at it. My first effort at electioneering. There was no immediate sensation, for everybody else was too busy over his own affairs to notice my little poster, and so I went about from one little knot of talkers to another, hanging shyly on the outskirts in the hope that, when it broke up, I might lead the way casually towards my masterpiece—"VOTE ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... Johnson carried on an argument for some time, concerning the Middlesex election. Johnson said, 'Parliament may be considered as bound by law as a man is bound where there is nobody to tie the knot. As it is clear that the House of Commons may expel and expel again and again, why not allow of the power to incapacitate for that parliament, rather than have a perpetual contest kept up between parliament and the people.' Lord Newhaven took the opposite side; but respectfully ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... Gentleman's Magazine has given rise to almost twenty imitations of it, which are either all dead, or very little regarded by the world. Before we had published sixteen months, we met with such a general approbation, that a knot of enterprising geniuses, and sagacious inventors, assembled from all parts of the town, agreed, with an unanimity natural to understandings of the same size, to seize upon our whole plan, without changing even the title. Some weak ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... corner-tree, which whosoever should untie, the inhabitants had a tradition, that for him was reserved the empire of the world. Most authors tell the story that Alexander, finding himself unable to untie the knot, the ends of which were secretly twisted round and folded up within it, cut it asunder with his sword. But Aristobulus tells us it was easy for him to undo it, by only pulling the pin out of the pole, to which the yoke was tied, and afterwards ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... stood together on the hearth-rug, their eyes fixed on an extraordinarily large bouquet of crimson roses, with a knot of purple pansies at their base, that lay on the sofa where Madame ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... appointed time had passed, and the Lord had not appeared. The believers knew that God's word could not fail; their interpretation of the prophecy must be at fault; but where was the mistake? Many rashly cut the knot of difficulty by denying that the 2300 days ended in 1844. No reason could be given for this, except that Christ had not come at the time they expected Him. They argued that if the prophetic days had ended in 1844, Christ would then have returned to cleanse ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... preserve them. [Macaulay, writing to one of his sisters in 1844, says: "I think Stephen's article on the Clapham Sect the best thing he ever did, I do not think with you that the Claphamites were men too obscure for such delineation. The truth is that from that little knot of men emanated all the Bible Societies, and almost all the Missionary Societies, in the world. The whole organisation of the Evangelical party was their work. The share which they had in providing means ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... from the vehicle unhurt; a group immediately formed round the cab, a knot of young thieves, almost young enough for infant schools, a dustman, a woman nearly naked and very drunk, and two unshorn ruffians with brutality stamped on every feature, with pipes in their mouths, and their hands ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... scarlet silk, "and with it a token to the Queen of his Affections." With eager speed the lady hastened to undo the silken string which surrounded the little packet, and failing to unloose readily the knot with which it was secured, she again called loudly on Janet, "Bring me a knife—scissors—aught that may undo this ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... and the point fixed in his lung. Then Thoas came close, and plucked out from his breast the ponderous spear, and drew his sharp sword, wherewith he smote his belly in the midst, and took his life. Yet he stripped not off his armour; for his comrades, the men of Thrace that wear the top-knot, stood around, their long spears in their hands, and albeit he was great and valiant and proud they drave him off from them and he gave ground reeling. So were the two captains stretched in the dust side by side, he of the Thracians and he of ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... in a litter. Just then there was a stir among the people, and five men entered the market-place where they were standing. By their rich and peculiar dress they seemed to belong to a different race: their dark glossy hair was tied in a knot at the top of the head, and they carried bunches of flowers in their hands. Their attendants carried wands, or fans, to brush away the flies and insects from their lordly masters. These persons passed the Spaniards haughtily, scarcely ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... incalculably distant as never to have a chance of arriving—day, the salvation of their lives, the protection of their hearths, the inviolability of their street-doors, and the security of their properties. Sprung from a little knot of (we wish we could say "jolly young," though truth compels us to proclaim) far from jolly, and decidedly old, "watermen," the above-bridge navy, whose shattered and unfrequented wherries were always ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... adorned herself in borrowed finery and fled: "She wore off a Narrow Stript pinck cherredary Gown turned up with a little floured red and white Callico. A Stript Home-spun quilted petticoat, a plain muslin Apron, a suit of plain Pinners and a red and white flowered knot, also a pair of green stone earrings, with white cotton stockings ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster

