"Pith" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grizzly-hide or so. They got their four bighorn heads at the Mandans, none very large, though 'two feet long and four inches diameter' seemed big to them. And I shouldn't wonder if those horns could have been pulled off the pith after they got good and dry. The horns of the bighorn will dry out and lose at least ten per cent of their measurement, in a few years' hanging on a wall. I have had a bighorn's curly horn come off the pith in rough handling ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... for the intrusion. The joint-grass of soggy pastures produces edible, nut-flavored tubers, called by the Indians taboose. The common reed of the ultramontane marshes (here Phragmites vulgaris), a very stately, whispering reed, light and strong for shafts or arrows, affords sweet sap and pith ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... dunce. But should thy soul, form'd in some luckless hour, Vile interest scorn, nor madly grasp at power; 30 Should love of fame, in every noble mind A brave disease, with love of virtue join'd, Spur thee to deeds of pith, where courage, tried In Reason's court, is amply justified: Or, fond of knowledge, and averse to strife, Shouldst thou prefer the calmer walk of life; Shouldst thou, by pale and sickly study led, Pursue coy Science to the fountain-head; Virtue thy guide, and public good thy end, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... said Zack, "you haven't heard the best of my notion yet: all the pith and marrow of it has got to come. The bracelet I mean to give her is one that she will prize to the day of her death, or she's not the affectionate, warm-hearted girl I take her for. What do you think of a bracelet that reminds her of you and Valentine, and jolly ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... better than insane visions? Did not Doctor Lardner prove to demonstration that railway carriages could never go more than twenty miles an hour, owing to the laws of resistance, friction, &c., and did not Brunel take the breath out of him, and the pith out of his arguments, by carrying the learned demonstrator with him on a locomotive, and whisking him ten miles out of London in as many minutes? When I see that among so intelligent and practical a people ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... in the calendar, not recognized by the church nor the bishop, yet it is popular all over Brazil. Many people are named after him, and to this shrine are brought many of the same sort of things as were described in connection with the shrine of the Good End. This idol is stuffed with sugar-cane pith. The head of it was found in the woods some time ago. A tradition was started that an image had fallen from Heaven. The superstitious people believed the report and soon a shrine was in full operation, which today, even though ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... deposit their eggs singly on the outside of the plant upon which the young are to feed. As soon as the eggs hatch, which is in about a month, the young larvae, or caterpillars, gnaw their way from the outside into the pith. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... came out in pith helmets the corporation sand cart spreads sand in front of you, and you are supposed to be in Egypt. To accomplish The Great Practical Joke, Troops are trained to exercise their imagination. They begin by being soldiers in blue, and ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... the theory to trans-tropical migration, went far beyond Forbes. The first enunciation to this is apparently contained in a letter to Asa Gray in 1858. The whole is too long to quote, but the pith is contained in one paragraph. "There is a considerable body of geological evidence that during the Glacial epoch the whole world was colder; I inferred that,... from erratic boulder phenomena carefully observed by me on both the east and west coast ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... well-matured branches of one year's growth. Fig. 19, No. 1, shows an undesirable scion. The wood is angular, small, the internodes long, and the pith large in proportion to the diameter. Either terminal portions of twigs may be used or portions back of the tip, but the buds should always be well developed, full and plump—Fig. 19, Nos. 2 to 6. For this reason grafts should not be cut from wood far back from the tip of the branch. ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... through four revolutions or 1440 deg., and yet, when released, return accurately to its position; probably it would have borne considerably more than this without injury. The repelled ball was of pith, gilt, and was 0.3 of an inch in diameter. The horizontal stem or lever supporting it was of shell-lac, according to Coulomb's direction, the arm carrying the ball being 2.4 inches long, and the other only 1.2 inches: to this was attached the ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... however, adjudge him in haste, Because a red robber is more to his taste Than Ruskin, Rossetti, or Dante! You see, he was bred in a bangalow wood, And bangalow pith was the principal food His mother served ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... oak-tree,—a memorial of antiquity, whose fruit (a mouthful which Time gives to this bitter age of its lost sweetness) tasted like sweetmeats to the maiden, who was satisfied with little. Then the oak, making lips of its bark and a tongue of its pith, said to Cianna, "Whither are you going so sad, my little daughter? Come and rest under my shade." Cianna thanked him much, but excused herself, saying that she was going in haste to find the Mother of Time. And when ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... 