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Pith   Listen
noun
Pith  n.  
1.
(Bot.) The soft spongy substance in the center of the stems of many plants and trees, especially those of the dicotyledonous or exogenous classes. It consists of cellular tissue.
2.
(a)
(Zool.) The spongy interior substance of a feather.
(b)
(Anat.) The spinal cord; the marrow.
3.
Hence: The which contains the strength of life; the vital or essential part; concentrated force; vigor; strength; importance; as, the speech lacked pith. "Enterprises of great pith and moment."
Pith paper. Same as Rice paper, under Rice.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pith" Quotes from Famous Books



... weather-stained drill shooting-kit, very white at the seams and a little frayed at the wrists. William regarded him thoughtfully, from his pith helmet to his greased ankle-boots. 'You look very nice, I think. Are you sure you've everything you'll need—quinine, chlorodyne, ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... and be united together by their common interest. Almost every degree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes, and the infusion of a China plant is sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippic islands give a flavour to our European bowls. The single dress of a woman of quality is often the product of an hundred climates. The muff and the fan come together from the different ends of the earth. The scarf is sent from the torrid zone, and ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... now written and am going to write, is to impress upon medical students the value of power and promptitude in combination, for their professional purposes; the uses to them of nearness of the {Nous}, and of happy guessing; and how you may see the sense, and neatness, and pith of that excellent thinker, as well as best of all story-tellers, Miss Austen, when she says in Emma, "Depend upon it, a lucky guess is never merely luck, there is always some talent in it." Talent here denoting intelligence and will in action. In all sciences except those called exact, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... him in the Presidential campaigns of 1860 and 1864, when he seemed to be pleased with my efforts. I had once heard him make a stump speech which was evidently inspired by intense hatred of slavery, and remarkable for argumentative pith and sarcastic wit. But the impression his personality made upon me was not sympathetic: his face, long and pallid, topped with an ample dark-brown wig which was at the first glance recognized as such; beetling brows overhanging keen eyes of uncertain ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... subdued by Mr. Kirwan. 321. X. 1. Seeds suspended in their pods. Stars discovered by Mr. Herschel. Destruction and resuscitation of all things. 351. 2. Seeds within seeds, and bulbs within bulbs. Picture on the retina of the eye. Concentric strata of the earth. The great seed. 381. 3. The root, pith, lobes, plume, calyx, coral, sap, blood, leaves respire and absorb light. The crocodile in its egg. 409. XI. Opening of the flower. The petals, style, anthers, prolific dust. Transmutation of the silkworm. 441. XII. 1. Leaf-buds changed into flower-buds by wounding the bark, or strangulating a part ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... said Hitt. "Quite the contrary, that is the pith of my observations. Reform is a hearthside affair. And no sane man will maintain that general reform can ever come until the individual's needs are ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... kept quite clear of the hazy, half-relevant ideas which encumber meaning and are the chief source of prolixity. He threw away every idea that did not decidedly help on his argument, and expressed the others in the fewest words that would make them clear. He began at once where the pith of his argument began; and had the secret, possessed by few writers, of stopping the moment he was done; leaving his readers no chaff to sift out from the simple wheat. This perfect absence of cloudy irrelevance and encumbering superfluity was one source of his ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... electricity is escaping under trolley tracks, around power houses, etc. The electricity will enter the pipe and wherever it leaves the pipe a hole is burned. The surface of the pipe in a short time will be full of small pith marks and will soon leak. A good way to add to the life of the pipe under these conditions is to make a star of copper and solder it on to the pipe in the street. Another piece of copper should be put on the pipe near the building. The electricity ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble

... cuticle—overlapping one another like the tiles on the roof of a house. Beneath the cuticle is the fibrous part, consisting of many cells closely packed together. In many instances the fibrous part takes up the whole interior, but in the centre of the coarser hair there is the medulla or pith, composed of very minute cells. From this it follows that the hair is not a narrow tube, as is commonly supposed. This mistake has arisen from the fact that, when viewed transversely, the colour of the central and outer part of ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... There is a pathetic photograph of his car hit by a shell outside Messines. I have spoken of the simplicity and directness of Mr. COLEMAN'S style; he himself describes his book as a plain tale. It has, indeed, that kind of plainness which in dealing with enterprises of great pith and moment has a peculiar brilliancy of its own. The account, for instance, of the Cambrai—Le Cateau battle, with all its vicissitudes, is extraordinarily graphic and interesting, and the story of the charge of some fifty men of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various

... before God, truly, honestly, clearly, and plainly; and if they themselves which fly our doctrine, and would be called Catholics, shall manifestly see how all these titles of antiquity, whereof they boast so much, are quite shaken out of their hands; and that there is more pith in this our cause than they thought for; we then hope and trust that none of them will be so negligent and careless of his own salvation, but he will at length study and bethink himself to whether part he were best to join him. Undoubtedly, except one ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel

... each pound of rhubarb cut without peeling, a pound of sugar and one lemon. Pare the yellow peel from the lemon, taking care to get none of the bitter white pith. Slice the pulp of the lemon in an earthen bowl, discarding the seeds. Put the rhubarb into the bowl with the sugar and lemon, cover and stand away in a cool place over night. In the morning turn into ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes

... have to hate. For, what I tell you proved the turning-point Of my whole life and fortune toward success Or failure. If I drown, I lay the fault Much on myself who caught at reed not rope, But more on reed which, with a packthread's pith, Had buoyed me till the minute's cramp could thaw And I strike out afresh and so be saved. It's easy saying—I had sunk before, Disqualified myself by idle days And busy nights, long since, from holding hard On cable, even, had ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... as your whole straw Wheate, the great browne Pollard, the white Pollard, the Organe or red Wheate, the flaxen Wheate, and the chilter Wheate. Your whole straw Wheate, and browne Pollard, are knowne, the first, by his straw, which is full of pith, and hath in it no hollownesse (whence it comes that Husbandmen esteeme it so much for their thacking, allowing it to be as good and durable as reede:) the latter is knowne by his eare, which is great, white, and smooth, without anes or beard vpon it: in the ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham

... It was the great source of raw material for Egyptian manufactures. Its tufted head was used for garlands; its woody root for various purposes; its tough rind for ropes, shoes, and similar articles—the basket of Moses, for instance; and its cellular pith for a surface to write on. As the stem was jointed, the pith came in lengths, the best from eight to ten inches. These lengths were sliced through from top to bottom, and the thin slices laid side by side. Another layer was pasted ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... demotic and in Greek, furnished to Champollion (1810) and to Young the clew to the deciphering of the Egyptian writing, and thus the key to the sense of the monumental inscriptions. The Egyptian manuscripts were made of the pith of the byblus plant, cut into strips. These were laid side by side horizontally, with another layer of strips across them; the two layers being united by paste, and subjected to a heavy pressure. The Egyptians wrote with a reed, using black and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... in the water. Next, men were made of wood, and these multiplied, but they had neither heart nor intellect, and could not worship, and so they withered up and disappeared in the waters. A third attempt followed: man was made of a tree called tzite, and woman of the pith of a reed; but these failed to think, speak, or worship, and were destroyed, all save a remnant which still exists as a race of small monkeys found ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... brought to them, at least, that general clearness of head and quick seizure of important points which are common to most men who have gone through some disciplined training of intellect, and been accustomed to extract the pith and marrow out of many books on many subjects. The result of his examination was satisfactory; there appeared to him a clear balance of gain from the shop alone of somewhat over L40 a year, taking the average of the last ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the reporter. "They and the women led off in this war. I'm glad of it,—brings out the pith in 'em." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... fit her to be not only a countess but a nymph of the greenwood," said he of the Grove; "whoreson strumpet! what pith the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... nature of the bones? They are very hard; and we see that even the corruption of all the rest of the body, after death, does not affect them. Nevertheless, they are full of numberless holes and cavities that make them lighter; and in the middle they are full of the marrow, or pith, that is to nourish them. They are bored exactly in those places through which the ligaments that knit them are to pass. Moreover, their extremities are bigger than the middle, and form, as it were, two semicircular heads, to make one bone turn more easily with another, that so ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... That's the right spirit, and I never refuse to help anybody if they've a mind to do themselves justice. There's a young man of two-and-twenty I've got my eye on now. I shall do what I can for that young man; he's got some pith in him. But then, you see, he's made good use of his time,—a first-rate calculator,— can tell you the cubic contents of anything in no time, and put me up the other day to a new market for Swedish bark; he's uncommonly knowing in manufactures, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... interval and inaction which has been noted in the Bride. And, above all, there appears here a fault which had not been noticeable before, but which was to increase upon Scott,—the fault of introducing a character as if he were to be of great pith and moment, and then letting his interest, as the vernacular says, 'tail off.' The trouble taken about Halbert by personages natural and supernatural promises the case of some extraordinary figure, and he is but very ordinary. Still, at the works of how many novelists except Scott should ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... government. His lordship denounced the imprudence of the Colonial Reform Association, which, by its correspondence with disaffected persons, kept alive discontent wherever it existed, and indirectly promoted it everywhere else. The pith of the noble lord's statement was, that the colonies were a source of strength in peace and war, contrary to the doctrine propounded by Messrs. Cobden and Bright: that it was the duty of England to preserve her colonial influence, and to extend civilization and freedom wherever her flag was planted; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Such is the pith and substance of Mr. Holyoake's argument in his singular pamphlet entitled, "Paley refuted in his own Words." He first of all endeavors to invalidate the proof from design by assuming that it is a mere argument from analogy, and that at the best analogy can afford ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... pith of an Oxes back, wash it in Wine or Ale, and beating it very small straine it through a course cloath, and make a Caudle of it, with Muskadine or strong Ale boyling it therein a few Dates sliced, and the stones ...
— A Book of Fruits and Flowers • Anonymous

... Lepidostrobi. In the structure of the trunk there is nothing comparable to what is found in existing trees, there being a thick bark surrounding a zone principally composed of "scalariform" vessels, this in turn enclosing a large central pith. In their general appearance the Lepidodendra bring to mind the existing Araucarian Pines; but they are true "Cryptogams," and are to be regarded as a gigantic extinct type of the modern Club-mosses (Lycopodiaceoe). They are amongst the commonest and most characteristic of the Carboniferous ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... whose bourne no traveller returns—puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and so the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment by this regard their currents turn awry and ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... sallied forth, and, rushing impetuously into the dimly lighted thoroughfare, had narrowly missed losing the top of his head as well as his watch, an excited sentry sending a bullet whizzing into space by way of the colonel's pith helmet, which prompted the doctor to say in his placid and most effective way that more heads had been lost that night than valuables, and one ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... sorts of Worms, Flies, Cheese, Grain, and Black Worms, their Bellies being slit, that the White may be seen: And very much delighteth in the Pith of an Oxes back, the tough outward skin being carefully taken off, without breaking the inward tender skin. In the Morning early angle for Chevins, with a Snail; in the heat of the day, with some other Bait; in the afternoon with the Fly; the great Moth, with ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... accomplished, who had lived on public employments nearly all his life, but who hardly knew the difference between the two ends of a ramrod. He asked, in long sentences, the questions which Palmerston had put shortly and in the pith; all sorts of queries as to winter transport in the Provinces, the disposition for fight of the people, and so on. Then it was demanded, What we had to suggest? Van Koughnet, who writhed under the tone adopted, bluntly said, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... at intervals were to give greater strength to the line. We now got our bait ready. On this occasion it was a live tame duck. Passing the bend of the hook round its neck, and the shank under its right wing, we tied the hook in this position with thread. We then made a small raft of the soft pith of the plantain-tree, tied the duck to the raft and committed it to the stream. Holding the rope as clear of the water as we could, the poor quacking duck floated slowly down the muddy current, making an occasional vain effort to get free. We saw at a distance ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... fashion of Trente et Quarante. A similar scene is taking place at the Roulette table—a goodly crop of florins, with here and there a speck of gold shining amongst the silver harvest, is being sown over the field of the cloth of green, soon to be reaped by the croupier's sickle, and the pith ball is being dropped into the revolving basin that is partitioned off into so many tiny black and red niches. For the next twelve hours the processes in question are carried on swiftly and steadily, without variation or loss of time; relays of croupiers are laid on, who unobtrusively ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... it was also found on another occasion that the trees which bore thin-shelled nuts produced long vigorous succulent shoots with a large pith and loose, spongy buds. On the other trees that bore thick-shelled nuts the shoot growth was shorter and firmer than on the trees with thin-shelled nuts. In contrast to these trees the buds on the Crath trees Nos. 2 ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... more ominous and menacing, but still we saw no sign of human life. Near the edge of the forest we came to a halt. Plainly it would be unwise to venture within range of the arboreal hailstones without protection, for though our pith-helmets were of the best quality they were, after all, but pith, and a cocoanut is a cocoanut, the world over. While we were debating this point and seeking a possible way into the jungle which was not overarched by trees I heard a low bird-call, as I supposed, the even-song ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock

... awake D'Artagnan, who had no sooner beheld him than he perceived that something extraordinary had taken place. Imposing silence, Grimaud put out the little night lamp, then knelt down and poured into the lieutenant's ear a recital melodramatic enough not to require play of feature to give it pith. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... beauty and glory of it, just to justify myself, and to make him sorry for not having persevered! The truth is, however, that but for obstinacy I should give up too. Deplorably dull the story is, and there is a crowd of people each more indifferent than each, to you; the pith of the plot being (very characteristically) that the hero has somebody exactly like him. To the reader, it's all one in every sense—who's who, and what's what. Robert is a warm admirer of Balzac and has read most of his books, but certainly—oh certainly—he does not in a general way ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... the top of your head you must have a sun helmet. Get it of cork, not of pith. The latter has a habit of melting unobtrusively about your ears when it rains. A helmet in brush is the next noisiest thing to a circus band, so it is always well to have, also, a double terai. This is not something to eat. It is a wide felt hat, and then another wide felt hat ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... 107. The pith from elder, corn-stalk, milk-weed, etc., is very light and porous. When this is tied to the end of a silk thread, we get the pith-ball electroscope, so much talked about in nearly every text-book on physics. The upper end of the thread may be tied ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John

... slight changes and omissions as he has made in the text. Explanations and annotations have been printed "in a small letter with some directory mark," and "any Greek or Latin verse or word, whereof the pith and grace of the saying dependeth" has been retained, a sacrifice to scholarship for which he ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... Heaven and of Orcus to the superstitious populations about. At midnight on the Hallow-Eve, dark smiths would repair thither, to cut a twig of the Zisca Oak: twig of it put, at the right moment, under your stithy, insures good luck, lends pith to arm and heart, which is already good luck. So that a Bishop of those parts, being of some culture, had to cut it down, above a hundred years ago,—and build some Chapel in its stead; no Oak there now, but an orthodox Inscription, not dated that I could see. [Hormayr, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... had carried off with him in that ship, had long ceased to occupy a thought in the public mind. Throughout the whole of that eventful period, the attention of all Europe had been absorbed in the contemplation of 'enterprises of great pith and moment,'—of the revolutions of empires—the bustle and business of warlike preparations—the movements of hostile armies—battles by sea and land, and of all 'the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.' If the subject of the Bounty was accidentally mentioned, ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... Tuned, from Bocafoli's stark-naked psalms, To Plara's sonnets spoilt by toying with, 'As knops that stud some almug to the pith 'Pricked for gum, wry thence, and crinkled worse 'Than pursed eyelids of a river-horse 'Sunning himself o' the slime when whirrs the breeze— Gad-fly, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... the discontented fir tree was the first to fall. As the axe cut sharply through the stem, and divided the pith, the tree fell with a groan to the earth, conscious of pain and faintness, and forgetting all its dreams of happiness, in sorrow at leaving its home in the forest. It knew that it should never again see its dear old companions, the trees, nor the little bushes and many-colored flowers that had ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various

... had acquired some show of a belly, and his face was round, and his cheeks both red and sleeky. He was, however, in his personalities, chiefly remarkable for two queer and twinkling little eyes, and for a habitual custom of licking his lips whenever he said any thing of pith or jocosity, or thought that he had done so, which was very often the case. In his apparel, as befitted his trade, he wore a suit of snuff-coloured cloth, and a brown round-eared wig, that curled close in ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... prepared from the pith of the Sago Palm, which grows naturally in various parts of Africa and the Indies. The pith, which is even eatable in its natural state, is taken from the trunk of the tree, and thrown into a vessel placed over a horse-hair ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... pith ball of your high school physics days? An accumulation of positive electricity repels an accumulation of negative—if indeed we can correctly use 'accumulation' for a negativity—and it is my idea that the earth is the container ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby

... they grew to a far greater height than any similar plant now living, sometimes being as much as eight feet high. In the nature of their stems, too, they exhibited a more highly organised arrangement than their living representatives, having, according to Dr Williamson, a "fistular pith, an exogenous woody stem, and a thick smooth bark." The bark having almost al ways disappeared has left the fluted stem known to us as the calamite. The foliage consisted of whorls of long narrow leaves, which differed only from the fern asterophyllites ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin

... produce—witty, frivolous, prurient, and amusing—of Gallic imagination. But either the translations shared the interdict incurred by the objectionable originals, or the plan adopted to obtain their partial acceptance, destroyed pith and point. Letters from plague-ridden shores are fitted for the perusal of the uninfected by fumigation and other mysterious processes. They reach us reeking with aromatics and defaced by perforations, intended doubtless to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... cheer The prince with counsel wise and clear. Who, prompt to seize the pith of all, Let not that wisdom idly fall. With vigorous effort he restrained The passion in his breast that reigned, And leaning on his bow for rest His brother Lakshman thus addressed: "How shall we labour now, reflect; Whither ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... been the slightest ambiguity about my position in this matter; in fact, if you will turn to one paper on the School Board written by me before my election in 1870, I think you will find that I anticipated the pith of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... came when I longed to live deeper, and to get at the pith and marrow of life. I was over twenty when it was revealed to me in a noonday splendour and warmth of light, that the human is unspeakably the highest and most enthralling expression of life in all Nature. That discovery happened to me when I was in Morocco with my father, who died there—no ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... The man removed his pith helmet to wipe his brow and Brandon noticed the gleaming US insignia on the front of the helmet. "The Astro One left Earth thirteen years ago," ...
— The Quantum Jump • Robert Wicks

... gathering of many friends, who pressed him to speak at a moment when his heart was full. Grave results followed from what he said that day; but a week sooner or later he was bound to say these things, and the results were bound to follow. Here is the pith of ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... among his intimate friends. He tried also to encourage civilised warfare among earthworms, by supplying them with small pieces of pipe, with which they might fight if so disposed. His notions of charity at this early age were somewhat rudimentary; he used to peel rushes with the idea that the pith would afterwards "be given to the poor," though what possible use they could put it to he never attempted to explain. Indeed he seems at this time to have actually lived in that charming "Wonderland" which he afterwards described so vividly; but for all that he was a thorough ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... the darling of the gods, Carl Snoilsky. At a fete in Rosenborg Park, amongst the songs was one which, with my critical scent, I made a note of. It was by the then quite unknown young Count Snoilsky, and it was far from possessing the rare qualities, both of pith and form, that later distinguished his poetry; but it was a poet's handiwork, a troubadour song to the Danish woman, meltingly sweet, and the writer of it was a youth of aristocratic bearing, regular, handsome features, and smooth brown hair, a regular Adonis. The following ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... etc.) puto, fosajxo, kavo. Pit (theatre) partero. Pitch (to smear with) kalfatri. Pitch pecxo. Pitch (of ships) subakvigxi. Pitcher krucxo. Pitchfork forkego. Piteous kompatinda. Pitfall enfalujo. Pith suko. Pitiable kompatinda. Pitiful kompatinda. Pitiless senkompata. Pity kompati, bedauxri. Pity, it is a estas domagxo. Pivot akso. Placable kvietebla, kvietema. Placard afisxo, kartego. Place (to put) meti. Place loko. Place, a public ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... she gathered, with the quickness of thought, a handful of a certain herb, broke a young palma christi across her knee, and took out the delicate, fleshy substance found under the bark of that tree. Returning to the stranger, she filled the wound with the pith, overlaid it with herbs, and bound it with the handkerchief. The whole was the work of an instant, and so rapid and decided were Canondah's movements, that Rosa's neckerchief was tied round the leg of the stranger before the blush ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... and west, But two cannot go abreast, Cannot travel in it two: Yonder masterful cuckoo Crowds every egg out of the nest, Quick or dead, except its own; A spell is laid on sod and stone, Night and Day were tampered with, Every quality and pith Surcharged and sultry with a power That works its will on ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... comfortably as he said to the Vidame: "Ah, we need have no fears for the harvest that is coming in this blessed year!" In the centre of the table, its browned crust slashed with a cross, was the great loaf of Christmas bread, pan Calendau; on which was a bunch of holly tied with the white pith of rushes—the "marrow" of the rush, that is held to be an emblem of strength. Old Jan, the master of the house, cut the loaf into as many portions as there were persons present; with one double-portion ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... one Gallon of Honey: Parietary one handful; Sage, Thyme, one Pugil; Of Hyssop half a Pugil. Six Parsley-roots; one Fennel-root, the pith taken out: Red-nettles one Pugil. Six leaves of Hearts-tongue. Boil this together one hour. Then put in the Honey, and Nutmegs, Cloves, Mace, Cinamon of each one ounce; of Ginger three ounces. Boil all these together, till the scum be boiled in, not scumming it. Then take it off, ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... had a note from Miss Smith, recounting shortly and accurately the very incidents which I had seen, but the pith of the letter lay in ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... slowly. I have got to a crossing place, I suppose; the present book, SAINT IVES, is nothing; it is in no style in particular, a tissue of adventures, the central character not very well done, no philosophic pith under the yarn; and, in short, if people will read it, that's all I ask; and if they won't, damn them! I like doing it though; and if you ask me why! - after that I am on WEIR OF HERMISTON and HEATHERCAT, two Scotch stories, which will either be something different, or I shall have failed. The ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and subtle wit. Collections were made of his apophthegms by friends, and some are recorded by his anonymous biographer.[5] Their finer perfume, as almost always happens with good sayings which do not certain the full pith of a proverb, but owe their force, in part at least, to the personality of their author, and to the happy moment of their production, has evanesced. Here, however, is one which seems still to bear the impress of Alberti's ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... most wonderful thing in the world that you and I have met?' said Cadurcis. 'Now I look upon ourselves as something like, eh! Fellows with some pith in them. By Jove, if we only joined together, how we could lay it on! Crack, crack, crack; I think I see them wincing under the thong, the pompous poltroons! If you only knew how they behaved to me! By Jove, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... a nice youngster of excellent pith,— Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,— Just read on his medal, "My country," ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Richie; "but that maunna be, man—I ken weel, by sad experience, that poortith takes away pith, and the man sits full still that has a rent in his breeks. [Footnote: This elegant speech was made by the Earl of Douglas, called Tineman after being wounded and made prisoner at the battle of ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... pushed into a corner, and on the vacant space, Elodie, in her old dancer's practising kit, bodice and knickerbockers, once loose but now skin tight to grotesqueness, and Andrew in under vest and old grey flannels, were perspiringly engaged with pith balls in the elementary art of the juggler. Elodie, on beholding him, clutched a bursting corsage with both hands, uttered a little squeak and bolted like an overfed ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... power of the sun and the danger of exposure to it. They will run up on deck bare-headed to look at some passing object, and then are surprised that they at once get a bad headache. They are all well provided with pith hats, and awnings are spread everywhere, so that one cannot feel quite as much sympathy for them as if they were sufferers ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... Observatory, leading to Woodstock. But of all the college walks, those of Magdalen were the more impressive and attractive. It appeared to embody the whole of the noble city in its own personification, as a single word will sometimes express the pith of an entire sentence. The "Mighty Tom" in the olden time, even of Walter de Mapes, if its metal was then out of the ore, never sounded (then perhaps not nine) but the midnight hour, to that worthy archdeacon, with more of the character of its locality, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... studies; and, if I can bring it to a perfection before I die, I shall reckon I have well employed the poor remains of an unfortunate life. This indeed is more than I can justly expect, from a quill worn to the pith in the service of the state, in pros and cons upon popish plots, and meal tubs, and exclusion bills, and passive obedience, and addresses of lives and fortunes, and prerogative, and property and liberty of conscience, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... position the most favorable for original and constructive statesmanship. By virtue of his leadership of the Senate, he was in effect the leader of Congress. He had the power of initiative. He was at the age when men are ripest for enterprises of pith and moment. Unhesitatingly, he advanced to the front and centre of the stage. When the session ended, his name was forever associated with a law that upset precedents and traditions, divided old parties and summoned up ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... every orchard examined, where the temperature got as low as minus 10 degrees F., the pith cells were blackened. This is not uncommon in other tree crops following severe winter injury. Fairly good peach crops have been borne in Georgia on trees that had the pith cells ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... Norwegian stage was almost entirely in the hands of the Danes, and all the more prominent actors were of Danish birth. Theatrical managers drew freely on the dramatic treasures of Danish literature, and occasionally, to replenish the exchequer, reproduced a French comedy or farce, whose epigrammatic pith and vigor were more than half-spoiled in the translation. The drama was as yet an exotic in Norway; it had no root in the national soil, and could accordingly in no respect represent the nation's own struggles and aspirations. The critics themselves, no doubt, looked upon ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... several forms of the electric telegraph; first, that in which frictional electricity has been proposed to produce sparks and motion of pith balls at a distance. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... Sagus, or, Cycus revolute,—which grows naturally in Japan and the East Indian Islands, being also cultivated in English hot-houses, yields by its gummy pith our highly nutritious sago. This when cooked is one of the best and most sustaining foods for children and infirm old persons. The Indians reserve their finest sago for the aged and afflicted. A fecula is washed from the abundant ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... had nothing but papyrus-pith, and lotus-bread, and now he brings me the cake which grandmother ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... last summer. The beginner should sell 10c booklets or pamphlets, and elsewhere in this volume he will find two speeches that will show him how to do it. At a street meeting he need not make these speeches in detail, but just give the pith of them. ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis

... off in the prime of life, and interrupted in some literary undertakings and projects of great pith and moment. He had written a portion of a treatise on the "Evidences of Christianity," and was meditating some works, such as a "Metrical Version of the Psalms" and a tragedy on the history of Socrates, still more suitable to his cast ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... Dryden's Achitophel and Zimri,—Shaftesbury and Buckingham; every line adds to or modifies the character, which is, as it were, a-building up to the very last verse; whereas, in Pope's Timon, &c. the first two or three couplets contain all the pith of the character, and the twenty or thirty lines that follow are so much evidence or proof of overt acts of jealousy, or pride, or whatever it may be that is satirized. In like manner compare Charles Lamb's exquisite criticisms on Shakspeare with Hazlitt's round and round ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... has really nothing to do with rice. It is not made from rice, nor even from the rice plant, but from the pith of a kind of ivy, the Aralia papyrifera, which grows abundantly in the island of Formosa. This Aralia is not much like our English ivy. It is, in fact, a small tree, which may attain a height of twenty or thirty feet, and is crowned ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... larger animals are not the only ones that haunt the forest. There is a host of parasites besides, principally Insects and their larvae, which bore their way into the very heart of the tree, making their home in the bark and pith, and not the less numerous because hidden from sight. These also have their counterparts in the Reef, where numbers of boring Shells and marine Worms work their way into the solid substance of the wall, piercing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... Tsz-lu, I wonder, be my follower there?" That disciple was delighted at hearing the suggestion; whereupon the Master continued, "He surpasses me in his love of deeds of daring. But he does not in the least grasp the pith of my remark." ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... boiled the sediment was anything but clean. With our evaporating machines and with care to get the most out of the crop, the profit will be enormous. Often we would buy the cane in the markets, peel off the outside and chew the pith to get the ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... will attract all light bodies. This gutta percha when rubbed with a cat's skin attracts these bits of paper, and this pith ball, and this copper ball; it moves this long lath balanced on its center, and deflects this vertical jet of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... to sing Through whose heart in such an hour 295 Beats no march of conscious power, Sweeps no tumult of elation! 'Tis no Man we celebrate, By his country's victories great, A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, 300 But the pith and marrow of a Nation Drawing force from all her men, Highest, humblest, weakest, all,— Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no longer cower, 305 Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. Come back, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... as I see it, is the whole pith, mystery, outer form, common acceptation, purpose, usage usual, meaning and inner meaning, beauty intrinsic and extrinsic, and right character of Christmas Feast. Habent urbs atque orbis ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... from all terrestrial bonds," she continued, not exactly remarking the pith of his last observation; "from bonds quasi- terrestrial and quasi-celestial. The full-formed limbs of the present age, running with quick streams of generous blood, will no longer bear the ligatures which past times have woven for the ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope

... Rogers will talk you deaf," said Bill Saxby, "but there's pith in his old bones and wisdom under yon hoary thatch. Cap'n Bonnet sent him along with me as a rare old ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... Douglass extracts are given from letters of distinguished contemporaries who knew the orator. Colonel T.W. Higginson writes thus: "I have hardly heard his equal, in grasp upon an audience, in dramatic presentation, in striking at the pith of an ethical question, and in single [signal] illustrations and examples." Another writes, in reference to the impromptu speech delivered at the meeting at Rochester on the death of Lincoln: "I have heard Webster and Clay in their best moments, Channing and Beecher ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... wide rings from the pith out to about number forty-five. The tree was healthy up to that time. Then it met with an injury of some kind, as is indicated by this black scar. After that the rings grew narrower. The tree struggled ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... nominee was appointed, and he was so far dissatisfied. His mind, however, was now soaring above Mrs. Bold or Mrs. Proudie. He was sufficiently conversant with the tactics of "The Jupiter" to know that the pith of the article would lie in the last paragraph. The place of honour was given to him, and it was indeed as honourable as even he could have wished. He was very grateful to his friend Mr. Towers, and with full heart looked forward to the day when he might entertain ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... not forget the countless palms which wave their crowns in the tepid winds of the monsoons. There are the date palms, the coconut palms, the sago palm, and a multitude of others. The sago palm, from the pith of which sago grains are prepared, is a remarkable plant. It flowers only once and then dies. This occurs at an age of twenty years ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... sheriff was Thomas Packer, the same official who, twenty-nine years later, won unenviable notoriety at the hanging of Ruth Blay. The circumstances are set forth by the late Albert Laighton in a spirited ballad, which is too long to quote in full. The following stanzas, however, give the pith of ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... to go back to that room where he had left the candle burning. Oh no! He couldn't have faced even the entry and the staircase with the broken step—certainly not that pith-white, fascinating room. He would go back for the present to his old arrangement, of workroom and separate sleeping-quarters; he would go to his old landlady at once—presently—when he had finished his brandy—and see if ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... on the spur of the moment. 'Stocks and stones!' I says. 'You come inside,' I says, 'and I'll punch your blooming head.' There was a kind of silence and more jabbering, and in he came, Bible in hand, after the manner of them—a little sandy chap in specks and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me sitting there in the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, struck him a bit of a heap at first. 'Well,' I says, 'how's the trade in calico?' for I ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... Ages" and the late Mr. Serjeant Pulling's "Order of the Coif," though widely differing in scope, are both extremely useful publications. Mr. Pollard's introduction to the Clarendon Press selection of miracle plays contains the pith of that interesting subject, and Miss Toulmin Smith's "York Plays" and Miss Katherine Bates's "English Religious Drama" will be found valuable guides. Perhaps the most realistic description of a miracle play is that presented ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... a father's opposition would almost add something to the pleasure of the occasion. So he pitched the letter on one side, and went on with his article. And he finished his article; but it may be doubted whether it was completed with the full strength and pith needed for moving the pulses of the national mind,—as they should be moved by leading articles in the D. R. As he was writing he was thinking of Nora,—and thinking of the letter which Nora's father had sent to him. Trivial as was the letter, he could not ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... peat, procured from the mosses by their own labour. The lights by which, in the winter evenings, their work was performed, were of their own manufacture, such as still continue to be used in these cottages; they are made of the pith of rushes dipped in fat. White candles, as tallow candles are here called, were reserved to honour the Christmas festivals, and were perhaps produced upon no other occasions. Once a month, during the proper season, a sheep was drawn from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various

