"Blade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thought it would utilise its power to protect the leaflets from rain. Accordingly I syringed the plant for two minutes, and it was really beautiful to see how each leaflet on the younger leaves twisted its short sub-petiole, so that the blade was immediately directed at an angle between 45 and 90 deg to the horizon. I could not resist the pleasure of just telling you why I want to know the name of the Cassia. I should add that it is a greenhouse plant. I suppose that there will not be any ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... forest and farm land, lay Richmond under the stars. Eastwardly, within and without its girdling earthworks, that brilliant and histrionic general, John Bankhead Magruder, El Capitan Colorado, with a lisping tongue, a blade like Bayard's, and a talent for drama and strategy, kept General McClellan under the impression, confirmed by the whole Pinkerton force, that "at least eighty thousand men" had remained to guard Richmond, when Lee with "at least eighty thousand ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... strength without yielding him any advantage. The Creator who cares for the birds will not forget man made in His image; He who clothes the fields in the beauty of the flower and gives to the trembling blade of grass the nourishment that it needs for its fleeting day, will not desert man, ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... extraordinary and sensational were not necessary to literature. And just as the dewdrop on the petal is a divine manifestation, and every blade of grass is a miracle, and the three speckled eggs in an English sparrow's nest constitute an immaculate conception, so every human life, with its hopes, aspirations, dream, defeats and successes, is a drama, joyous with comedy, rich in melodrama and also dark and somber as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... that the catch of the window has been pushed back by slipping the blade of a knife between ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... and whipped his cutlas out. "Stand clear!" he howled, and Sancho dodged aside. The little terror's blade sang through the air with a wicked whistle; it curved high over Sancho, then flashed down and plunged through the throat of the ox, pinning the beast to the earth. And when he recovered his breath the Spaniard swooped upon the prize, and ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Bubb's. In getting up these bright mornings he looked with entirely new distaste upon the prospect from his window at the back. Beneath lay parallel strips of ground, divided from each other by low walls. These were called the "gardens" of the houses in Kennington Road, but no blade of grass ever showed upon the black, hard-trodden soil. Lank fowls ran about among discarded furniture and indescribable rubbish, or children—few as well-tended as Mrs. Bubb's—played and squabbled under the ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... Phoenician, have been found in Sardinia. They vary from two feet seven inches to four feet two inches in length.[873] The blade is commonly straight, and very thick in the centre, but tapers off on both sides to a sharp edge. The point is blunt, so that the intention cannot have been to use the weapon both for cutting and thrusting, but ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... the deed was done, as the Bornean washed his keen blade. The operation excited the admiration of all the lookers-on, it was so quickly and skilfully done. Louis wished to examine the weapon, and it was handed to him. It was heavy enough to require a strong arm to handle it; and it was sharp enough for a giant's razor, if giants ever shave, ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... made. A boy follows with a watering pot containing warm water, and pours a gill into each tube, which softens the soil so that the tubes can be lifted right out, leaving the plant standing in the hole. We brush a little dirt around the plant, and firm it with the blade of the hoe. ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... Lyell together, when the snow which covered the glacier was melted into upleaning, icy blades which were extremely difficult to cross, not being strong enough to support our weight, nor wide enough apart to enable us to stride across each blade as it was met. Here again I, being lighter, had no difficulty in keeping ahead of him. While resting after wearisome staggering and falling he stared at the marvelous ranks of leaning blades, and ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... their aid and threw Their gems with lavish hand On every flower of brilliant hue, On every blade of grass that grew In ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... BAST. A soft sedge or rush (Juncus laevis), of which coarse kinds of rope and matting are made. A Gaelic term for the blade ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... better than a street urchin or something worse," he exclaimed. "I knew that window; I had been through it before. You can move that lock with your knife-blade. I had calculated ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... of my interest; but now I was startled back to my duty by the sound of men running round the corner behind me. One glance was enough; two abreast, swords in hand, they were charging us. I ran before them, drawing blade as I went and shouting to M. Etienne. But even as I called an answering shout came from the alley; two men of the Spanish guards shot out of the darkness ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... rode a-colonelling, A wight he was, whose very sight wou'd Intitle him, Mirrour of Knighthood; That never bow'd his stubborn knee To any thing but chivalry; Nor put up blow, but that which laid Right Worshipful on shoulder-blade: Chief of domestic knights and errant, Either for chartel or for warrant: Great in the bench, great in the saddle, That could as well bind o'er as swaddle: Mighty he was at both of these, And styl'd of war, as well as ...