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 ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... discover America!" That task was clearly England's! "And now there being nothing great left to be done," the sole work Frobisher finds worth attempting is the discovery of the northwest passage to Cathay. Upon this he spends the pith of his manhood year by year, and the result of all the labours of this sea-Hercules, well! it is perhaps to be sought in those dim beings, "half-man, half-fish," whom he brings back from some voyage, those forlorn Esquimaux who, seen in London ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... once employed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to; not only that, but, when used as a switch, it was believed to check a lad's growth. Very likely! Every whittling schoolboy knows how easy it is to remove the white pith from an elder stem. An ancient musical instrument, the sambuca, was doubtless made from many such ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... will generally enable us to assign, amongst the forms in which we pick up and note any particular proverb, the original and legitimate one; especially when combined with brevity and "pith." As a case in point, our friend Ludlum will serve our purpose for comparison. Who does not see at a glance, taking account of the principles which govern the construction of a proverb, that the Sheffield version, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... are the fiery pith, The compact nucleus, 'round which systems grow; Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, And whirls impregnate with the ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... was a joke for the ages; Full of intricate meaning and pith; A feast for your scholars and sages - How it would have rejoiced Sidney Smith! 'Tis such thoughts that ennoble a mortal; And, singing him out from the herd, Fling wide immortality's portal - But what was ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... sometimes eaten by children and has been willfully taken for the purpose of suicide. It is a powerful irritant. The first thing to be done is to give freely of magnesia and water; then to give mucilaginous drinks as flaxseed tea, gum water or sassafras pith and water; and lastly to administer finely powdered bone-charcoal, either in pill ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... consequent dependence of the citizens upon the Court, etc. etc.,—all these conditions, within which German society and a political organization corresponding thereto developed, are transformed by Heinzen's bluff common sense into a few pithy sayings, the pith of which consists in the assertion that "German princedom" made and ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... of calm repose, and, I may say, of peace. The cocoa-nut, the betel, the sago, and the gno or gomati, are the four favorite palms of the Dyaks. In their simple mode of life, these four trees supply them many necessaries and luxuries. The sago furnishes food; and after the pith has been extracted, the outer part forms a rough covering for the rougher floor, on which the farmer sleeps. The leaf of the sago is preferable for the roofing of houses to the nibong. The gomati, or gno, gives the black fibre which enables the owner to manufacture rope or cord for his own ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... rather bear the graves we have Than fly to ovens that we know not of? This, Thompson, does make cowards of us all. And thus the wisdom of incineration Is thick-laid o'er with the pale ghost of nought, And incremators of great pith and courage With this regard their faces turn awry, And ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... least a singular reminiscence. There is nothing forced, nothing foisted in or patched up, nothing fragmentary. The rhymes are easy and good, the words choice and proper, the meaning clear and intelligible, the melodies lovely and hearty, and in summa all is so rare and majestic, so full of pith and power, so cheering and comforting, that, in sooth, you will not find his equal, ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... read this rather bulky report of yours, at present, Captain Lindsay," the latter said, with a smile. "Please give me the pith of it, ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... exaggerated feeling of the ignorance of men. 'Men take truths of this nature,' said Emerson, 'very fast;' and his own style does no doubt very boldly take this capacity for granted in us. In 'choice and pith of diction,' again, of which Mr. Lowell speaks, he hits the mark with a felicity that is almost his own in this generation. He is terse, concentrated, and free from the important blunder of mistaking intellectual dawdling for meditation. Nor ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... sleepers. Alec had described to her so minutely the changing scene that she was able to bring it vividly before her eyes. She saw him come out of his tent, in heavy boots, buckling on his belt. He wore knee-breeches and a pith helmet, and he was more bronzed than when she had bidden him farewell. He gave the order to the headman of the caravan to take up the loads. At the word there was a rush from all parts of the camp; each porter seized his load, carrying it off to ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... rise to the top of the tree until he takes me—alive, I mean—he'll die a sub-inspector. But we'd better sleep on it. This is an enterprise of great pith and moment, and requires no end of thought. We must get your sister to come over. That ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... that the editor could very well perform all such duties for himself, and the post of "pony" was abolished. Horace—or "Ponny," as he was invariably nicknamed—became one of the accepted writers. He was most prolific as a suggestor, and