... the apostrophes to Barto left it one of the ironical, veiled Republican, semi-socialistic ballads of the time, which were sung about the streets for the sharpness and pith of the couplets, and not from a perception of the double edge ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... short heavy-set man, and occasionally imbibed, the pith of the joke was at once apparent, and most ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... and seldom rises higher than 10 or 12 feet. the Mountains continue high on either side of the valley, and are but scantily supplyed with timber; small pine apears to be the prevalent growth; it is of the pith kind, with a short leaf. at 11 A.M. Drewyer killed a doe and we halted about 2 hours and breakfasted, and then continued our rout untill night without halting, when we arrived at the river in a level bottom which appeared ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... happy. The pony had sense enough to reply, weary as he was, with a stronger kick, which took Master Lancelot in the knee, and discouraged him for any further contest. Bully as he was, the boy had too much of ancient Yordas pith in him to howl, or cry, or even whimper, but sat down on a little ridge to nurse his poor knee, and meditate revenge against the animal with hoofs. Presently pain and wrath combined became too much for the weakness of his frame, and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... man round the stubborn Vicar. It was well indeed that I did not linger, for, having come to the Manor at my best speed, I found my lord's coach already at the door and himself in cloak and hat about to step into it. But he waited to hear my breathless story, and, when I came to the pith of it, snatched my letter from my hand and read it eagerly. At first I thought he was playing a part and meant only to deny his kindness or delay the confession of it. His manner soon undeceived me; he was in truth amazed, as the Vicar had predicted, but more than that, ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... young people from one to one hundred, it opens with about eighty of the old MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES. Nothing better was ever invented to tell to little folks who are young enough for lullabies. Their rhythm, their humor, and their pith will always cause us to prize them as ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Guid faith he maunna fa' that! For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that, The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, Are higher rank ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... on the subject. But it afforded me an excellent opportunity to decline with modesty and with courtesy as well as reason. I am sorry to say that, to the best of my recollection, I did far otherwise, and the pith of my answer was made to be that I regarded the Anti-Corn Law League as no better than a big borough-mongering association. Such was my first capital offence in the matter of protection; redeemed from public condemnation only ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... this Impromptu lacking the pith of the first. To me it is of more moment than the other three. It is irregular and wavering in outline, the moods are wandering and capricious, yet who dares deny its power, its beauty? In its use of accessory figures it does not reveal so much ingenuity, but just because the ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... abilities, he should not thus have been lost among boys. His incessant intrepidity, his restless curiosity, his undertaking spirit, all indicated early maturity; all should have led to pursuits, if not better, at least of more pith and moment than the mere mechanism of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... making single-eye cuttings. The most common form of the cutting is the single bud with an inch of wood above and below, the ends being cut with a slant. Some modify this form by cutting away the wood on the side opposite the bud, exposing the pith the whole length of the cutting. In another form, a square cut is made directly under the bud, leaving an inch and a half of wood above. Or this last form is modified by making a long sloping cut from the bud to the ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... you think of that, my reader, as a specimen of embittered eloquence and nervous pith? It is something to read massive and energetic sense, in days wherein mystical twaddle, and subtlety which hopelessly defies all logic, are sometimes thought extremely fine, if they are set out in a style which is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... overtaken his features. The fine nose had grown fleshy towards the point, the pale eyes were sunk in fat. His hands were strong and elegant; his experience of life evidently varied; his speech full of pith and verve; his manners forward, but perfectly presentable. The lad who helped in the second cabin told me, in answer to a question, that he did not know who he was, but thought, "by his way of speaking, and because he was so polite, that he was some ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... at last with success, to explain the construction of the fountain. A healthy poplar, seven or eight years old, is taken from its native soil, and a cold iron borer is run up the heart of the trunk from the roots, for six feet or more, by which means the pith is removed, and the trunk is made to assume the character of a pipe. A hole is then bored through from the outside of the trunk, to communicate with the highest point reached by the former operation, and in this second hole a spout is fixed. The same is done at a very short distance above ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... of the local colour, clothing the bare body in the best of Parisian suits. It ignores the rhymed prose and excludes the verse, rarely and very rarely rendering a few lines in a balanced style. It generally rejects the proverbs, epigrams and moral reflections which form the pith and marrow of the book; and, worse still, it disdains those finer touches of character which are often Shakespearean in their depth and delicacy, and which, applied to a race of familiar ways and thoughts, manners and customs, would ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... agreed that, on returning home, they sorely missed the water of the Mississippi. "I'll tell you, sir," said one very intelligent fellow, within whose hut I walked to light my cigar; "there's no pith in any other water after one's bin' used to drink o' this; it seems as though a man couldn't work on ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... little tags, compared with the pith and marrow of the man himself? Parson Twemlow was no prig, no pedant, and no popinjay, but a sensible, upright, honorable man, whose chief defect was a quick temper. In parish affairs he loved to show his independence of the Hall, and having a stronger ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... capacity of correspondent to the New York Trigger, I am required to follow certain directions with which the central agent in Havana supplies me. First, a telegram, containing the pith of the news I have to impart, must be dispatched with all speed to head-quarters in Havana, where it will be again transmitted to New York by means of the submarine cable between Havana and Florida. The telegram must be shortly followed by a carefully composed news-letter, ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... Yale College was to found a divinity school. To a mind appreciative, like mine, his preaching was a continual course of education and a continual feast. He was copious and polished in style, though disciplined and logical. There was a pith and power of doctrine there that has not been since surpassed, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... cut it short, did the great god Pan, (How tall it stood in the river!) Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, Steadily from the outside ring, And notched the poor, dry, empty thing In holes as ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... Madame Bernhardt, whose several visits to the United States afforded him an opportunity for some of the most entertaining sketches that ever delighted his Chicago readers. None of these contained more pith in little than that brief paragraph with which he opened his column one day, to the effect that "An empty cab drove up to the stage-door of the Columbia Theatre last night, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... feet long, and six inches wide and on this nail two strips an inch thick, so that there is a crack between them. The crack should be half an inch wide at one end and a quarter of an inch wide at the other end, and in the bottom of it press strips of cornstalk pith so as to have something soft in which to stick the pins. After a pin has been stuck through the body of a dead butterfly between the wings, it is then pinned in the crack so that the back of the butterfly is on a level with the strips. Then the wings are drawn forward until they stand straight ...
— An Elementary Study of Insects • Leonard Haseman

... been largely through concrete illustrations which have pith, point, and purpose, to be more suggestive than dogmatic, in a style more practical than elegant, more helpful than ornate, more ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon{6} his might, Guid faith, he maunna fa'{7} that! For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that; The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, Are ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... at dessert were distinguished for pith and cordiality. I would like to recount them in order, but am forced to admit that they would take up too much room, and that the last, which were the most touching, were not of ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... manufactures. The linen fiber consists of the bast cells of certain species of flax grown in Europe, Africa, and the United States. All bast fibers are obtained near the outer surface of the plant stems. The pith and woody tissues are of no value. The flax plant is an annual and to obtain the best fibers it must be gathered before it is fully ripe. To obtain seed from which the best quality of linseed oil can be made it is usually necessary to sacrifice the quality of the ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... shown the strange and violent side of his character, and omitting the stretches between where his wisdom and judgment have had a chance. His conversation when he does not fly off at a tangent is full of pith and idea. "The greatest monument ever erected to Napoleon Buonaparte was the British National debt," said he yesterday. Again, "We must never forget that the principal export of Great Britain to the United States IS the United States." Again, speaking of Christianity, "What is intellectually ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... yellow.... Here are christophines,—great pear-shaped things, white and green, according to kind, with a peel prickly and knobby as the skin of a horned toad; but they stew exquisitely. And mlongnes, or egg-plants; and palmiste-pith, and chadques, and pommes-d' Hati,—and roots that at first sight look all alike, but they are not: there are camanioc, and couscous, and choux-carabes, and zignames, and various kinds of patates among ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. Shakespeare.—Hamlet, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... came to Treport—Raoul, with his air of a young man about town—a boulevardier, with his jacket cut in the latest fashion, with his cockle-shell of a boat, which he managed as well on salt water as on fresh, sculling with his arms bare, a cigarette in his mouth, a monocle in his eye, and a pith-helmet, such as is worn in India. The young ladies used to gather on the sands to watch him as he struck the water with the broad blade of his scull, near enough for them to see and to admire his nautical ability. They thought all his jokes amusing, and they delighted in his way of seizing his ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... pith-helmet that is three sizes too large, and wellnigh conceals his features, Mr. Pronatti orders his horse, and accompanies me some distance out, to put me on the proper course to Erzingan. My route ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... get the better of him, and when he was quite well on in years he would try to do things with pith-balls and electric currents, just as Frank tried to do things with worsted balls before his father showed him the folly of it. Some of his experiments turned out to be very useful, but most of them did not. Some of them only proved that what ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers

... the maintenance of them, Hardouin reproduced the least reprehensible in his "Ad Censuram Scriptorum Veterum Prologomena." From the manner in which he has been replied to by scholars all over Europe, especially in Holland, France and Germany, conspicuous among whom for pith of argument stand Basnage, Leclerc, Lacroze, Ittig and Bierling, nobody at the present day considers that what he said about the monuments of antiquity is worthy of the slightest attention, though everybody acknowledges his wonderful memory, sagacity, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... pith required, indeed, less talking than consideration. The first thing they did in carrying it out was to return to the railway station, where Baptista took from her luggage a small trunk of immediate necessaries ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.

