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More "Tacking" Quotes from Famous Books



... wind drew ahead, and we had to beat up the coast; so that, in tacking ship, I could see the regulations of the vessel. Instead of going wherever was most convenient, and running from place to place, wherever work was to be done, each man had his station. A regular tacking and wearing ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... clear about thicky wreck. Likely as not 'twas the one I seed all yesterday tacking about: and if so be as I be right, a pretty lot of lubbers she must have had aboard. Jonathan, the coast-guard, came down to Lizard Town this morning, and said he seed a big vessel nigh under the cliffs toward midnight, or fancied he seed her: but fustly Jonathan's ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... to weather it, we held on our way. It was just ten o'clock as we approached this cape, and we found a passage westward that actually led into the ocean! All hands gave three cheers as we became certain of this fact, the ship tacking as soon as far enough ahead, and setting seaward famously ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... mamma says I shall,—and so does nurse; and I don't mind what any body else says.—I waited only for my revenge, till the two former withdrew; when sending the latter for a glass of water, I gave Miss such a glorious tacking, as I believe she has never tasted the like before or since.—In the midst of the fray, I heard nurse running up, which made me hasten what I owed on my own account, to remind her of the favours she had conferred on Lord Eggom and her brother.—If such a termagant in her ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning

... at meeting with this interruption, as it in some measure relieved us, at least shortened the dangers and hardships inseparable from the navigation of the southern polar regions. Since, therefore, we could not proceed one inch farther to the south, no other reason need be assigned for my tacking and standing back to the north; being at this time in the latitude of 71 deg. 10' S., longitude ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... "Now then for the tacking!" she cried, and for five minutes on end there was silence, until— "Dear me!" quoth Miss Peggy in a tone of dismay, and peaked ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... Dundas, declaring that they should have to encounter a strong south-easter, all their efforts were directed to double the headland of Fifeness and the dreaded Carr Rock, and get into the Forth; but their utmost endeavours were unavailing, so that the best part of a day was spent in tacking and veering to, close in with the land, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... favoured spots was at Tacking Point, a curious steep-to bluff, clothed on its sides with a dense thicket scrub, the haunt of hundreds of black wallabies and wonga pigeons, and also a large variety, of brown and black snakes, with an occasional death adder. The summit, however, was beautifully grassed, and ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... "Portuguese men of war," as the sailors call the independent little nautilus, sailed contemptuously past us in their fairy barks, as if they had been little steamers. A man fell overboard, but the weather being calm, was saved immediately. We have been tacking about and making our way slowly towards Havana, in a zigzag line. Yesterday evening the moon rose in the form of a large heart, of a red gold colour. This morning, about four o'clock, a fine fresh breeze sprung up from the north-east, and we are ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... far-reaching modifications in the government of the city, such as were afterwards carried out by Augustus, and the presence in the Lex Julia Municipalis of the clauses referred to is an example of the common process of "tacking" (legislation per saturam, as it was called by the Romans). The law deals with the constitution of the local senates, for whose members qualifications of age (30 years) and military service are laid down, while persons who have suffered conviction for various specified offences, or who are ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... shirt she was making for some charitable society and drew out some tacking threads with a loud noise which relieved her. Lady Winterbourne's old and delicate ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the boat half a mile from the shore, and then, in tacking, gave it such a sudden twitch as to throw Mr. Parasyte, who was still standing, off his balance, and he went over the side into ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... desirous to get rid of his visitors, took an effectual method by tacking from the shore; our friends then departed apparently in high glee at the harvest they had reaped. They paddled away very swiftly, and would, doubtless, soon reach the shore though it was distant ten ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... contenting herself with calling something to us through a trumpet, which we could not understand. Pursuing our course in an opposite direction, we were soon at a considerable distance from the corvette, and then saw the frigate tacking to follow us; but having already greatly the advantage, and the mouth of the bay clear before us, we rehoisted our sails, and without waiting for further evidence of Chilian hostility, stood out to sea; thus escaping attempts upon our ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... Inconveniences; it checks immoderate Ambition, stops Wars, Navies and Expeditions; especially it prevents Members making long Speeches when they have nothing to say; it keeps back Rebellions, Insurrections, Clashings of Houses, Occasional Bills, Tacking, &c. ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... against the westerly winds by the same route, which we had followed in the boats to the settlement at Woollya. We did not see many natives until we were near Ponsonby Sound, where we were followed by ten or twelve canoes. The natives did not at all understand the reason of our tacking, and, instead of meeting us at each tack, vainly strove to follow us in our zigzag course. I was amused at finding what a difference the circumstance of being quite superior in force made, in the interest of beholding these savages. While in the boats I got to hate the very sound of their ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... whole it will do good. So with Socialism. The evils of Capitalism are so monstrous that any remedy is better than none. Socialism may not be the direct course: it may be a tremendously awkward tack, but it is only by tacking that we get along. So with positive education, but I have enlarged upon this already. What a sermon to my dear godfather! Forgive me, but you will have to take sides, and do, please, be a little ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... my whim for writing, fancied that my experiences had somewhat superior; whilst I saw that his experiences were as good as mine. Give them to me and I would make the same use of them. He held the old; he holds the new; I had the habit of tacking together the old and the new which he did not use to exercise. This may hold in the great examples. Perhaps if we should meet Shakspeare we should not be conscious of any steep inferiority; no, but of a great equality,—only that he possessed ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... village of Dresden, Yates County, New York, seven miles from Penn Yan, where Robert Ingersoll was born, to his niche in the Temple of Fame, was a zigzag journey. But that is Nature's plan—we make head by tacking. And as the years go by, more and more we see the line of Ingersoll's life stretching itself straight. Every change to him meant progress. Success is a question of temperament—it is all a matter of the red corpuscle. Ingersoll was a success; happy, exuberant, joying in life, reveling ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... be called his "Last Blast," there is as sharp speaking as any in the "First Blast" itself. He is of the same opinion to the end, you see, although he has been obliged to cloak and garble that opinion for political ends. He has been tacking indeed, and he has indeed been seeking the favour of a queen; but what man ever sought a queen's favour with a more virtuous purpose, or with as little courtly policy? The question of consistency is delicate, and must be made plain. Knox never changed his opinion about female rule, but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Ned felt uncomfortable. Both thought of the repayment of the latter's friendly loan. The girl made her machine rattle still more hurriedly to prevent any further remarks trending in that direction. At last Mrs. Somerville, her tacking finished, got up and took ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... and passed it, though it was a money-bill, "containing extraneous enactments," and as such contravened one of their own standing orders which had been passed in the beginning of Queen Anne's reign, when the system of "tacking," as it was called, had excited great discontent, which was not confined to themselves. The propriety of rejecting the bill on that ground was vigorously urged by the only two lawyers who took part in the ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... outlet from the Sound to the sea. Beyond Sivan Island lighthouse is Ocracoke inlet, and next is the inlet of Hatteras. There are also three others known as Logger Head inlet, New inlet, and Oregon inlet. The Ocracoke was the one nearest the Ebba, and she could make it without tacking, but the Falcon was searching all vessels that passed through. This did not, however, make any particular difference, for by this time all the passes, upon which the guns of the forts had been trained, were guarded ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... fringed the creek. But a broad space had been cleared to make a gap upon the bank, so that Ethne could see the sunlight on the water and the wooded slope on the farther side, and a sailing-boat some way down the creek tacking slowly against the light wind. Ethne looked about her, as though she was summoning her resources, and even composing her sentences ready for delivery to the man who was walking steadily towards her across the lawn. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... As sure as a gun, For old Peter Patch is departed; And Eyres and Delaune, And the rest of that spawn, Are tacking about broken-hearted. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... had another rebuff for us. The wind shifted and blew from the east right out of the bay. We could see the way through the reef, but we could not approach it directly. That afternoon we bore up, tacking five times in the strong wind. The last tack enabled us to get through, and at last we were in the wide mouth of the bay. Dusk was approaching. A small cove, with a boulder-strewn beach guarded by a reef, made a break in the cliffs on the south side ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... sailing. But he was bound for a port which few mariners have ever come near, and he knew that the wind was ever in his teeth. It was only by taking a course that was a constant series of zigzags, it was only by perpetually tacking, that he could ever hope to come into harbour. He was not, therefore, the less acutely aware of his precise course. He was merely adopting the most strictly scientific method of navigation. The fluctuating judgments which Flaubert seems to pronounce on the aim ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... their way to the sea with the tide that was running down, the lovely woman imagined all sorts of voyages for herself and Pa. Now, Pa, in the character of owner of a lumbering square-sailed collier, was tacking away to Newcastle, to fetch black diamonds to make his fortune with; now, Pa was going to China in that handsome threemasted ship, to bring home opium, with which he would for ever cut out Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, and to bring home silks and shawls without end for the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... the great harbour was soon over, but the boat which lay waiting for him had a considerable distance to traverse, for the Tacheia was no longer at the landing place, but was tacking outside the Pharos, in order, if the warrant of arrest were issued, not to be stopped at the channel dominated by the lighthouse. He found the slender trireme pervaded by a restless stir. His uncle had long been expecting ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... she crept across the hall and sat on the side of Fidy's bed, waiting to give her the next dose of medicine. Her eyes were fixed on the bare lathes over the headboard where she had once knocked the plaster off tacking up a tomato-can label. But she did not see the hole or the wall. Calvary Alley and Cemetery Street had ceased to exist for her. She was already transported to a region of warmth and gaiety and song. All that ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... voices ceased. The young ladies were in awe. Miss Moore was not there to answer for them. No one dared act as spoksman. Young Jim Wheaton was on a step-ladder rather dangerously resting on the backs of two pews. He was tacking the letter G to the gallery. He noticed the silence ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott

... their force and brass cannon, which were commended by Whitelocke, who showed the difference in the make between these ships and the English frigates; that these, for strength to endure an assault and make defence, were very good, but that the English frigates had much advantage in their nimble tacking about, their fleet sailing to fetch up another ship, and the lying of their guns for use of fighting; with which discourse Wrangel seemed much pleased, and he preferred their brass cannon before those of iron, which Whitelocke assented unto as not so soon hot with firing, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... "heavy chance" the two ships that remained beat up and down tacking with the wind, Sir Humphrey hoping always that the weather would clear up and allow him once more to get near land. But day by day passed. The wind and waves continued as stormy as ever, and no glimpse of land did the weary ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... navigator on the ocean of life, putting out into the open waters at the time when such storms are frequent. Every day we see such craft scudding with all sails spread before the blast without attempt at reefing or tacking. Right ahead they drive before the wind with no doubtful course. But it was not and could not be so in the case of the Marchese Lamberto. The whole habits of a life—the ways, notions, hopes, desires, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... ordinary 3 x 6 foot size. In the latter case, of course, a purlin and supporting posts, as shown in diagram, must be supplied. Every second or third top sash should be hinged, to open for ventilation, and by tacking strips over the edges of the sash where they come together, a very tight and roomy little house can be put up quickly, easily and very cheaply. New sash, glazed and painted one coat, can be bought for $3 to $3.50 each. Ten of these ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... toward the Old Forest, which lies beyond the mountains that are visible upon the other side of the plain stretching out before Lustadt. At the same time other troopers rode in many directions along the highways and byways of Lutha, tacking placards upon trees and fence posts and beside the doors of every little rural ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... last remark, his quick eye saw that the wind had hauled so far round to the westward, as to supersede the necessity of tacking, and that they were actually going eight knots in a direct line from Portsmouth. Casting an eye behind him, he perceived that the cutter had given up the chase, and was returning towards the distant roads. Under circumstances ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... of it," said Ralph. "And if he isn't in the boat, of course he is not on the ship. Perhaps he did not have anything to do with that vessel's coming here. It may have been tacking in this direction, and so come near enough for people ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... day for a week—every man had more than he could eat, and what was left over we threw on the floor like gentlemen. And then one day, as we saw San Huegedos, and wanted to sail in to spend our money, the wind changed round from behind us and beat us out to sea. There was no tacking against it, and no getting into the harbour, though other ships sailed by us and anchored there. Sometimes a dead calm would fall on us, while fishing boats all around us flew before half a gale, and sometimes the wind would beat us out ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... early in the morning, and had then to proceed against the wind with hard weather. We kept tacking with great assiduity till about midday, when the tide compelled us to stop, and we came to anchor under the Vlieter.[44] The boat being full of drinking people, there had been no rest the whole night. My good friend[45] ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... promoted from the steerage to the after cabin were in the dark in regard to their duty, though in these instances the parties had a general idea of what was required of them. But it was necessary to have the crew ready to work together, for the seaman who had hauled on the weather-brace in tacking was now an officer, and the stations of many were new ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... open Kara Sea, past the north point of Yalmal and Bieloi-Ostrov (White Island). There was no ice to be seen in any direction. During the days that followed we had constant strong east winds, often increasing to half a gale. We kept on tacking to make our way eastward, but the broad and keelless Fram can hardly be called a good "beater"; we made too much leeway, and our progress was correspondingly slow. In the journal there is a constantly recurring entry ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... stowed away in a basket under the chair, in order that the lady might accept the invitation of the gentleman to walk with him on the deck; and as the wind had freshened by this time, and walking in skirts was like tacking in a stiff breeze, the gentleman offered his arm to the lady, and ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine

... usually that of the mudar (Calotropis hamiltoni). The nest thus constructed forms a deep and narrow purse, about 3 inches in depth, an inch in diameter at top, and 1.5 at the broadest part below. The tacking together of the stems of the grass is commonly continued a good deal higher up on one side than on the other, and it is through or between the untacked stems opposite to this that the tiny entrance exists. Of course above the nest ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... sailor as he moved slowly, like a ship leaving port in heavy weather, with many a lurch and much tacking against an adverse wind. By the expression on the Semitic face you might have thought that Isaac Zahn was beholding some new and interesting object of natural history, instead of a ponderous and grumpy old sailor, who seemed to doubt somewhat the bona fides of the Kangaroo ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... be known as Robin Fitzooth Montfichet—'tis but tacking on another name to him," said the Squire. "If he lives here, as I shall devise in my will, right soon will he be known as Gamewell, and that only! That fate has befallen me, and one might believe me now as Saxon ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... Chinamen with their balanced vegetable baskets. She knew the house and its management at her fingers' ends, and supervised everything that went forward. Laurie Flagg coming to call upon her, on Wednesday afternoon, to remonstrate upon her sudden defection, found her in the act of tacking up a ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... Nordland boat-builders have long since discovered the high fore and aft, sharp-keeled boat, to be the most practical, with one mast and a broad, prettily cut square sail admirably suited to what is most required, rapid sailing in fore and side winds, though less so for tacking. The boat is exactly the same shape under water as the fast-sailing clippers for which the English and Americans have of late become famed. What it has cost the Nordlanders to perfect the form that now enables them almost to ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie

... uncommonly touge all through the year, sir," replied Eaton, tacking on the "sir" in order to impress Midshipmen Flint and Austin with the tremendous dignity or all ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock

... them, in good earnest. He would have tacked in preference to waring, and it would have been much wiser to do so; but it was clearly expedient to get the ship on the other tack, and he lent all his present exertions to the attainment of that object. Waring is much easier done than tacking, certainly; when it does not blow too fresh, and there is not a dangerous sea on, no nautical manoeuvre can be more readily effected, though room is absolutely necessary to its success. This room was now wanting. Just as the ship had ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... landscape—their swift flight reduced by distance to a leisurely transition. The bright surface of the stream was furrowed by a hundred vessels; tiny rowboats creeping from shore to shore; knots of black barges following the lead of puffing tugs; sloops with languid motion tacking against the tide; white steamboats, like huge toy-houses, crowded with pygmy inhabitants, moving smoothly on their way to the great city, and disappearing suddenly as they turned into the narrows between Storm-King and the Fishkill Mountains. ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke

... did not dare to go ashore, as many crowds of people were seen on the beach, who appeared to be hostile; as well as because he had yet no news of the army, without which he had orders not to do anything, and he had no forces for that. On that account the fleet kept tacking to windward on one tack and another for the space of three days. But at the end of that time, a felucca was seen to cross the bar of Lingayen headed toward the flagship. The father vicar of the said village came aboard ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... and daring, and working such wonders as men never worked before: writing plays, without thought of posterity, that are today the mine from which men work their poetry; producing comedies that are classic; sailing trackless seas and discovering continents; tacking proclamations of defiance on church-doors; hunted and exiled for the right of honest speech; welcoming fierce flames of fagots; falling upon blocks of marble and liberating angels; painting pictures that have inspired millions! But not one touched life at so many points, or reveled ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... made a most feverish moment on board the Proserpine, as she came up fast toward the headland. All depended on getting by without tacking. The appearances were favorable for deep water close in; but there is always the danger of rocks to be dreaded near mountainous coasts. The promontory, too, was comparatively low; and this was rather an indication that it ought not to be approached too closely. Winchester was in his berth, just beginning ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... our journey was the pull up the long mountain road, ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by tacking. I forget the name of the pretty little group of houses—it did not amount to a village—buried in trees, where we got our four horses and two postilions, for the work was severe. I can only designate it as the place where Mary Quince and I had our tea, very comfortably, and bought some ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... warm sunshine. Masses of jagged rocks stretched far out from land, making a wide sweep necessary in order to get round the Point. Steering was Marjorie's special duty, and long practice had made her very skilful in avoiding dangerous spots, and tacking against cross-currents. She it was, too, who begged Estelle not to jump about in the boat, and so imperil the lives of the party by her delight in the new world ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... standing N.E., at others N.N.E., until sunrise, when they tacked to the south to reach the island, which was now concealed by a great mist. Another island was in sight from the poop, at a distance of eight leagues. Afterwards, from sunrise until dark, they were tacking to reach the land against a strong wind and head-sea. At the time of repeating the Salve, which is just before dark, some of the men saw a light to leeward, and it seemed that it must be on the island they first saw yesterday. ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... large house, built on the summit of a rock, which nearly overhung the shore below; there were, to be sure, a series of zigzag tacking paths down the face of this rock, but from the house they could not be seen. Old or delicate people would have considered the situation bleak and exposed; indeed, the present proprietor wanted to dispose of it on this very account; but by its present inhabitants, this exposure ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... but gray-haired and elderly, came tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag transit. He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, came head first into my ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... on the floor, tacking down a bedroom carpet, hammered away without an answer. After waiting a minute, she dropped down on the floor beside him, upsetting a saucer full of tacks as she did so. "Say, Alec," she began, in a confidential tone, "what ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Bob plunged into the dew-heavy grasses. The men proved to be watching Thorne, who was engaged in tacking a small target on the stub of a dead sugar pine. This accomplished, he led the way back some seventy-five or ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... was against us, and we had to pull. At 7.30 we went ashore for breakfast. We were very chilly, our things still being wet, and we lighted a large fire and got everything dry. After breakfast we managed to sail a little, tacking against the wind, and by 12.30 p.m. we had made Sugar Island. Here was the American channel, and we resolved to get dinner, and wait for a tow. In this we were very fortunate, for just as we were finishing dinner ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... extent of the danger we had encountered: the land we had seen proved to be the round head of Bustard Bay, which, as the wind was blowing directly upon it, we were fortunate in having room to clear. The Dick was apprized by us of the danger in time, and succeeded in clearing the land by tacking to ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... punctuated the melody with strong language designed to encourage the mules. One wailing voice came to our ears with the set refrain, "O feed me, white folks! White folks, feed me!" The crates and barrels were loaded on lighters and floated out to little sailing boats that went tacking past our bows on their way ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... course seems to have been that, starting with a simple Egyptian tale, the resemblance to the shepherd of the Asiatic myth, led to a Ramesside author improving the story by tacking on the branches of the myth one after another, and borrowing the name. If this be granted, we have here in Bata the earliest indications of the elements of the Atys mysteries, a thousand years ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie

... Flossie was tacking her way towards them. Joan acted on impulse. "I wish you'd give me your address," she said "where I could write to you. Or perhaps you would not mind my coming and seeing you one day. I would like you to tell ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... It did. Tacking was, of course, out of the question, but with the gale astern the launch answered her helm and slid over the waves instead of rolling between them. I sighed in relief. Then I remembered my passenger sitting silent beside me. She did not deserve consideration, but I vouchsafed a ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... displacement of the Battery, the rig is very small and not sufficiently effective. Shrouds were not required; the masts were supported by runners that were shifted when the yards were reversed, and in tacking. Apparently the jibstays also could be slacked off so that the lateen yards would not have to ...
— Fulton's "Steam Battery": Blockship and Catamaran • Howard I. Chapelle

... tacking up some tarlatan at a window to keep the midges out. Rita offered to help her, as she had done for the past ten years. Nan's "No, thanks," cut ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... among the many others near, all similar in appearance? It cannot tell exactly save by the sign-board of certain details known to itself alone. Therefore, still on the wing, tacking from side to side, it examines the locality. The home is found at last: the Halictus alights on the threshold of her abode and dives into ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... all around, whether blinding and topping off the half-wild ponies or throwing them and tacking cold-wrought "cowboy" shoes to their flint-like feet, and more than one enthusiast came away limping or picking the loose skin from a bruised hand. Yet through it all the dominant note of dare-devil hilarity never failed. The solitude of the ranch, long endured, had left its ugly mark on all ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... them. He asked me for a list of nurseries growing them. Nursery nut trees are not being produced in very great quantities except by Mr. Jones, and they are unlisted in the nursery catalogues, or only listed in an incidental way, very much as though they were tacking on something in the way of citrus fruit, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various

... in the pipe, it can be cleaned out better if the pipe is straight than if it is laid with numerous bends. Such a pipe should have a grade of at least one quarter inch to a foot, and this is conveniently given by tacking a little piece of wood one half inch thick on one end of a two-foot carpenter's level and then setting the pipe so that with this piece of wood resting on the pipe at one end and the end of the level itself on the pipe at its other end, the bubble will be in the ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... under the corner of the damaged wing, swearing to himself and tacking linen to mend the jagged hole broken through the covering by the skid. He ducked his head and peered out at ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... and one of these boats comes nearer and nearer to us, tacking to perfection. Through our glasses we already seem to see the stalwart figure of the pilot standing in the stern. On his brow he wears a storm-defying cap, the badge of the warrior of the waves; the loose shirt, the top boots, and the weather-beaten jacket all combine to ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... with sails spread and ropes taut, she seemed to sit upon the wind. Now she swirled in the billows, now she spring upward on a gigantic wave, only to be driven down with angry howl and hiss. Down came the mainsail. Tacking and jibbing, we wrestled with opposing winds that drove us from side to side with impetuous fury. Our hearts beat fast, and our hands trembled with excitement, not fear, for we had the hearts of vikings, and we knew that our skipper was master of the situation. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... succession, were silenced, so long as we could bring our broadside to bear upon them; but the moment we passed a battery, it was re-animated, and a constant, heavy fire kept up from all that we could not point our guns at. We suffered most when wearing or tacking; it was then I most sensibly felt the want of another frigate. At half-past four, the wind inclining to the northward, I made the signal for the bombs and gunboats to retire from action, and, immediately after, the signal to tow off the gunboats and prizes, which was handsomely executed ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... the long bench, and round it sat the neat-handed little maidens gluing, tacking and trimming, while they sang and chatted at their work as busy and happy ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... Parahaki; from whence is clear the view of the island Tahua. I see with regret the lofty Taumo, where dwells Tangiteruru. If I were there, the shark's tooth would hang from my ear. How fine, how beautiful, should I look. But see whose ship is that tacking? Is it yours? O Hu! you husband of Pohiwa, sailing away on the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... dropped the rock which would have completed his house of stones, as he saw a sail tacking across the river straight ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster

... another. We thought it would never do to display a total ignorance of the signals; Ryan therefore ordered the signal-bag to be produced, and we strung some flags together haphazard, and hoisted them. This signal the schooner acknowledged, tacking at the same time and standing toward us once more; but we were far too busy to wait for her, for although she had all the looks of a slaver, we knew, from the course she was steering, that she could have no slaves on board, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... brief song at intervals—a sound as of shattering glass. The whinchat was rarely seen, but I constantly met the small, prettily coloured stonechat flitting from bush to bush, following me, and never ceasing his low, querulous tacking chirp, anxious for the safety of his nest. Nightingales, blackcaps and white-throats also nested there, and were louder and more emphatic in their protests when approached. There were several grasshopper-warblers on the common, all, very curiously as it seemed to me, clustered at one spot, so ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... ships and shipping. He mixed freely with naval men and merchant skippers, visited the dockyards, promoted several improved types of vessels, and always befriended Fletcher of Rye, the shipwright who discovered the art of tacking and thereby revolutionized navigation. Nor was the King only a patron. He invented a new type of vessel himself and thoroughly mastered scientific gunnery. He was the first of national leaders to grasp the full significance of what could be done by broadsides ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood

... over one another! At one moment the birds would wheel so as to bring their backs in shadow, and then would flash out the white of their breasts and under parts. It was like the opening and shutting of a giant hand, or the alternate rapid darkening and brightening of the sail of a tacking ice-boat. This is the spirit of the flock. When a hawk pursues a bird, the birds tack and turn as if linked together. When one robin dashes off in hot pursuit of another, behold how their movements exactly coincide! The hawk-hunted bird often escapes by reaching ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... figures; he takes them mostly from the ways of ordinary civil life, selecting his metaphors, now from the trader's shop or the merchant's counting-house, as "ratio constat" (An. I. 6), used when the debtor and creditor sides of an account balance one another; now from seamen steering and tacking vessels, or coachmen driving horses, as "verbis moderans" (An. VI. 2), which Nipperdey says ought to be rendered, "touching-up and reining-in his words, and driving only ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... four o'clock in the evening, and I am sitting on a cigar-box outside of our cabin. From this spot not a person is to be seen, except a man who is building a new wing to the Humboldt. Not a human sound, but a slight noise made by the aforesaid individual in tacking on a roof of blue drilling to the room which he is finishing, disturbs the stillness which fills this purest air. I confess that it is difficult to fix my eyes upon the dull paper, and my fingers upon the duller pen with which I am soiling it. Almost every other ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... well one black night in the mid-Atlantic, when we were beating up against a stiff breeze, coming on deck near midnight, just as the ship was put about. When a ship is tacking, the tacks and sheets (ropes which confine the clews or lower corners of the sails) are let run, in order that the yards may be swung round to meet the altered position of the ship. They must then ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... was fitful. They traveled unsteadily, too, tacking back and across the estuary, because the breeze was so light, and no longer astern. Ten miles down the mouth of the stream they beheld an island where huge sheets of ice were piled one upon another, in an overhanging jumble of ice-hummock, some fifty feet high. And along the edge of this ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... their great lateen sails were tacking across the river, passing from one shore to the other, and recalling the shape of the mystic baris of the times ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... one of the men to his nearest mate, "talk about 'tacking the enemy, if wrong's happened to our young gentleman, all I can say is, as I hopes it's orders to land every night to burn willages and sack ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... the bay was a schooner tacking against the wind, while just rounding Rocky Point was a trim little yacht with all sail set, flying straight ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... walk so many paces north, turn and go so many feet west, and then north again. You then came to a white stone, from which you laid your course through more latitude and longitude until you were right over the spot. The police of Hoboken did as directed, and after tacking round and round the field, found the dynamite. Of course, the union said the whole thing was a plant, and that Guthrie had put the dynamite in the field himself at the instigation of his employers, but before the case ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... not venturing to attack us, though only one ship to thirteen. At 3 A.M. on the 16th, we crowded sail and went in amongst them, firing a broadside within half musket shot at one of the frigates with evident effect, as, from the damage caused, they did not return our fire. Whilst tacking to give them the other broadside, our mainsail split in two, and night setting in, we relinquished the pursuit ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... seeing that the skiff was lost, set sail, it being already night, tacking about until the next day; as soon as it was morning they anchored at the place where they had seen the skiff carried to, and he ordered two boats to be got ready with a matter of fifty or sixty men, and he went ashore in person and burned the whole village, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... her horse at bowlderfield, where horses are usually left, and without difficulty, or delay, made the summit. Just as she reached the top, a storm struck the mountain and, inside of a few minutes, hid the trail. Pluckily Miss Broughm worked her way down, tacking back and forth, mistaking the way but making progress. She was afraid to trust the dog to guide her. Late in the evening she descended the trough, a steep rock-filled gully that extends far below the timberline. The trail ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... sparrow or the goldfinch. It is a race of surprising speed and agility. It is a test of wing and wind. Every muscle is taxed, and every nerve strained. Such cries of terror and consternation on the part of the bird, tacking to the right and left, and making the most desperate efforts to escape, and such silent determination on the part of the hawk, pressing the bird so closely, flashing and turning, and timing his movements with ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... put this thing into your head?" inquired Mr. Eldridge. "You were in full sail for party this morning, liquor and all; this sudden tacking for a new course is a ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... of tacking a Tragic Head with a Comic Tail, in order to refresh the Audience, it is such a piece of Jargon, that I don't know what ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... cannot be completed on a moderate scale for less than fifty millions of dollars, nor manned in time of war with less than fifty thousand men, and in peace, two thousand. And when done, they avail little; because all military men agree, that wherever a vessel may pass a fort without tacking under her guns, which is the case at all our sea-port towns, she may be annoyed more or less, according to the advantages of the position, but can never be prevented. Our own experience during the war proved this on different ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... not be so if you will only cease tacking that 'yes' on to the end of every question that you find occasion ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... the letter should be divided into as many paragraphs as there are distinct subjects in the letter, or a new paragraph should be commenced at every change of the subject. The habit which some persons have of tacking one subject to the end of another, and thus making a letter one continuous paragraph of mixed up information, instructions and requests, is extremely objectionable. It destroys the force of what is said, instead ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... visited door after door, shouted, "Hey, Billy!" and proceeded to the next one. He was getting pugnacious at his lack of success when he espied Mr. Billy Williams tacking along the accidental street as if he owned it. Mr. Williams was executing fancy steps and was trying to sing ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... landed her on the opposite side, and I had to make my way all round to get her off again. Aleck remained on his side of the Cove, and we amused ourselves for some time in contriving to get the little boat to sail backwards and forwards, tacking ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... ordered to be engrossed, or written in a strong gross hand, on one or more long rolls of parchment sewed together. When this is finished, it is read a third time, and amendments are sometimes then made to it; and, if a new clause be added, it is done by tacking a separate piece of parchment on the bill, which is called a ryder. The speaker then again opens the contents; and, holding it up in his hands, puts the question, whether the bill shall pass. If this is agreed to, one of the members ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... had lived in luxury on the vast profits of the paymaster's office. Dowdeswell's motion that in matters of election the house is bound to judge according to the law of the land was so threatening an attack that North met it by tacking to it an amendment to the effect that the declaration of Wilkes's incapacity was agreeable to that law, and the minority reached 180 against 244. The king, anxiously watching all that passed in parliament, felt that even this majority was ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... his arm. Patsy did not know Carter Watson, nor did he know that what he carried under his arm was a magazine. Patsy, out of the depths of his grouch, decided that this stranger was one of those pests who marred and scarred the walls of his back rooms by tacking up or pasting up advertisements. The color on the front cover of the magazine convinced him that it was such an advertisement. Thus the trouble began. Knife and fork in hand, ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... that they should have to encounter a strong south-easter, all their efforts were directed to double the headland of Fifeness and the dreaded Carr Rock, and get into the Forth; but their utmost endeavours were unavailing, so that the best part of a day was spent in tacking and veering to, close in with the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... deep, clear stream. He had no idea as to the depth and never troubled to inquire. These short, stern orders of his that he barked to left and right from time to time, nobody took the slightest notice of, and Bones would have been considerably embarrassed if they had. Observing that the steamer was tacking from shore to shore, a proceeding which, to Bones' orderly mind, seemed inconsistent with the dignity of the Government boat, he ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... position when first he saw her, Kirkwood could have fancied she was tacking out of the mouth of the Medway; but he judged that, leaving the Thames' mouth, she had tacked to starboard until well-nigh within hail of Sheerness. Now, having presumably, gone about, she was standing out toward the Nore, boring doggedly into the wind. He would have given a deal for ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... yellow, covered all the sea-horizon, extending north and south as far as the eye could reach. It looked ominous. A surly secret seemed to lie in its bosom. Now and then I could discern the dim ghost of a vessel through it, as tacking for north or south it came near enough to the edge of the fog to show itself for a few moments, ere it retreated again into its bosom. There was exhaustion, it seemed to me, in the air, notwithstanding the coolness of the wind, and I was ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... was obvious that, although it still lacked three hours of noon, these gentlemen had been quite frequently to the shrine of Bacchus. I had no fault to find with that, as long as they did not interfere with my own personal comfort. When they began tacking along, talking at the top of their voices on that part of the deck known by experienced travelers to be reserved for repose and reading, however, they began to irritate me. When one of them threw ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves

... a mile from the shore, and then, in tacking, gave it such a sudden twitch as to throw Mr. Parasyte, who was still standing, off his balance, and he went over the ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... how the Manning family, who lived below the hill, knit shad nets all winter. Now one can buy the net already knit practically as cheaply as one can buy the twine. Sail boats dotted the Hudson—sloops and schooners loitering up and down the river or tacking noisily back and forth. I know they used to get becalmed and tide-bound out here and the sailors would come ashore and raid fruit orchards. Once some of them stole a sheep and took it out to the schooner. The ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs

... has amply proved it; but, my child, there is authority above the Marshal's—for instance, the whole Council of Ministers. With time and a little tacking, we shall get there. But, to succeed, I must wait till the moment when some service is required of me. Then I can say ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... batteries, every one of which, in succession, were silenced, so long as we could bring our broadside to bear upon them; but the moment we passed a battery, it was re-animated, and a constant, heavy fire kept up from all that we could not point our guns at. We suffered most when wearing or tacking; it was then I most sensibly felt the want of another frigate. At half-past four, the wind inclining to the northward, I made the signal for the bombs and gunboats to retire from action, and, immediately after, the signal to tow off the gunboats and prizes, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... Captain kept on "tacking" across the harbor, going to and fro, for more than an hour, enjoying every minute of it just as much as the children did. When at length, however, the children began to quiet down a little (the sharp edge of novelty being worn off), the Captain ran into ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... minutes he emerged, wearing, to her surprise, a brilliant rosette, while more surprising still, in his hand he carried a flag of somewhat homely construction, formed by tacking one of the small Union Jacks, which abounded in the town to-day, to the end of a deal wand—probably the roller from a piece of calico. Henchard rolled up his flag on the doorstep, put it under his arm, and went ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... turned over the shirt she was making for some charitable society and drew out some tacking threads with a loud noise which relieved her. Lady Winterbourne's old and delicate ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... size of vessels, weight of metal, and number of combatants. The circumstances only increased his eagerness. The more he was over-matched, the greater would be the honour of victory, and he steered for the straits, tacking to and fro in the teeth of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... but tacking about too much to the North East, it drove us upon Shore with that violence that we were oblig'd to put in twice to Land, once at Scarborough, ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe

... Captain, "we shall sail into Catania;" but after a third night on the planks, which were now a little softer, we rose to find ourselves abreast of Syracuse, with Etna as distant as ever. The wind was light, and what little we made by tacking was swept away by the current, so that, after wasting the whole forenoon, we kept a straight course across the mouth of the channel, and at sunset saw the Calabrian Mountains. This move only lost us more ground, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... temper," said John, tacking his sentence to the last word of Benjamin's reply. And ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... far we were getting away from home. As we rounded a bend in the canal, much to my astonishment, I saw just before us the bridge at Raven Hill, eight miles from our town. We started to go back, but the wind was too strong for us, and there wasn't much room in which to do any tacking; nor could we make any progress when the sails were folded. I began to get extremely tired and rather exasperated at Bill for not having thought of the return trip before he led me such a hot pace up the canal. But Bill ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... land—was too puffy for making the sheet fast. I held it with one hand and tried to fish with the other. In order not to stop the way of the boat and risk losing the lead on the sea-bottom, I wore her round to lew'ard, instead of tacking to wind'ard. A squall came down, the sail gybed quickly, and the boom slewed over with a jerk, just grazing the top of my head. Had that boom been a couple of inches lower, or my head an inch or two higher.... ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... may be called his "Last Blast," there is as sharp speaking as any in the "First Blast" itself. He is of the same opinion to the end, you see, although he has been obliged to cloak and garble that opinion for political ends. He has been tacking indeed, and he has indeed been seeking the favour of a queen; but what man ever sought a queen's favour with a more virtuous purpose, or with as little courtly policy? The question of consistency is delicate, and must be made ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... from every window, and planned where flower-frames should be put, to take the sun. Then, going out of doors, they inspected the revolving clothes-dryer, which David, with a seaman's instinct, had already rigged with four little sloops to sail about on the ends of the projecting arms, on Mondays, tacking after shirts and stockings. Then they went to the barn, and David showed how he was going to cover the sides with spruce shingles, so that he could have a warm place to work in in the winter. Then they went over the fields, and planned a garden for the next ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin

... castle of Elsinore, the sight of which brought me into immediate touch with my youthful impressions of Hamlet. We were sailing all unsuspecting through the Cattegat to the Skagerack, when the wind, which had at first been merely unfavourable, and had forced us to a process of weary tacking, changed on the second day to a violent storm. For twenty-four hours we had to struggle against it under disadvantages which were quite new to us. In the captain's painfully narrow cabin, in which one of us was ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... and took, it must be acknowledged, a far from tolerant line generally in the debates of 1704-9 relating to the liberties of Dissenters. On the other hand, he indignantly resented the unworthy attempt of the more extreme Tories to force the occasional Conformity Act through the House of Lords by 'tacking' it to a money bill. He expressed the utmost displeasure against anything like bitterness and invective; he had been warmly in favour of a moderate comprehension of Dissenters, had voted that Tillotson should be prolocutor when the scheme was ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... moments Billy stood with the paper in his hand, the type a blur before his eyes. He could almost see Isobel's old home in Montreal. It was on the steep, shaded road leading up to Mount Royal, where he had once watched a string of horses "tacking" with their two-wheeled carts of coal in their arduous journey to Sir George Allen's basement at the end of it. He remembered how that street had held a curious sort of fascination for him, with its massive stone walls, ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood

... double row of sashes may be used, of the ordinary 3 x 6 foot size. In the latter case, of course, a purlin and supporting posts, as shown in diagram, must be supplied. Every second or third top sash should be hinged, to open for ventilation, and by tacking strips over the edges of the sash where they come together, a very tight and roomy little house can be put up quickly, easily and very cheaply. New sash, glazed and painted one coat, can be bought for $3 to $3.50 each. Ten of these would make a very practical little house, fifteen feet ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... you one thing," said Grant. "It's lucky for you that the Josephine had been brought up into the wind. If we had been tacking or beating or something like that you'd never had hung so quietly ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay

... of Undertakers, says he, and they were employed by the honest gentleman, who is executor to the good Doctor departed; and our rascally porter, I believe, is fallen fast asleep with the black cloth and sconces, or he had been here, and we might have been tacking up by this time. Sir, says I, pray be advis'd by a friend, and make the best of your speed out of my doors, for I hear my wife's voice, (which by the by, is pretty distinguishable) and in that corner of the room stands a good cudgel, which somebody has felt e're now; if that light in her hands, ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift

... now knew to be an island, sometimes standing N.E., at others N.N.E., until sunrise, when they tacked to the south to reach the island, which was now concealed by a great mist. Another island was in sight from the poop, at a distance of eight leagues. Afterwards, from sunrise until dark, they were tacking to reach the land against a strong wind and head-sea. At the time of repeating the Salve, which is just before dark, some of the men saw a light to leeward, and it seemed that it must be on the island they first saw yesterday. All night they were beating to windward, and going ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... and this pledging myself to avoid it is something altogether needless—nay, by implication, it is degrading. As to what you say of my influence, I am inclined to the opinion, that if every man will look to himself, every man will be looked to. This modern notion of tacking the whole responsibility of society on to every individual is one I am not at all inclined to adopt; for, first, I know it is a troublesome doctrine; and, secondly, I doubt if it be a true one. For both which reasons, I shall decline extending to ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the shore, where it curved towards us, was a half-built town, all of new stone, with scaffoldings standing everywhere, yet not a soul at work on 'em. Out in the roadstead five small gunboats were tacking and blazing away, two at the mole and three at the town itself; and the town and the island blazing and banging back at the gunboats. We could not see the town battery, but the island one mounted three guns, and Sir John's ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag transit. He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... matinee and a not much better reception on the Wednesday night, packed its baggage and moved to Syracuse, where it failed just as badly. Then for another two weeks it wandered on from one small town to another, up and down New York State and through the doldrums of Connecticut, tacking to and fro like a storm-battered ship, till finally the astute and discerning citizens of Hartford welcomed it with such a reception that hardened principals stared at each other in a wild surmise, wondering if these things could really be: and a weary chorus forgot ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... ensuing month. With respect to money bills it was declared that the Lords were "prepared to forego their constitutional right to reject or amend money bills which are purely financial in character," provided that adequate provision should be made against tacking, that questions as to whether a bill or any provision thereof were purely financial should be referred to a joint committee of the two houses (the Speaker of the Commons presiding and possessing a casting vote), and that a bill decided by such a committee ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... Oxford undergraduates, in the rooms of one of them, wearing cap and gown with perfect docility. Yachtsmen fell foul of Mr. Sambourne for introducing an ensign on a staff in his famous drawing of "The Times Tacking;" for such a staff, stuck on the taffrail with the boom touching it, was "an impossible object," and would have been instantly snapped off, while, moreover, the ensign should have been at the peak. In another admirable drawing Punch once ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... thicky wreck. Likely as not 'twas the one I seed all yesterday tacking about: and if so be as I be right, a pretty lot of lubbers she must have had aboard. Jonathan, the coast-guard, came down to Lizard Town this morning, and said he seed a big vessel nigh under the cliffs toward midnight, or fancied he seed her: but fustly Jonathan's ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... view. A large extent of water presently became visible within side; and although the entrance seemed to be very narrow, and there were in it strong ripplings like breakers, I was induced to steer in at half-past one; the ship being close upon the wind, and every man ready for tacking at a moment's warning; the soundings were irregular between 6 and 12 fathoms, until we got four miles within the entrance, when they shoaled quick ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... started hurriedly along the trail. The two women followed him calling to the boy as they ran. But Loll, evidently deeply interested in his own small adventures, did not hear their shouts. Kobuk was now hobbling on ahead and despite his bandaged leg, was tacking hither and thither woofing in the manner of the huskie when he wishes to bark. As Loll neared the tree they saw him branch off the trail and a few minutes later ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... mourning takes place after an interval which may be anything between one and six months. This is a special ceremony, and will not be postponed for the purpose of tacking it on to some other ceremony, as in the case of an ordinary person's mourning removal; but other ceremonies will often be tacked on to it. The guests invited are from only one other community. Here again the person actually dealt with is the chief mourner, and the removal of mourning ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... [Greek: "Kateskeuasmenas de amphoterothen enkoilion metron choris."]—Lib xv. c. i. s. 14. Pliny, who makes the same statement, says the Singhalese adopted this model to avoid the necessity of tacking in the narrow and shallow channels, between Ceylon and the mainland of India ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... kindly adjustments. How the birds took advantage of the wind and made it lift them or sink them, or propel them forward; tacking, with infinite skill, right in the eye of the gale, like a sailing-vessel. It was not toil—it was delight, rapture—the very glory and ecstasy of living. Everywhere the benevolence of God was manifest: light, sound, air, sea, clouds, beast, fish and bird; we were in the midst of all; ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... first, when Fletcher succeeded in doing what no one had ever done before. There can be no doubt that the lateen sail, which goes back at least to the early Egyptians, had the germ of a fore-and-after in it. But the germ was never evolved into a strong type fit for tacking; and no one before Fletcher ever seems to have thought it possible to lay a course at all unless the wind was somewhere abaft the beam. So England can fairly claim this one epoch-making nautical invention, which might be ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood

... do a lot of tacking," said Artois. "Mon Dieu! That boy is smoking one of my cigarettes! You sacrilegious little creature! You have ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... raw levies of provincial troops, the most of whom have never stepped to martial music before in their lives. Admiral Warren has come up from West India waters with his men-of-war to command the united fleets. Early Monday morning, against a shore wind, the boats are tacking to land, when the alarm bells begin ringing and ringing at Louisburg and a force of one hundred and fifty men dashes downshore for Flat Cove to prevent the landing. Pepperrell out-tricks the enemy by leaving only ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... sunshine. Masses of jagged rocks stretched far out from land, making a wide sweep necessary in order to get round the Point. Steering was Marjorie's special duty, and long practice had made her very skilful in avoiding dangerous spots, and tacking against cross-currents. She it was, too, who begged Estelle not to jump about in the boat, and so imperil the lives of the party by her delight in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... the canoe, towards the shore; and fortunately the confusion was so great amongst them on board, that I got out of the reach of the musquet shot unnoticed, while the vessel sailed on with a fair wind a different way; so that they could not overtake me without tacking: but even before that could be done I should have been on shore, which I soon reached, with many thanks to God for this unexpected deliverance. I then went and told the other owner, who lived near that shore (with whom I had agreed for my passage) of the usage I had ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... gloomy old house, but handsome withal,—square and brown and substantial, and most generously gardened within high brick walls. Except for dusting the lilac bushes with the hose, and weeding a few rusty leaves out of the privet hedge, and tacking up three or four scraggly sprays of English ivy, and re-greening one or two bay-tree boxes, there was really nothing much to do to the garden. But the house? Oh ye gods! All day long from morning till night,—but most particularly from the back door to the barn, sweating ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... measured the comfortable proportions of Festus Clasby seated upon his cart. As the one-and-six was counted out penny by penny into the palm of the brown hand of the Son of the Bard, the figure of his wife floated out on the open road, tossing and tacking and undecided in its direction to the eye of those who understood not the language of gestures and motions. By a series of giddy evolutions she arrived at the cart as the last of the coppers ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... in Guiana where emigrating butterflies turn to the north or the south; sometimes for days at a time, but sooner or later the eddies straighten out, their little flotillas cease tacking, and all ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... already had supper, thank you. Did you say there was goose? Thanks... yes. I've remembered the old days.... It's pleasant, young man! You sail on the sea, you have no worries, and [In an excited tone of voice] do you remember the joy of tacking? Is there a sailor who doesn't glow at the memory of that manoeuvre? As soon as the word is given and the whistle blown and the crew begins to go up—it's as if an electric spark has run through them all. From the captain to ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov

... soon as we rounded the North Cape on Friday, June 29, a contrary wind sprang up, and we have been beating about, tacking between North Cape and Cape Brett ever since. Fine sunny weather and light winds, but always from the south. To me it is a matter of entire indifference; I am quite ready to go ashore, but do not mind a few more days ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... after departed in England,)[297] the mantenance of the toune, having in his cumpany the Lard of Moncreif,[298] and other freindis adjacent. The said Johnne maid frack for the persuyt; and upoun the Magdelane day,[299] in the mornyng, anno 1543, approched with his forses; the Lord Gray tacking upoun him the principall charge. It was appointed, that Normond Leslye, with his freandis, should have come by schip, with munitioun and ordnance, as thei war in reddynes. But becaus the tyde served nott ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... minister the Assembly's acknowledgment of the royal prerogative, in recognizing the right of the Crown to name the capital, he pointed out that, prerogative or no prerogative, the possessor of the purse had the final voice. He rebuked his new minister, Baldwin, for tacking on question-begging constitutional phrases to a legal opinion, but he told Stanley, quite frankly, that, "whether the doctrine of responsible government is openly acknowledged, or is only tacitly acquiesced in, virtually it exists."[26] During the remainder ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... on board. He sees them. They've tacked again. It aint so bad as it looked. Sea's quieter there. Hulloa! there goes a sail to ribbons. They are tacking again. She has slackened ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... and Europe save rolling waves and wave-crests like white plumes. The sea was of a diaphanous blue that shaded through a bold steel blue and a lucent blue enamel to a rich ultramarine which absorbed and healed the office-worn mind. The sails of tacking sloops were a-blossom; sea-gulls swooped; a tall surf-fisherman in red flannel shirt and shiny black hip-boots strode out into the water and cast with a long curve of his line; cumulus clouds, whose ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... drew them on until, lo! on a sudden they looked upon a bridge, far newer and wider than the one behind them, spanning a river far more majestic than Avon. Of the white sails some were tacking against its current, others speeding down stream with a brisk breeze; and while the children stood there at gaze, a small puffing tug emerged from under the great arch of the bridge with a dozen barges astern of her ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... cloakrooms, and immersed generally in the thousand and one tasks that fall on a hostess-to-be. Frank put himself at her orders and spent the better part of the afternoon in running errands and tacking up flags and branches; and after an hilarious tea, in the midst of all the litter and confusion, he went back to the ship somewhat after five o'clock. As he was pulled out in a shore boat he was surprised to pass a couple of coal lighters coming from the Minnehaha, and to see her winches ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne

... fancied that my experiences had somewhat superior; whilst I saw that his experiences were as good as mine. Give them to me and I would make the same use of them. He held the old; he holds the new; I had the habit of tacking together the old and the new which he did not use to exercise. This may hold in the great examples. Perhaps if we should meet Shakspeare we should not be conscious of any steep inferiority; no, but of a great equality,—only that he possessed a strange ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... captain made this last remark, his quick eye saw that the wind had hauled so far round to the westward, as to supersede the necessity of tacking, and that they were actually going eight knots in a direct line from Portsmouth. Casting an eye behind him, he perceived that the cutter had given up the chase, and was returning towards the distant roads. Under circumstances so discouraging, the attorney, who began ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... his alarm. Disconsolate and unassisted, he managed to stagger to the forecastle again. The ancient mariners were swearing as ever. "Mary," he said to his sympathetic wife, as he crawled into his berth after tacking across a wet deck, "Mary, thank God ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... a clear sky and a bright moon; the wind, however, not abating. The next three hours were spent in tacking, in beating towards the Jersey coast under seas which almost swamped them. They were standing off about a mile from the island, and could see lighted fires and groups of people upon the shore, when suddenly a gale came out from the southwest, the wind having again shifted. With ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... to go to the trouble of tacking up these alphabet flags on the edge of the veranda eaves (it takes fourteen of them to spell "WELCOME FIREMEN"), say they think a handsome flag—a really handsome one, not one of these twenty-five centers—is as pretty and rich ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... the mouth frequently originates in the mucous membrane between the frenum of the tongue and the inner aspect of the gum. It develops insidiously, grows slowly, and gradually spreads to the mandible and to the substance of the tongue, tacking it down so that it cannot be protruded. The glands are early involved, and their enlargement not infrequently first draws attention to the condition. It is to be regarded as a particularly unfavourable site, as local recurrence is frequent. For the complete ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... logic or of truth appears In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years? Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied, But tarries yet the Cause ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy

... undistinguishable behind them. Longingly and anxiously she looked up and down the water-way. A mist was gathering over it; and there were no boats in the channel except two pleasure-shallops, already tacking to their proper piers. "The Dauntless" had been out of sight for hours. There was not the splash of an oar, and no other river sound at that point, but the low, peculiar ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... replied Agony. "All I have to do is cut the threads where the top is tacked on to the foundation. It's really two pairs of bloomers." She was already cutting the tacking threads ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey

... thousand miles, rather than going directly eastward less than four thousand miles. For going eastward we should have to travel a thousand miles an hour in order to keep up with the Earth. It is questionable whether we could make that speed tacking ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... more trying to the explorers than the navigation in which they were now engaged, day after day tacking off and on among large fields of ice, through which they in vain endeavoured to find a passage to the southward, with the constant risk, in thick weather, of running foul of icebergs, or of getting ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston

... I remember I watched with Freya on the verandah the brig approaching the point from the northward. I suppose Jasper made the girl out with his long glass. What does he do? Instead of standing on for another mile and a half along the shoals and then tacking for the anchorage in a proper and seamanlike manner, he spies a gap between two disgusting old jagged reefs, puts the helm down suddenly, and shoots the brig through, with all her sails shaking and rattling, so that we could hear the racket on the verandah. I drew ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... angrily at unseen barriers. Our little boat confronted the gale fearlessly; with sails spread and ropes taut, she seemed to sit upon the wind. Now she swirled in the billows, now she spring upward on a gigantic wave, only to be driven down with angry howl and hiss. Down came the mainsail. Tacking and jibbing, we wrestled with opposing winds that drove us from side to side with impetuous fury. Our hearts beat fast, and our hands trembled with excitement, not fear, for we had the hearts of vikings, and we knew that our skipper was master of the situation. He had steered through ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... with snow; and behind, and fainter, the low, blue land of Cantyre. Cottony clouds stood, in a great castle, over the top of Arran, and blew out in long streamers to the south. The sea was bitten all over with white; little ships, tacking up and down the Firth, lay over at different angles in the wind. On Shanter they were ploughing lea; a cart foal, all in a field by himself, capered and whinnied as if the spring ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I shall,—and so does nurse; and I don't mind what any body else says.—I waited only for my revenge, till the two former withdrew; when sending the latter for a glass of water, I gave Miss such a glorious tacking, as I believe she has never tasted the like before or since.—In the midst of the fray, I heard nurse running up, which made me hasten what I owed on my own account, to remind her of the favours she had conferred on Lord Eggom ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning

... there is no necessity for tacking, you have only to rig your sails and smoke your pipe, or go to sleep; you may, in that way, run four ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... he hurried down, tacking his way with slides and runs among the intricate beams, tied the rope to a beam above the swing-beam, and let himself down to the bell's rim; reached out then, caught the knotted rope that was within the bell, and climbed, the clapper now so rough, that hand and knee found grip; ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... was no ship for passengers. Its decks were littered with a hundred oddments, so that a man could barely walk a step without tacking, and my bunk was simply a shelf in the frowsty little saloon, where the odour of ham and eggs hung like a fog. I joined her at Greenock and took a turn on deck with the captain after tea, when he told me the names of the big blue hills to the north. He had a fine old copper-coloured face and side-whiskers ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... scale for less than fifty millions of dollars, nor manned in time of war with less than fifty thousand men, and in peace, two thousand. And when done, they avail little; because all military men agree, that wherever a vessel may pass a fort without tacking under her guns, which is the case at all our sea-port towns, she may be annoyed more or less, according to the advantages of the position, but can never be prevented. Our own experience during the war proved this on different ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... sailors call the independent little nautilus, sailed contemptuously past us in their fairy barks, as if they had been little steamers. A man fell overboard, but the weather being calm, was saved immediately. We have been tacking about and making our way slowly towards Havana, in a zigzag line. Yesterday evening the moon rose in the form of a large heart, of a red gold colour. This morning, about four o'clock, a fine fresh breeze ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... and every mother's child of us, that Dorothy is approaching this room with her dust-pan and brush. Dorothy, I have a nice little sum for you to do. How many snippets of green and black silk go to a dust-pan? Count them, and subtract all the tacking-thread, ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... Then they would rest awhile and pant and swear. While they were affectionate they always spoke of each other as "ladies," but while they were fighting "strumpet" was the mildest name they could think of—and they could only make that do by tacking some sounding profanity to it. In their last fight, which was toward midnight, one of them bit off the other's finger, and then the officer interfered and put the "Greaser" into the "dark cell" to answer for it because the woman that did it laid it on him, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... canonisation of rogues and laymen. Ser Ciappelletto and Marcellinus are cited with applause even by the decent Muratori.[614] The great Arnaud, as he is quoted in Bayle, states, that a new edition of the novels was proposed, of which the expurgation consisted in omitting the words "monk" and "nun," and tacking the immoralities to other names. The literary history of Italy particularises no such edition; but it was not long before the whole of Europe had but one opinion of the Decameron; and the absolution of the author seems to have been a point settled at least a hundred years ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... of stoppage will be decreased, and in the next place, if a stoppage does occur in the pipe, it can be cleaned out better if the pipe is straight than if it is laid with numerous bends. Such a pipe should have a grade of at least one quarter inch to a foot, and this is conveniently given by tacking a little piece of wood one half inch thick on one end of a two-foot carpenter's level and then setting the pipe so that with this piece of wood resting on the pipe at one end and the end of the level itself on the pipe at its other end, the bubble will be in the middle. ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... necessarily involve greatness of character, nor does microscopic study of the infinitely little always produce humility. We have our full share of original sin; need, greed, and vainglory beset us as they do other mortals; and our progress is, for the most part, like that of a tacking ship, the resultant of opposite divergencies from the straight path. But, for all that, there is one moral benefit which the pursuit of science unquestionably bestows. It keeps the estimate of the value of evidence up to the proper mark; and we are constantly receiving lessons, and sometimes ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... unlading priceless essences of sweet odours brought from the East over the green seas of wheat, unlading priceless colours on the broad dandelion disks, bartering these things for honey and pollen. Slowly tacking aslant, the pollen ship hums in the south wind. The little brown wren finds her way through the great thicket of hawthorn. How does she know her path, hidden by a thousand thousand leaves? Tangled and crushed together by their own growth, a crown of thorns hangs over the thrush's nest; thorns ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... with ships and shipping. He mixed freely with naval men and merchant skippers, visited the dockyards, promoted several improved types of vessels, and always befriended Fletcher of Rye, the shipwright who discovered the art of tacking and thereby revolutionized navigation. Nor was the King only a patron. He invented a new type of vessel himself and thoroughly mastered scientific gunnery. He was the first of national leaders to grasp the full significance of what could be done by broadsides fired from ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood

... the misty darkness, close inshore, North-west, South-west, and ever Westward strained The little ships of England. All night long, As down the coast the reddening beacons leapt, The crackle and lapping splash of tacking keels, The bo'suns' low sharp whistles and the whine Of ropes, mixing with many a sea-bird's cry Disturbed the darkness, waking vague swift fears Among the mighty hulks of Spain that lay Nearest, then fading through the mists ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... wondered, as she slowly went back to the house; and yet more, when her aunt set her to tacking her stockings together by ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... folds of black sateen over her arm. As she ripped at this with a pair of scissors, I noticed there was a deep frilling to it. Also a bright blush came into her cheek at the curious glance I gave to the somewhat skimpy lines of her skirt. But the next instant she was busy stretching and tacking the black ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... required to go, and decided to do it in her own time and way. Galloping to the grass plot on which we were standing she suddenly stopped short and deposited Lapworth ignominiously at our feet. The other animal followed suit, but did not succeed in clearing itself, and after some tacking Bob and the boatswain got under weigh again and steered for the "White Hart," where they were bent on ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... said Patty good-naturedly; and she went to work with a will, stowing away things and tacking up things, until everything was snugly ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... see whether they might yet hope to pass on her weather-beam. The measure was desirable; because a seaman has a pride in keeping on the honourable side of every thing he encounters but chiefly because, from the position of the stranger, it would be the means of preventing the necessity of tacking before the "Caroline" should reach a point more advantageous for such a manoeuvre. The reader will, however, readily understand that the interest of hear new Commander took its rise in far different feelings from those of professional ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... nothing but disjointed sentences. He rose from his seat, brandished his horsewhip, and, seizing his nephew by the collar, cried, "Odd's heartlikins! sirrah, I have a good mind—Devil fire your running tackle, you landlubber!— can't you steer without all this tacking hither and thither, and the Lord knows whither?—'Noint my block! I'd give thee a rope's end for thy supper ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... for about a couple of hours after tacking, and I was seriously debating in my mind the possibility of giving the Frenchman the slip by lowering away all our canvas and then running to leeward under bare poles, my eyes resting abstractedly upon a brilliant planet broad upon our weather bow, which was just on the point of dipping ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... harbour was soon over, but the boat which lay waiting for him had a considerable distance to traverse, for the Tacheia was no longer at the landing place, but was tacking outside the Pharos, in order, if the warrant of arrest were issued, not to be stopped at the channel dominated by the lighthouse. He found the slender trireme pervaded by a restless stir. His uncle had long been ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... "catch 'em in." Up in House 47 I gathered together the legion paraphernalia of this new occupation,—some two hundred red cards a foot long and half as wide, a surveyor's field notebook for the preservation of miscellaneous information, tags for the tagging of canvassed buildings, tacks for the tacking of the same, the necessary tack-hammer, the medium soft black pencil, above all the awesome legal "Commission," impressively signed and sealed, wherein none other than our weighty nation's chief himself did expressly authorize me to search out, enter, and question ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... therefore put his helm down and felt his way through the weather by short boards, and so, with the most of his men stationed forward to keep a look-out, fenced, as it were, with the danger, steering and tacking, until by God's grace the fog lifted, and the wind blew ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... we encountered bad weather, the first wind of the cruise. All hands were required for tacking, and I was stationed on the forecastle-head with one other man. Williams, the butler, succumbed to the weather, and at five o'clock Miss Lee made her way forward through the driving rain, and asked me if ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... that the army deserves a great deal of credit for living up to both the letter and the spirit of the censor's code. They do, however, find fault with the men who continually "over-address" their letters—that is, who persist in tacking on the number of their divisions to the company and regimental designations. This, for military reasons, is forbidden, but many men seem as ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... of sail. I shall never forget the night, but on each Sabbath eve shall recollect with gratitude God's mercy in saving us from destruction. This morning, at daybreak, we were five miles off Malta, having retained this situation by tacking backwards and forwards during the night. The weather continued rough and stormy, but thanks be to the Almighty God, we anchored safely in the quarantine harbour at half-past seven, after a long and boisterous voyage of ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... into your head?" inquired Mr. Eldridge. "You were in full sail for party this morning, liquor and all; this sudden tacking for a new course is a little ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... is a part of you! if I understand St. Paul, this is sound church doctrine, leaving out the personal part of the Trinity which Hazard insists on tacking to it. Except for the rubbish, I don't think I am so very far away from him," continued Strong, now assuming that he had done what he could to set Esther straight, and going on with the conversation as though it had no longer a personal interest. ...
— Esther • Henry Adams

... afterward determined to become a clergyman and took orders in the Episcopal Church. I have never heard him preach, but I have no doubt from his distinction as a writer and scholar in college that he is an excellent preacher. But his poem of the sea entitled "Tacking the Ship off Fire Island" is one of the most spirited and perfect of its kind in literature. You can hear the wind blow and feel the salt in your hair as you read it. I once heard it read by Richard Dana to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard, and again by that most accomplished elocutionist, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... 4 P.M. saw a sloop. Gave chase, but, the weather being calm, was forced to get out our oars. Fired our bow chase to bring her to; but as the people were in confusion, the ship tacking about, and the night coming on very foggy, we were unable to speak to her. By her course she was bound to the North'd. Lost sight of our prize. The two Englishmen, who were taken prisoners by the Spanish privateer, signed our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... men. There is one green hand in the crew, Harrison by name, a clumsy-looking country boy, mastered, I imagine, by the spirit of adventure, and making his first voyage. In the light baffling airs the schooner had been tacking about a great deal, at which times the sails pass from one side to the other and a man is sent aloft to shift over the fore-gaff-topsail. In some way, when Harrison was aloft, the sheet jammed in the block through which it runs at the end of the gaff. As I understood it, there were ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... is the difference between an application and moralizing?" Genuine and natural application ought to be inherent in the material presented. A good story ought to drive home its message without further comment. Moralizing consists of "tacking on" some generalized exhortation relative to conduct. Moralizing is either an unnecessary and unwelcome injunction to be or to do good, or it is an apology for a lesson that in and of itself drives home no message. The ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... whithersoever they could. Poor Riouffe fell into the talons of Revolutionary Committee, and Paris Prison. The rest sit here under hatches; reverend Petion with his grey hair, angry Buzot, suspicious Louvet, brave young Barbaroux, and others. They have escaped from Quimper, in this sad craft; are now tacking and struggling; in danger from the waves, in danger from the English, in still worse danger from the French;—banished by Heaven and Earth to the greasy belly of this Scotch skipper's Merchant-vessel, unfruitful Atlantic raving round. They are for Bourdeaux, if peradventure hope yet linger there. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... latitude was nine degrees 45 minutes 32 seconds; and by the morning and evening sights for the chronometers a current had set us to the North 81 degrees West at nearly one mile and a quarter per hour. The wind, hanging between South-East and South-South-East, prevented our tacking to the southward to get out of the current, which, on our first experiencing it, was thought to have been occasioned by a set through the strait of Rottee; it was however afterwards found that we were on the southern ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... la cour!); so I went on, not thinking of what I was about, when, all at once, I perceived that I was in the middle of the preparations for to-morrow night—the room being divided with great clothes-maids, over which Crosby's men were tacking red flannel; very dark and odd it seemed; it quite bewildered me, and I was going on behind the screens, in my absence of mind, when a gentleman (quite the gentleman, I can assure you) stepped forwards ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... point of Yalmal and Bieloi-Ostrov (White Island). There was no ice to be seen in any direction. During the days that followed we had constant strong east winds, often increasing to half a gale. We kept on tacking to make our way eastward, but the broad and keelless Fram can hardly be called a good "beater"; we made too much leeway, and our progress was correspondingly slow. In the journal there is a constantly recurring entry of "Head-wind," ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... well to make a chamois block for applying the crayon sauce, to be worked with the tortillon stump. This is done by tacking onto a block, four inches long, two inches wide and three-quarters of an inch thick, a piece of chamois skin, three inches wide by five inches long, allowing it to cover the top, while it is fastened along the four edges. This is placed face down ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt

... fitful. They traveled unsteadily, too, tacking back and across the estuary, because the breeze was so light, and no longer astern. Ten miles down the mouth of the stream they beheld an island where huge sheets of ice were piled one upon another, in an overhanging jumble of ice-hummock, some fifty feet ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... bands stationed on the three decks of the ship at such times, but particular men of those bands are also assigned to particular duties. Also, in tacking ship, reefing top-sails, or "coming to," every man of a frigate's five-hundred-strong, knows his own special place, and is infallibly found there. He sees nothing else, attends to nothing else, and will stay there till grim death ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville









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