— English Satires • Various
... wasting some time in playing an aggravating game of hide-and-seek behind the shifting masses of grey cloud, decided to come boldly out, to the great joy of the small birds who hopped on the lawn where the water hung like diamonds on every blade of grass. The sparrows chirruped with satisfaction as they pecked about for their midday meal, and the stout thrushes tugged at succulent worms which had poked their misguided heads through the soft damp earth regardless of ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... showed a little steel knob fixed into the back between the arms. This was a spring. He pressed it, and the upper and lower parts of the cross came asunder; and holding the top like a handle, I drew out as from a scabbard a sharp steel blade, concealed in the thickness of the wood, behind the very body of the agonising Christ. What had been a crucifix became a deadly poniard in my grasp, and the rust upon it in the twilight looked like blood. 'I have often wondered,' said Signor Folcioni, 'that the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... hat curved in mockery through the air. He replaced it on his head, drew his rapier, with quick turns of his wrist swished the supple blade through the air till it sang, then flashed it out at me like the tongue of an adder, and said, "Sit you still, Farmer Wheatman, sit you still. Move but your hand and I spit you like a lark on a ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... pistols, far beyond the ordinary size, nearly two feet in length, and carrying bullets of twenty to the pound. A buff belt, with a broad silver buckle, sustained on one side a long straight double-edged broadsword, with a strong guard, and a blade calculated either to strike or push. On the right side hung a dagger of about eighteen inches in length; a shoulder-belt sustained at his back a musketoon or blunderbuss, and was crossed by a bandelier containing his charges of ammunition. ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... Lousteau went to la Peyrade, a former journalist, with an offer of the weapon entitled the "Echo de la Bievre," all the latter's instincts as a newspaper man were aroused, in spite of the very inferior quality of the blade. The paper had failed; la Peyrade believed he could revive it. The subscribers, on the vendor's own showing, were few and far between, but he would exercise upon them a "compelle intrare" both powerful and irresistible. In the ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... small pen knife from his pocket, opened the blade, and drew it across the back of his hand. The cut bled. He said, "Look. ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... turned the blade against himself, and traced a cross upon his front, whereupon the trainer gurgled and laid protecting hands upon his protruding abdomen. "You spik Spanish?" "No." Glass shook ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... at the end of the year, the plane came into James's possession, and he lent it again; recovered it, and lent it a third and fourth time. It has passed into the hands of his son, who still lends it. Poor plane! how many times has it changed, sometimes its blade, sometimes its handle. It is no longer the same plane, but it has always the same value, at least for James's posterity. Workmen! let us ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... sensibility; and many a man laden with crime knows less of its tingling than some fair soul that looks almost spotless to all eyes but its own. One little stain of rust will be conspicuous on a brightly polished blade, but if it be all dirty and dull, a dozen more or fewer will make little difference. As men grow better they become like that glycerine barometer recently introduced, on which a fall or a rise that would have been invisible with mercury to record it takes up inches, and is glaringly conspicuous. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... instinct than by reason plunged in primitive ideas of the possibilities of personal action and freedom of decision. His highly-colored speech had drawn a small crowd of super-revolutionists about him, childish, genuine groundlings, who wanted to be keener than the blade of which they were only the handle. Some ignorant old fellows also belonged to the clique and contributed no little to raise Victor's self-esteem. Once in a while the more experienced soldiers in the army indulgently looked over ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... weapon. Originally designed as a surgeon's tool, its special steel blade moves in and out of the heavy hilt at speeds from two hundred to two thousand vibrations per second, depending on the size and the use to which it is to be put. Make it eight inches long, add serrated, diamond-pointed ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... ground his heel in the turf, and when the word was given he rushed at Richter like a wild beast. You, my friend, who have never heard the whistle of sharp Schlager cannot know the song which a skilled arm draws from the blade. It was music that morning: You should have seen the noble's mighty strokes—'Prim und Second und Terz und Quart'. You would have marked how Richter met him at every blow. Von Kalbach never once took his eyes from the blue smoke from the bowl. He was terrible in his fury, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... furthermore, it was his habit to keep all of the blades very sharp. If a knife is going to be worth a grain of salt it should be sharp. Many a fellow has realized this with dismay when some situation has confronted him calling for a keen blade, and has found his knife almost worthless to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... hatchet and set himself for a quick spring. As they drew nearer, he decided that there were two of them. Their movements were perfectly coordinated, since they were of one mind, one consciousness—that of Oren. The girl tapped his arm with the blade of a knife. ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... the fern, which is about as thick as a lucifer match, is split into four strips. The workman then takes a strip in his left hand, and, with his thumb on the back and his forefinger on the edge, draws the strips up and down against the knife blade until the soft pithy parts are cut away, and what remains has become fine enough for the next process. The cases are made on pointed cylindrical pieces of wood almost a couple of feet long. A pin is stuck into the center of the end of ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... of organic life, the germs of a rude species of marine vegetation. Thousands of years rolled on. The world ocean subsided, the peaks of mountains, the breasts of islands, mighty continents, emerged, and slowly, after many tedious processes of preparation, a gigantic growth of grass, every blade as large as our vastest oak, shot from the soil, and the incalculable epoch of ferns commenced, whose tremendous harvest clothed the whole land with a deep carpet of living verdure. While unnumbered growths of this vegetation were successively maturing, falling, and hardening into ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... sculler's notch in the stern he made, An oar he shaped of the bottle blade; Then sprung to his seat with a lightsome leap And launched afar on ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... how many, for he lay, long hours at a time, unconscious, the mental faculties mercifully dead while the wounded ligatures knit themselves anew. His right arm had been cut by a saber-stroke, and a pistol-ball had entered above the shoulder-blade. Prompt attention would have given him recovery in a few days, but the twenty-four hours in a cart and the cars made his condition, for ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... above tools, carvers occasionally use one called a "Router." This is a kind of plane with a narrow perpendicular blade. It is used for digging or "routing" out the wood in places where it is to be sunk to form a ground. It is not a tool to be recommended for the use of beginners, who should learn to make sufficiently even backgrounds without the aid of mechanical contrivances. Carvers ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... abreast of the ambuscaders, both of whom sprang out at the same moment, and seizing the bridle-reins, checked the horse so suddenly as to throw him back on his haunches, to the imminent peril of the rider, who was nearly thrown from his seat. In a moment, the glittering blade of steel was at his breast. Just then, the moon broke through a rift in the clouds, and being directly in a line with the road, shone fully on the group and into the face of ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... of this kind, not only are the back tendons behind the knee and shank bone unduly short, but the sinew extending from the front of the shoulder blade over the front of the elbow and down to the head of the shank bone is also shortened. The result is that the fore limb is bent at the knee and the elbow is also rigidly bent. The condition obstructs parturition by the feet becoming pressed against ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... to-night," he said, "and I'll leave you here, Sabina; but be quite happy. I dare say Daniel will be all right. He's a pious blade and all that sort of thing and doesn't understand real life. And as some fool broke our bit of real life rather roughly on his ear, it was too much for his weak nerves. I shan't take you very far off anyway. We'll have a look round soon. I'll go to a house agent ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... Hilary while he advanced on the defiantly retreating Maxime; but as he spoke a new cry of the drovers turned his glance another way. Gibbs had risen to his knees unaware that the Italian, with yet another knife, was close behind him. At a bound