never failed of point and pith in his own numerous little paragraphs. As a proposer he had much of the talent of his brother, but little of his genius. "The Life and Adventures of Miss Robinson Crusoe," written by Douglas Jerrold, was "Ponny's" suggestion; but he carried out his conceptions ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... return of that superabundance of 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 ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... sweeping broom, sleeping mats, coarse or fine, and bamboo or grass baskets. Most families use an iron pan for cooking, with a half cocoa-nut shell for a ladle. A large nut shell filled with palm-oil, and containing a pith wick, is the ordinary Malay lamp. Among the poor, fresh leaves serve as plates and dishes, but the ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... fitted to win his way unquestioned into the Italian camp. Royson's Arab dress was intended to secure the party from espionage while they traveled towards Suleiman's Well. When they neared it he would throw aside the burnous. His pith helmet was on his saddle, but the Arab hood enabled him to ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does 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 World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... 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 revelationem. ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... intended for all 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 ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... inflammability and added greatly to the amount of light emitted. It was a logical step to try to reproduce this condition by artificial means. As a consequence rushes were cut and soaked in water. They were then peeled, leaving lengths of pith partially supported by threads of the skin which were not stripped off. These sticks of pith were placed in the sun to bleach and to dry, and after they were thoroughly dry they were dipped in scalding grease, which was saved from cooking operations or was otherwise acquired for the ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... of such 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 which she would in any case have ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... a time thrust into a subordinate position. I think such is the case in the former half of the present volume. Towards the middle, he throws off restraint, becomes himself, and is strong to the close. Everything now depends on the second and third volumes. If, in pith and interest, they fall short of the first, a true success cannot ensue. If the continuation be an improvement upon the commencement, if the stream gather force as it rolls, Thackeray will triumph. Some people have been in the habit of terming ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It's his abominable pride, that's the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He's a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he'd give his ears to have done with Christianity; ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... from the passing of fourscore years! On almost every page of her tracts, her letters, her account of her life, one finds quotations of proverbial pith: ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... Gainesville, but the first faint streak of dawn saw him and his faithful followers in the saddle, booted, spurred, and equipped for some enterprise as yet unexplained to them, but evidently, in their leader's estimation, one of "pith and moment." At the word of command, the force, including the "Harris Light," moved forward at a quick trot, taking the road to Warrenton, and anticipating a brush with Stuart's cavalry who, during the previous ten hours, had thrown out videttes in ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... good, is dragged (to his ruin) by his heart which runs after all worldly objects, like a fish (dragged to its ruin) by the bait of meat. Like unto the body that is made up of different limbs and organs, all mortal creatures exist depending upon one another. They are as destitute of vigour as the pith of the banana plant. (Left to themselves) they sink in the world's ocean like a boat (made of weak materials). There is no fixed time for the acquisition of righteousness. Death waits for no man. When man is constantly running towards the jaws of Death, the accomplishment ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Tacitus). "The work," says La Bletterie, "is brief without being superficial. Within the compass of a few pages, it comprises more of ethics and politics, more fine delineations of character, more substance and pith (suc), than can be collected from many a ponderous volume. It is not one of those barely agreeable descriptions, which gradually diffuse their influence over the soul, and leave it in undisturbed tranquillity. It is a picture in strong light, like ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... day Werper spent in overhauling his Belgian uniform, removing from it every vestige of evidence that might indicate its military purposes. From a heterogeneous collection of loot, Achmet Zek procured a pith helmet and a European saddle, and from his black slaves and followers a party of porters, askaris and tent boys to make up a modest safari for a big game hunter. At the head of this party Werper set out ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the ordinary piercing and dominant English enunciation has fallen to modulation; their eyes, while observant and alert, look tired. It is as though the far countries have sucked something from the pith of them in exchange for great experiences that nevertheless seem of little value; as though these men, having met at last face to face the ultimate of what the earth has to offer in the way of danger, hardship, difficulty, and the things that try men's souls, having unexpectedly ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... 