... should not wish to live without the society of my equals in knowledge and intelligence. In my opinion, the interchange of ideas and information is one of the charms of existence. In that way we get, in the most agreeable manner, at the pith and marrow of books, at the opinions of other people, and at what is going forward in the world: ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... characteristic of American life,—these rough, weather-beaten, hard-handed, farmer-bred students. In nine cases out of ten they are incapable of any effectual cultivation; for men of ripe years, if they have any pith in them, will have long ago got beyond academy or even college instruction. I suspect nothing better than a very wretched smattering is to be ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Magazine, has a remark which I confess astonished me—a remark I could never forget as coming from him. He said that he "had lived a very full and varied life, and had no interest in remarks about morals." "Remarks about morals" are, nevertheless, in essence, the pith of all the books to which he referred, as those to which he turned in preference to the Edinburgh Edition of R. L. Stevenson's works. The moral element is implicit in the drama, and it is implicit there because it is implicit ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... there is burning, and would be almost unfit to breathe, if frequent rains did not fall and refresh the atmosphere. The natural productions are extremely valuable. In the first rank must be placed the sago-tree, of which the pith called sago takes, with yams, the place of cereals throughout Malacca. As soon as the tree is cut down, the pith is extracted, which is then grated, passed through a sieve, and afterwards cut up in the form of small rolls, which are dried in the shade. There are also the mulberry, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... his new lieutenant bars and a pith helmet and was carrying a large piece of wood in imitation of Norton's swagger stick. Terrence took one look at him and at the two orderlies who stood behind him holding his field kit. He strode toward him scowling, placed his fists on his hips and stood glaring up at the Greenback ...
— Narakan Rifles, About Face! • Jan Smith

... fasting and prayer And mortification most deserving; And as for preaching beyond compare, He'd exert his powers for three or four hours, With greater pith than Sydney Smith Or the Reverend ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... devised (Fig. 1) was composed of 24 wires insulated from one another by a non conducting material. Each of these wires corresponded to a small pith ball suspended by a thread. On putting an electric machine in communication with such or such a one of these wires, the ball of the corresponding electrometer was repelled, and the motion signaled the letter that it was desired to transmit. Not content with having realized ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... corn, free from husk, was carefully assorted and stored in the ventilated bins prepared for it. The selected husks were packed and baled, ready for market. The stalks were stripped and topped by a clever machine. The excellent forage thus accumulated, was baled and stored. The pith in the large part of the stalk, was then extracted by another machine. These piths were then treated to a water-proofing process, sent to a shop on the farm, and made up into life preservers. Both life preservers and life rafts, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... unseen powers, buffeted, tortured as we see helpless things on earth—dogs beaten and horses lashed—for the mere pleasure of the stronger in inflicting pain, and for no ultimate good to be attained by the chastening. The souls of such men are like those weighted tumblers of pith: knocked down twenty times, on the twenty-first they stand upright, and nothing short of absolute destruction robs them of their elasticity. As now when Sebastian planned the base-lines of his new home with Josephine, and built thereon a pretty little temple ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... grass, which he had sewn as a lining to an ordinary wide-awake. I regret I have had no opportunity of trying this combination, but can easily believe that the touch of the cool, smooth grass, to the wet brow, would be more agreeable than that of any other material. I need hardly mention Pith hats (to be bought under the Opera Colonnade, Pall Mall), Indian topees, and English hunting-caps, as having severally many merits. A muslin turban twisted into a rope and rolled round the hat is a common plan to keep the sun from the head and ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... though not altogether peculiar to it, were the papyrus and the lotus—the Cyperus papyrus and Nymphaea lotus of botanists. The papyrus was a tall smooth reed, with a large triangular stalk containing a delicate pith, out of which the Egyptians manufactured their paper. The fabric was excellent, as is shown by its continuance to the present day, and by the fact that the Greeks and Romans, after long trial, preferred it to parchment. The lotus was a large white water-lily of exquisite beauty. Kings offered ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... that they have been transported, after the operation, to the places where we now find them, since it is not rare to find at Commentry trunks of Calamodendrons, Anthropitus, and ferns which are still provided with roots from 15 to 30 feet in length, and the carbonized wood of which surrounds a pith that has been replaced by a stony mould. The fragile ligneous cylinder would certainly have ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various

... feeds a few feeds all. His life-work subordinated the material to the spiritual, and He left this legacy of truth to mankind. His metaphysics is not the sport of philosophy, religion, or Science; rather it is the pith and finale ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Jenssen's body. The first intimation Malbihn had that he was not to carry out his design without further interruption was a heavy hand upon his shoulder. He wheeled to face an utter stranger—a tall, black-haired, gray-eyed stranger clad in khaki and pith helmet. Malbihn reached for his gun again, but another hand had been quicker than his and he saw the weapon tossed to the ground at the side ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... not what to do, and Hercules reminded him that the natives often eat the young shoots of the ferns and the pith which the papyrus leaf contains. He himself, while following the caravan of Ibn Ilamis across the desert, had been more than once reduced to this expedient to satisfy his hunger. Happily, the ferns and the ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne



Words linked to "Pith" :   hypostasis, heart and soul, nub, inwardness, parenchyma, kernel, content, meat, quiddity, cognitive content, quintessence, essence, core, pithy, stuff, nitty-gritty, mental object, get rid of, centre, bare bones, haecceity



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