Hilary arrested the lifted blade and hurled its wielder aside, who in the next breath seemed to spring past him head first, fell prone across the prostrate Gibbs, turned face upward, and slid on and away—lassoed. Both bull-drivers clattered off ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a mass of human bones, forming two complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal, and what appeared to be the dust of decayed woollen. One or two strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a large Spanish knife, and, as we dug further, three or four loose pieces of gold and silver ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... people to take over under contract, and that at the close of each year there's a surplus in full of two hundred taels. Ever since that day is it that I've become alive to the fact that even a broken lotus leaf, and a blade of withered grass are ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... and lay looking at the sunlit blind, in the stillness of early morning he heard a sound always delightful, always soothing, that of scythe and whetstone; then the long steady sweep of the blade through garden grass. Morton, old stick-in-the-mud, would not let his gardener use a mowing machine, the scythe was good enough for him; and Harvey, recalled to the summer mornings of more than thirty years ago, blessed him ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... seem to feel with your finger points the back of each good, new knife getting sharper and sharper, and to watch its progress as it wears away at the point of greatest pressure, until the end of the blade is connected with the rest by a narrow neck, which eventually breaks, and the point falls off, leaving the knife in that condition so familiar to us all, when the blade, about three inches long, ends in a jagged, square point, the handle having, meanwhile, acquired ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... needed. Yes, Kitty was superlatively, stridently maritime; you could have known from a great distance that she belonged to the very latest steam yacht class, and that she was perfectly ignorant of the whole subject. On her left arm, for instance, was worked a red propeller with one blade down, and two chevrons. It was the rating mark for a chief engineer, but this, had she known it, would ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... road His downward eye: all else of fairest kind Hid or deformed. But lo! the bursting Sun! Touched by the enchantment of that sudden beam Straight the black vapour melteth, and in globes 100 Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree; On every leaf, on every blade it hangs! Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays, And wide around the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... on the veranda, and walk about the house and garden a little, the Senora, at ease in her mind about him, had resumed her old habit of long, lonely walks on the place. It had been well said by her servants, that there was not a blade of grass on the estate that the Senora had not seen. She knew every inch of her land. She had a special purpose in walking over it now. She was carefully examining to see whether she could afford to sell ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... thrown gracefully over his breast and left shoulder, concealing the poor mutilated arm, and at the same time making it all the more difficult to believe that the right one had ever wielded a "Toledo blade" or sworn that very strongest vow of loyalty, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... shows us a critic examining a picture representing "the death of A Beckett, Archbishop of Cant." A figure in armour, with its vizor down (obviously intended for the artist) is depicted in the act of cutting at the "archbishop" with a sword, the blade of which is inscribed "debts due." His first blow has severed the mitre labelled "assumption," and the pastoral staff, inscribed "impudence," with which the victim vainly endeavours to defend himself. "Don't," ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... frightful in that fixed attitude, and Bog wished that he would move. He did so, nodding his head, and smiling, as he bent down and detached some part of the machine. All but his head and his right shoulder then disappeared from view; but Bog knew, by the vibrating motion of his shoulder blade, that he was filing upon something. Mr. Minford then stooped again, as if to put the part of the machine back into its proper place. Having done this, he stood erect once more, folded his arms, and looked intently at the Mystery ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... eyes shining under levelled brows. She let the point of the great sword rest on the grass, and she leaned upon its mighty cross-piece, resting her cheek against its handle. Her red hair ran in ripples over her shoulders and over the hilt of the blade, red as ever the blood the blade had caused ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... maccuahuitl, the primitive Aztec sword, but very unlike any description of that weapon that I had ever seen. The maccuahuitl, as described by the Spaniards at the time of the conquest and as shown by the Aztec pictures of it preserved in various museums, was a wooden blade from three and a half to four feet