... John? Am I? No, no, dear! It is only my hair done differently. See, see!" and with trembling fingers she tore her hair from its knot. It fell in clusters over her shoulders and about her face. He wanted to lay his hand on it, and he turned to her and then turned away, fighting with ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... legitimated. The priest or monsieur le maire? Clotilde, who loves Doctor Pascal, does not ask for anything. Marriage, accomplished by a maire, seems to her to be a secondary thing. Here also one cannot understand her, because a true love would wish to make the knot lasting. That which really happens is quite different, in the novel, that first separation is the end of the relation between them. Were they married at least by a maire, they would have remained ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... wind outside swept sharply around the corners of the old structure, moaning about the eaves and whistling dismally in at knot-holes. Still, save that now and again it seemed to quiver on its foundations when some especially heavy thunder-clap roared overhead, while the momentary flash ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... fingers slowly. He stirred and swallowed hastily. But the feeling persisted. He unstrapped himself from his seat. He stood up—and floated to the ceiling of the cabin. But there was of course no ceiling. Every way was up and every way was down. His stomach cramped itself in a hard knot, in the instinctive tensity ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster

... to the northward, and his motion, before a light southerly air, could not have exceeded a knot an hour. He had no other canvas spread than his three topsails and jib; though his courses were hanging in the brails. His black hull was just beginning to show its details; and along the line of light yellow that enlivened his side were visible the dark ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... that he's my prisoner," said the preacher, tugging away at his knot, "and I insist upon the circuit-rider story. And," continued the young man, with one mighty pull at the knot, "he's got to be a circuit-rider, and I'm going to make one of him. Do you hear that, young man? I'm the man that's setting ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... unfrequented spot, and my father's illness had interrupted these interviews. Altogether I can not tell if Jules discovered any thing. A fearful circumstance rendered all our precautions useless, and cut the knot of our secret connection, to loose which voluntarily I felt I had no power. A wedding-feast, at a neighboring castle, assembled all the nobility and gentry, and officers quartered near, together; my deep mourning was an excuse for my absence. Jules, though ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... "Emma Jane Stucky is like one of them there dead pines out there in the clearin'. If you had a stack of almanacs as high as a hoss-rack, you couldn't pick out the year she was young and sappy. She must 'a' started out as a light'd knot, an' she's been a-gittin' tougher year in an' year out, till now she's tougher'n the toughest. No'm," continued Mrs. Haley, replying to an imaginary argument, "I ain't predijiced ag'in' the poor creetur'—the Lord knows I ain't. If I was, no vittels ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... Madge," cried Hal, and bent his bow, "Just watch this famous shot; See that old willow by the brook— I'll hit the middle knot." Swift flew the arrow through the air, Madge watched it eager-eyed; But, oh! for Harry's gallant vaunt, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... to be married," he said, smiling at her, and she noted with a qualm that there was no mirth in the smile, "you and me. The parson will tie the knot." ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... is a knot. Reeds and bamboos consist of a series of knots. The space between two knots is called ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... lay down, little Diamond found that a knot had come out of one of them and the wind was blowing in upon him. He jumped out of bed again, got a little wisp of hay, twisted it up and folded it in the middle. In this way, he made it into a cork and stuck it into the knot-hole to keep the wind out. But the ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • Elizabeth Lewis and George MacDonald

... wild with dreadful anticipations of the parting of the chain and the loss to him forever of his friend, least was to be expected in the strait wherein we were; yet it was from Pablo that our rescue came. With a quick apprehension of the needs of the case, he rove a running-knot in the end of one of the pack-ropes, and with a dexterous cast of this improvised lasso set the loop of it about El Sabio's neck as that unfortunate animal for a moment ceased his strugglings and hung still. And then we all strained on the rope together, and in a minute ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... room," said the elder man, looking with surprise at Godefroid's neck, and at the nail to which the cord had been tied, and which was still in the knot. ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac

... Courant." Benjamin set the type, struck off the impression of two or three hundred, with a hand-press, and then traversed the streets, carrying the diminutive sheet to the homes of the subscribers. The Courant soon attracted attention. A knot of sparkling writers began to contribute to its columns, and while the paper was with increasing eagerness sought for, a clamor was soon raised against it. It was denounced as radical in its political tendencies, and as speaking contemptuously of the institutions ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... got somehow entangled, there was a wrench, the knot was broken, and the thread was wound upon another spool. The unravelling of the piece must have perplexed you, and you must have wondered why the shape and the pattern should have passed suddenly away into thread again, and then, after a lapse of time, ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... hair was too thick to be plaited; it needed rather to be twisted round and round, and have its fine silkiness compressed into massive coils, that encircled her head like a crown, and then were gathered into a large spiral knot behind. She kept its weight together by two large coral pins, like small arrows for length. Her white silk sleeves were looped up with strings of the same material, and on her neck, just below the base of her curved and milk-white throat, there lay ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... passionate feeling, the strange blending of pride and abject self-loathing, of cowardice and resolve, are portrayed with extraordinary skill. The different strands of his character are "intertwined in an inextricable knot." His is a living soul, complicated and varying in its moods, but ever pursued by a sense of sin. By one of Hawthorne's swift, uncanny flashes of insight, as Dimmesdale goes home after the forest-meeting, we hear nothing of the wild beatings of ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... sparkle in our eye Within the holy place, And greatly raise our melody, And flow our hearts with grace. 24. The largest thought that can arise Within the widest heart Shall then be filled with surprize, And pleas'd in every part. 25. All mysteries shall here be seen, And every knot, unty'd; Electing love, that hid hath been, Shall shine on every side. 26. The God of glory here will be The life of every one; Whose goodly attributes shall we Possess them as our own. 27. By wisdom we all things shall know, By light all things shall see, By strength, too, all things ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the music-room, gentlemen," said Lady Castlemaine, who was standing near the fire in the midst of a knot of ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... about the Stafford Knot, will see by our last Number, p. 454., that it is the badge or cognizance ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various

... foreigners, to tell you the truth, her young lady did! Of course, her grandmamma's pearls would make anything dressy, and there's no denying the black made her arms and neck look like ivory—but to snatch up that flame-coloured scarf her grandpapa had brought from India, and knot it over her shoulder at the last minute! It was downright outlandish. Mrs. Appleyard would never have ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... and looked round the camp. There was a knot of captives in its midst, among whom was the chief I had fought, wounded, indeed, but not badly, and our men were eating the enemy's provender and laughing. A fire of green brushwood and heather was sending a tall pillar of smoke into the air ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... one leg out of his trousers when at last all the house had calmed down and cots were ceasing to creak, to make some such wholly irrelevant remark as; "By ——, that —— dispatcher give me 609 to-day and she wouldn't pull a greased string out of a knot-hole"—and thereby always hung a tale that was sure to range over half the track mileage of the States and wander off somewhere into the sandy cactus wilderness of Chihuahua at least before "Mitch" succeeded in getting out of the ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... to this pathway there is always a knot of people gathered about the shanty where the seamen eat maccaroni and strange messes, and the stands where shell-fish are exposed for sale. On the far side of the tramway, beneath the tall houses which are let out in rooms and apartments for families, there is an open space, and here in summer ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... he shouted. "No fire below! Take hold here; tear up these sheets and knot them into a rope. Work for your life, and if the fire only holds back we may be able to save both the professor ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... Germany, and are still distributed into different names and nations, although all hearing the common appellation of Suevi. It is a characteristic of this people to turn their hair sideways, and tie it beneath the poll in a knot. By this mark the Suevi are distinguished from the rest of the Germans; and the freemen of the Suevi from the slaves. [208] Among other nations, this mode, either on account of some relationship with the Suevi, or from the usual propensity to imitation, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... egorstrem ... mundum brugdon, stirred the sea with your hands (of the movement of the hands in swimming), 514; pret. part. broden (brogden) ml, the drawn sword, 1617, 1668.—2) to knit, to knot, to plait: inf., figuratively, inwitnet rum bregdan, to weave a waylaying net for another (as we say in the same way, to lay a trap for another, to dig a pit for another), 2168; pret. part. beadohrgl broden, a woven shirt of mail (because it consisted of metal rings ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.