long and from four to five inches wide. Along its two edges, like great saw teeth, fragments of obsidian, about three inches long and two inches wide, were inserted; and as these were keenly sharp the weapon was a most ferocious one. The sword that ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... as lightning. Don Luis saw the great blade of a scythe cleaving the air at the height of his head. Had he hesitated for a second, for the tenth of a second, the awful weapon would have beheaded him. As it was, he just had time to flatten himself against the ladder. The scythe whistled past him, grazing ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... had an invalid wife; his means were small, and most of his life had been spent at sea. But misfortune seemed to have but tossed a challenge to his unquenchable optimism and faith in the mercy of God. He had picked up the gage with a smile, flung it back with a laugh, and with drawn blade joined the gallant band of those who strive eternally to defend the beleaguered Citadel ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... we afterwards had occasion to prove—worth among the Masai as much as a hundred fat oxen; and the el-moran were struck dumb with our generosity. But in their eyes Johnston's final gift was beyond all price—a cavalry sabre with iron sheath and a good Solingen blade for each of the departing heroes. To give ocular demonstration of the quality of these weapons, Johnston got a Belgian, skilled in such feats, to cut through at one stroke the strongest of the Masai spears, the head of which ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... refuge from it in wondering what painter could have done it justice. The white-grey water was like—like the belly of a fish! Was it possible that this world on which he looked was all private property, except the water—and even that was tapped! No tree, no shrub, not a blade of grass, not a bird or beast, not even a fish that was not owned. And once on a time all this was jungle and marsh and water, and weird creatures roamed and sported without human cognizance to give them names; rotting luxuriance had rioted where those ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... by the door when opened, and the top of a box 6 in. square was seen embedded in a barrel containing 25 lbs. of 'excellent gunpowder,' a bottle full of sulphuric acid, and other explosives, as well as a number of detonators, and the blade of a knife (apparently) with a spring attached by a coil of string to the door, the machine being so arranged as to be liable to explode in two ways. The expert who examined the machine said that ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... in steel armour had not in his haste put on his helmet; but it seemed as if he in no wise needed such protection, for his good sword afforded him sufficient defence even against the spears and darts which were incessantly hurled at him, as with rapid skill he received them on the shining blade, and dashed them far away, ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... manner Sattwa and Kshetrajna exists in a state of union. The gnat born within a rotten fig is really not the fig but different from it. Nevertheless, as the gnat and the fig are seen to be united with each other, even so are Sattwa and Kshetrajna. As the blade in a clump of grass, though distinct from the clump, nevertheless exists in a state of union with it, even so these two, though different from each other, each existing in its own self, are to be seen in a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... as it were on a harp, and coming swiftly towards him. Then with a mighty effort he roused himself from dreams, and tore the cover from the spear-head and laid the metal to his brow. And the demoniac energy that had been beaten into the blade by the hammers of unearthly craftsmen in ancient days thrilled through him and made him fighting-mad, and he rushed forward shouting his battle-cry, and swinging the spear aloft. But the Shadow turned ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... for chief—"penghulu"—is derived from "hulu," meaning a sword-handle, and the prefix "peng" denoting agency, so that the whole word means literally "the master of the sword," and thus the ruler or chief. From association of ideas, the sword-handle, without which the blade is ineffective and useless, may have been suggested to them as the chief of all beings. The sudden appearance of Ajai Avai on the scene as the husband of Katirah Murai, is not at all at variance with the accounts from many other ...
— Folk-lore in Borneo - A Sketch • William Henry Furness