... arrest and was pugnacious, of course declaring his innocence. At the last he showed great gameness. He was particular about the manner in which the knot of the rope was adjusted to his neck, seeming, as did many of these men, to dread any suffering while hanging. He asked if he might jump off the platform himself, and was told he might if he liked. "I care no more ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... (hay-rope); and they looked almost too heavy for her small head, no matter how closely they were wound about it. A rippling wave, moreover, ran through these tresses, which were exceedingly soft and fine; so her vanity was perhaps excusable. At any rate, it led her to fashion herself a small knot of cherry-coloured ribbon made of a bit that had trimmed the sleeve of her mother's purple merino gown. It was a very small knot, because most of the bit had got mildewed lying up, before Theresa grew to concern herself about such things. But it looked as bright in her ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... parcels were exactly alike, both of them well tied up with good whip cord. Ben took his parcel to a table, and, after breaking off the sealing wax, began carefully to examine the knot, and then to untie it. Hal stood still, exactly in the spot where the parcel was put into his hands, and tried first at one corner, and then at another, to pull the string off by force. "I wish these people wouldn't tie up their parcels so tight, as if they were never to be undone," ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... Sir Oliver would have taken her arm, she threw it up, broke from him, and fled back through the porchway. As she drew back that one pace before fleeing, the sun fell full again on that breast-knot of ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... the Tillicum, says Matt would go up the China Sea on the southwest monsoon... Yes, captain. You say—ah, yes; quite so... Grant says he'd edge over until he got into the Japan Stream, and that would add a knot or two an hour to his speed... Yes, Grant. Speak up! ... Grant says, Mr. Ricks, that about the middle of September or the first of October Matt would run out of the southwest monsoon into the northeast monsoon—that's it, Grant, isn't it? He'd get them about off Formosa, eh?... Yes, ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... see the small, dainty person whom Elise introduced as Miss Anna Gorman. She had a sweet, sad little face, and wore a simple one-piece gown of dove-grey voile. Her hat was grey, also; a turban shape, with a small knot of pink roses at one side. Anna was not pretty, but she had a refined air, and a gentle manner. Though embarrassed, she strove not to show it, and tried to appear ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... sufficiently injured man. But of that you will judge for yourself, though, if I might venture so far in the way of friendship, I should recommend you to give careful consideration to the inclosed correspondence before tying the matrimonial knot to which you alluded the other evening. It is not wise to walk on the edge of a precipice with one's eyes shut! Captain Ciabatti was the first to inform me of what I now know for a fact—namely, that Ferrari left a will ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... make war upon girls: "While the whole country has been waiting in breathless suspense for six months, each one of which has seemed an eternity to the loyal people of the North, for the 'grand forward movement' of the army, which is to cut the Gordian knot of the rebellion, and perform unspeakable prodigies, not lawful for man to utter, a backward movement has been executed on the banks of the Potomac, by the valiant commanders there stationed, for which none of us were ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... to Henry VIII. It is bound in velvet, originally some shade of red or crimson, but now much faded. It measures 15 by 9-1/4 inches. It is ornamented with arabesques and initials all outlined with fine gold cord. In the centre are the initials H. R., bound together by an interlacing knot, within a circle. Arabesques above and below the circle make up an inner panel, itself enclosed by a broad border of arabesques, with a double, or Tudor, rose in each corner. The edges of the leaves of the book are elaborately painted ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport

... miscellaneous, required a winnowing and sifting, which very soon we had; and the result was, an incomparable militia. Chester shone conspicuously in this noble competition. But here, as elsewhere, at first there was no cavalry. Upon that arose a knot of gentlemen, chiefly those who hunted, and in a very few hours laid the foundation of a small cavalry force. Three troops were raised in the city of Chester, one of the three being given to my uncle. The whole were under ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... Frederick William II., his nephew. Frederick William was a man of common type, showy and pleasure-loving, interested in public affairs, but incapable of acting on any fixed principle. His mistresses gave the tone to political society. A knot of courtiers intrigued against one another for the management of the King; and the policy of Prussia veered from point to point as one unsteady impulse gave place to another. In countries less dependent ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... characters were formed for heaven, and life was ennobled, and often far more of true nobility of soul and more real and satisfying enjoyment were found in those log huts, illumined only by the blaze of the pitch pine knot, than Louis XIV. and his courtiers ever experienced amidst the splendors and the luxuries of ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... goodliness of Alaeddin's answers and the sweetness of his speech. Then, when they had eaten and drunken and the tables were removed, the Sultan bade fetch the Cadis and the witnesses; so they came and knotted the knot and wrote the writ [of marriage] between Alaeddin and the Lady Bedrulbudour. Therewith Alaeddin arose and would have taken leave; but the Sultan laid hold on him and said to him, "Whither away, O my son? The bride-feast is toward and the bride present; ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... at the sight of a little breast-knot of white chrysanthemums that lay on the table, until I remembered Uncle Max; no one had ever brought me flowers since Charlie's death; he had gathered the last that I ever wore—some white violets that grew in a little hollow in the ground of Rutherford Lodge. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... himself," but he must not do it once for all or he would rob the critics of their most cherished phrase. He reminds me of the constructors of our Atlantic "greyhounds," each longer by a yard or two than the last, each swifter by a fraction of a knot, each with a few more tons displacement, all pronounced to be the final word in scientific invention, yet all reserving something for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various

... went on his way peaceably never doubting at all that, when the knot was tied, Phoby would let be bygones and pick up with another maid; whereby he made the mistake of judging other folks' dispositions by his own. The smuggling, too, was going on more comfortably than ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... alone. A closer view of her person brought me no disenchantment. Perfect beauty, like the sublime, produces an impression of the infinite, and I only speak the literal truth when I say that she appeared infinitely beautiful to me. Her golden hair, rippling over the delicate ear and gathered into a knot behind, her large violet eyes and blooming white skin, her Grecian profile and stately yet flowing form, might have become an Aphrodite of Xeuxis or Praxiteles; but her serene and gracious countenance beamed with a pure seraphic light ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... vivid richness of some rare painting. She was tall, and the magnificent proportions of her figure were enhanced rather than marred by the severely plain dress of dark print that she wore. The heavy masses of her hair, a shining auburn dashed with golden foam, were coiled in a rich, glossy knot at the back of the classically modelled head and rippled back from a low brow whose waxen fairness even the breezes of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... afford not to give a damn how badly he'd been stung. But the startling thing was that he had picked up the boathook and was twirling it unconcernedly. He had not only picked it up, however—he had also tied it in a knot. ...
— Stairway to the Stars • Larry Shaw

... dimensions that it must have required a multitude of hairpins to keep it together; but her bonnet helped to keep it in place, as strings of ribbon were placed at the back, then brought forward under her chin in a flaring knot. ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... is that of force without authority: and thus, by removing the legislative established by the society, (in whose decisions the people acquiesced and united, as to that of their own will) they untie the knot, and expose the people a-new to the state of war, And if those, who by force take away the legislative, are rebels, the legislators themselves, as has been shewn, can be no less esteemed so; when they, who were set up for the protection, and preservation ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... but saying to yourself before you lay on a single touch,—"That leaf is the main one, that bough is the guiding one, and this touch, so long, so broad, means that part of it,"—point or side or knot, as the case may be. Resolve always, as you look at the thing, what you will take, and what miss of it, and never let your hand run away with you, or get into any habit or method of touch. If you want a continuous ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... the glade was a clump of bamboos. Dermot selected the biggest stem and hacked it down with his kukri. From the thicker end he cut off a length from immediately below a knot to about a foot above it, trimmed the edges and brought it to Noreen. It made a beautifully clean and polished pot, ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... as I could tug, I was hauling up the rope. Near sixty feet came up before I reach'd the end—a thick twisted knot. I rove a long noose; pull'd it over my head and shoulders, and made Billy understand he ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... let Daddy poison your mind about me. He thinks I'm dreadfully frivolous, just because I LOOK frivolous. But I'm so keen to make good in this job. I've been practicing doing up parcels all afternoon, so as to learn how to tie the string nicely and not cut it until after the knot's tied. I found that when you cut it beforehand either you get it too short and it won't go round, or else too long and you waste some. Also I've learned how to make wrapping paper cuffs ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... and her father had left Crane, he sat for a minute or two waiting for the crowd of people that blocked the passageway after each race to filter down on the lawn. The way seemed clearer presently, and Crane fell in behind a knot of loud-talking men. The two of large proportions who had sat behind Allis, were like huge gate posts jammed there in the narrow way. As he moved along slowly he presently had knowledge of a presence at his ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... life. Peter had been whipped, kicked, and cuffed many times by his hard-hearted, wicked master, not because he was unfaithful, but because he loved to pray, and shout, and sing. Through the long night, sitting by his pitch-knot fire in his cabin, Uncle Peter had sung the songs which lifted him in spirit almost up to heaven, whither his wife and children had gone, after cruel whippings and scourgings by their master. It was so sweet to think of her as ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin









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