... Alva! seest thou not the coming of thine own liege lord? or art thou already so blinded by good liquor thou would'st dare neglect the very Pope himself, did he honor us with his company? Alva, I say, you roistering hound, you drunken blade, bring hither a stool for the worthy confessor! Faith! doth he not bear the sins of us all, and must he not be greatly aweary with so vast a load. Saint Theresa! 't is fortunate there is yet a bottle left uncracked for the good padre!" I gathered the heavy hood closer about my ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... He only knew the sight of Susan made him dumb and drove away all the wits he had. Now she looked so aloof, so far removed from all accustomed things, that the sense of her remoteness added gloom to his embarrassment. He twisted a blade of grass in his freckled hands and wished that the service ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... tranquillity, during the midst of the confusion. When the surgeon came, he took him aside, and desired he would inform him freely whether the wound were mortal, because in that case, he said, he had some affairs to settle, relating to his family. The blade of the penknife, broken by the violence of the blow against a rib, within a quarter of an inch of the handle, was dropt out (I know not whether from the wound, or his clothes) as the surgeon was going to dress him; he ordered it to be taken up, and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... batailes Manfully fought In blouddy fielde With bright blade in hand Hath Temir won & forst to yeld Many a Captaine strong and stoute And many a king his Crowne to vayle, Conquering large countreys and land, Yet ne uer wanne I vic to rie I speake it to my greate glorie So deare and ioy full vn to me, As when I did first con quere ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... some malicious fiend rehearsed: Another one was standing by, With princely port, and piercing eye, Of dusky cheek, and brow, and plume; I thought his heaving heart would burst, His labouring bosom's heave and swell, So strongly, quickly, rose and fell! A long, bright blade hung at his side, Its keen and glittering edge he tried; He bore a bow, and this he drew, To see if still its spring were true; But other sign could none be caught, Of what he suffered, felt, or thought. And then with firm and haughty stride, He turned away, ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... BEVEL.—Samuel N. Batchelder, Prairie du Chien, Wis.—This invention consists in attaching the blade of a try square to the stock in such a manner that it can be set and fastened at any desired angle by operating a hook slide ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... thin, clear smile suggested the edge of a keenly tempered blade. "I've never said that women were men in a higher stage of development. I've said that in their parallel states of development women had advanced a stage beyond men. You may say of every generation born that women begin where men leave off. I suppose ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... was no sooner made than accepted, and the Spanish veterans, fresh and unwearied, threw themselves into the heart of the fray. Shoulder to shoulder and blade to blade in their disciplined valour, they broke through all opposition; they fought for liberty as well as life, to exchange the noisome confinement of the piratical galley for the free air of their homes and their country. Soon the soldiers ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... was gay as a garden, And it glowed with a flowery red; But the meadows had never a grass-blade, And the ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... is shadowed forth, while so little is accurately known. Our far-reaching thoughts range over the vast fields of created things, without penetrating to the secret cause of the existence of even a blade of grass. We can analyze all substances that are brought into our crucibles, tell their combinations and tendencies, give a scientific history of their formation, so far as it is connected with secondary facts, their properties, and their uses; but ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... 'leven rages flashin' from twenty-two eyes, snortin' from 'leven upturned noses, fallin' from 'leven angry voices, and the angry jesters from twenty-two scornful hands. Spozein' they all got to weepin' on his shoulder at one time how could one shoulder blade stand it under the united weight of 'leven full-sized females, most two ton of 'em, amidst more'n forty-four nervous sobs, for they would naterally gin more'n two apiece. In sickness now, if they wanted to soothe his achin' brow, and of course they would all want to, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... fullness of the right side, thus denoting congestion of the liver; a dull, heavy pain, which is increased by pressure or by lying on the left side; a sense of fullness, weight, and oppression about the stomach; an aching in the right shoulder-blade; a dull, disagreeable pain in the shoulder-joint, which may extend down the arm, and which is sometimes felt in the wrist and joints of the hand Not unfrequently the complexion becomes pale and sallow, and there is puffiness under the eye, headache, a ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... a moment later, sitting down upon a rock and thrusting the blade of his penknife into a crevice, "what do you think ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... and tried tears. Talked a lot of flip-flap flub-doodle, but Ham was all through with the proud-popper business, and the young man found him as full of knots as a hickory root, and with a hide that would turn the blade of an ax. ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... perceiv'd, he lept 145 As Lyon fierce upon the flying pray, And with his trenchand blade her boldly kept From turning backe, and forced her to stay: Therewith enrag'd she loudly gan to bray, And turning fierce, her speckled taile advaunst, 150 Threatning her angry sting, him to dismay: Who nought aghast ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... when one considers that there were but three men to a gun. To provision this immense army, and a population of double the amount within the walls, his Majesty caused the country to be scoured for fifty miles round, and left neither ox, nor ass, nor blade of grass. When appealed to by the inhabitants of the plundered district, the royal Philip replied, with tears in his eyes, that his heart bled for them—that they were his children—that every cow taken from the meanest peasant ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... through space and time beyond the reach of ordinary ponderable matter. Personally, I think that predication is a muddled notion confusing many different relations under a convenient common form of speech. For example, I hold that the relation of green to a blade of grass is entirely different from the relation of green to the event which is the life history of that blade for some short period, and is different from the relation of the blade to that event. In a sense I ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... consider the soul is a sort of air balloon, which cannot mount and attain its last end in space except by throwing away its ballast. In the religions of the East, the soul is re-incarnistic; in order to purify itself it rubs itself against a new body, like a blade in sandstone troughs, to brighten it. For us Catholics it undergoes no terrestrial avatar, but it lightens and scours itself, clears itself in the Purgatory, where God transforms it, draws it out, extracts it little by little from the dross of its ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... with its drooping heads; There was the sacrificial millet coming into blade[1]. Slowly I moved about, In my heart all-agitated. Those who knew me said I was sad at heart. Those who did not know me, Said I was seeking for something. O thou distant and azure Heaven[2]! By what man ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... concerning which one is ignorant. I have never lent myself to a falsehood of this description, and I have looked upon it as disrespectful to the faith to practise deceit with it. It is no fault of mine if my masters taught me logic, and by their uncompromising arguments made my mind as trenchant as a blade of steel. I took what was taught me—scholasticism, syllogistic rules, theology, and Hebrew—in earnest; I was an apt student; I am not to be numbered with ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... curved piece of paper on each side for gills. Then with an awl or with the point of the scissors make holes in the sides, in which put fins cut out of brown paper, fixing them in with glue. Then, with the knife blade, make a long cut in the back, and split the tail, and in each cut glue a thick piece of brown paper cut fin shape. When dry, draw lines on these with ink. Now ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... slack of Gerry's shirt toward him and wiped the blade till it was gleaming again. Then he looked toward Walt. He ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... solitary friend she flew to Copsley, finding Sir Lukin absent, as usual. They drove out immediately after breakfast, on one of those high mornings of the bared bosom of June when distances are given to our eyes, and a soft air fondles leaf and grass-blade, and beauty and peace are overhead, reflected, if we will. Rain had fallen in the night. Here and there hung a milk-white cloud with folded sail. The South-west left it in its bay of blue, and breathed below. At moments the fresh scent of herb and mould swung richly in warmth. The young ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of anger, The seas are dark with wrath; The Nations in their harness Go up against our path! Ere yet we loose the legions— Ere yet we draw the blade, Jehovah of the Thunders, Lord God ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... case also, distance lent enchantment, for within, while there was not the filth of a Korean village, yet the narrow streets were far from clean. Not a blade of grass relieved the bare, dusty ground trampled by many feet, while the low, mud- plastered houses were not inviting. A Chinese seldom thinks of making repairs. He builds once, usually with rough stone plastered with mud or with sun-dried brick. ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... resultant of magnetic action, or to the magnetic curves, and may be expressed in a popular way thus; Let AB (fig. 25.) represent a cylinder magnet, A being the marked pole, and B the unmarked pole; let PN be a silver knife-blade, resting across the magnet with its edge upward, and with its marked or notched side towards the pole A; then in whatever direction or position this knife be moved edge foremost, either about the marked ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... very sharp. A broad blade is desirable in a grafting knife, as it helps in making smooth, flat surfaces in wedges and clefts. For budding, use a knife with a narrow blade, but also very sharp. Develop skill in making the scion ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... grain: Earth of our land, With arms they cannot overpower us, With hunger they would fain devour us, Arise thou in thy harvest wrath! Thick grow thy grass, rich the reaper's path! Dearest soil of earth Our prayer hear: Show them of little worth, Shame them with blade and ear. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... young men, named Charles, was cut in two places under the shoulder blade; the flesh was raised with pincers, and thongs tied around the flesh and muscles thus raised. The thongs reached down below the knees and were tied to buffalo skulls. With these heavy weights dangling at the ends of the thongs, the young man was required to dance ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... sunlight is thus even keener perhaps than competition for foodstuffs. Alike on trees, shrubs, and herbs, accordingly the arrangement of the leaves is always exactly calculated so as to allow the largest possible horizontal surface, and the greatest exposure of the blade to the open sunshine. In trees this arrangement can often be very well observed, all the leaves being placed at the extremities of the branches, and forming a great dome-shaped or umbrella-shaped mass, every part of which stands an even chance ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... me catch that fly over yonder," said Old Mr. Toad. He hopped towards a fly which had lighted on a blade of grass just ahead. About two inches from it he stopped, and so far as Peter could see, he sat perfectly still. But the fly disappeared, and it wasn't because it flew away, either. Peter was sure of that. As he told Mrs. Peter about it afterwards, ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... as I heard the steel clash. Then very soon came silence. I looked again, and saw Ringan wiping his blade on a bunch of grass, and a ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... Dymling his blade, Of his valour the trusty assistant; And he hewed at the Emperor so that his head Flew fifteen furlongs distant. "I thought 'twould not sever," bold Ramund he said, "But the blood runs however," said Ramund ...
— The Fountain of Maribo - and other ballads • Anonymous
... very durable, and a tent lasts about twenty years, but it has to be patched very often during that time." I looked round and saw a good many patches, and I thought of the story of the knife and handle,—first the blade broke, then a new blade was put in; after this the handle broke, and a new handle was put on. I remembered that once a dear old aunt of mine said to me: "Paul, this black silk dress has lasted me twenty years." I exclaimed, "Twenty years, ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... whose inventions guided its industry to wealth, till it equalled any nation of the world in letters, and excelled all in trade and commerce. But its government was become a government of land, and not of men; every blade of grass was represented, but only a small minority of the people. In the transition from the feudal forms the heads of the social organization freed themselves from the military services which were the conditions of their tenure, and, throwing the burden on the industrial ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... richest and most elegant costume which one would wear even at the theater,—a Polish coat richly embroidered, and encircled by a gilded belt from which hung the scabbard of a light sword, with a straight and pointed blade, without edge and without guard; large amaranth-colored pantaloons embroidered in gold on the seams, and nankeen boots; a large hat embroidered in gold with a border of white feathers, above which floated four large ostrich ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... disappeared. No one has a farm-bred grandfather to show them how easy it is to use a sharp shovel or how impossibly hard it can be to drive a dull one into the soil. Similarly, weeding with a sharp hoe is effortless and fast. But most new hoes are sold without even a proper bevel ground into the blade, much less with an edge that has been carefully honed. So after working with dull shovels and hoes, many home food growers mistakenly conclude that cultivation is not possible without using a rotary tiller for both tillage and weeding between rows. But instead of an expensive ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... when their song was most pleasing to Owain, he beheld a Knight coming towards him through the valley, and he prepared to receive him; and encountered him violently. Having broken both their lances, they drew their swords, and fought blade to blade. Then Owain struck the Knight a blow through his helmet, head piece and visor, and through the skin, and the flesh, and the bone, until it wounded the very brain. Then the black Knight felt that he had received a mortal wound, upon ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... from which hung the vines that made the coopering of the vats necessary. Olives and vines have pretty names, and call up associations of landscape beauty. But here they were in no way beautiful. The ground beneath them was turned up, and brown, and arid, so that there was not a blade of grass to be seen. On some furrows the maize or Indian corn was sprouting, and there were patches of growth of other kinds,—each patch closely marked by its own straight lines; and there were narrow paths, so constructed as to take as little room as possible. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope |