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 down the length ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... but the above was the pith of his discourse. I believe that neither my young messmate nor I ever forgot what he said. By following his advice, we have found a comfort, a joy, a strength, which we should never otherwise have known. Our kind friend's forebodings were speedily fulfilled; ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... many-leaved tablets, are they then, that are tumbled out upon us here, glowing with 'all saws, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there.' And if aphorisms are made out of the pith and heart of sciences, if 'no man can write good aphorisms who is not sound and grounded,' what Wittenberg, what ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... we should have his position plainly and clearly defined. Of that long speech he devotes to that important question, which the Enquirer says is the real question, and which many of your speakers doubtless here say is the real question, precisely eleven lines—one short paragraph. And the pith of that paragraph is contained in these two lines: "I am sorry that what I have to say on that subject for publication I must reserve for some ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... the mouth of the Liuche, which is very wide; the river oozes out through a forest of eschinomenae (pith tree). This was a rendezvous agreed upon between shore and lake parties, that the canoes might all cross to the other side, distant a mile and a half. The mouth of the Liuche forms the Bay of Ukaranga, so named because on the other side, whither we were about ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... prudence; fatuous soullessness! The ribanded old dog is paralytic all down one side, and that the side of nobleness. His soul is gone out. Only nature's automatonism keeps him on his legs. As with some old trees, the bark survives the pith, and will still stand stiffly up, though but to rim round punk, so the body of old ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... intent now seemed to be to teach Barnwell the language, and then to confide to him not only the story of his eventful life, but the pith of it, which covered a ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... three inches of the elderberry wood and have it clear of knots; cut a flat ended ramrod so as just to fit the bore, and force out the pith with one clean sharp push: or else whittle away the surrounding wood. The latter way gives a better ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... 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 higher ranks than ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... borrowed from the missionaries"the fear of my heart,"—in my humbleness. Puczikal appears to be a root-word, though of three syllables. It means the heart of men and animals, also the mind or soul, the desires, and the interior of certain growths, as the pith of maize, etc. ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... changest the face To hasten its race on the route to the tomb, To whom nothing is dear, unaffection'd the ear, Emotion is sere, and expression is dumb; Of spirit how void, thy passions how cloy'd, Thy pith how destroy'd, and thy pleasure how gone! To the pang of thy cries not an echo replies, Even sympathy dies—and thy helper is none. We see thee how stripp'd of each bloom that equipp'd Thy flourish, till nipp'd the winter thy rose; Till the spoiler made ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that it had done its job unevenly, not to say fantastically. His linen was fresh and new, quite conspicuously so, and, therefore, in sharp contrast to the frayed and patched, but scrupulously clean and neatly pressed khaki suit, which set forth rather bumpily his solid figure. A serviceable pith helmet barely overhung the protrusive goggles. His hands were encased in white cotton gloves, a size or two too large. Dismal buff spots on the palms impaired their otherwise virgin purity. As the wearer carried his hands stiffly splayed, the blemishes were obtrusive. Altogether, one might have ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... seems minded of late years to exterminate the coconut throughout the West Indies; belonging, we are told, to the Elaters—fire-fly, or skipjack beetles. His grub, like that of his cousin, our English wire-worm, and his nearer cousin, the great wire-worm of the sugar-cane, eats into the pith and marrow of growing shoots; and as the palm, being an endogen, increases from within by one bud, and therefore by one shoot only, when that is eaten out nothing remains for the tree but to die. And so it happens that almost every coconut grove which we have seen has a sad and ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... otherwise they will dry and shrink, and the peel will not run. At first a person would find it no easy matter to divest a rush of its peel or rind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, even rib from top to bottom that may support the pith; but this, like other feats, soon becomes familiar, even to children; and we have seen an old woman, stone blind, performing this business with great despatch, and seldom failing to strip them with the nicest regularity. When these junci ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... whose work many anecdotes exist, travelled to Northwestern China, and took up his abode on a high mountain, near a bamboo grove. On cutting a stalk and excavating the pith between two of the joints, he found that the tube gave the exact pitch of the normal human voice, and also the sound given by the waters of the Hoang-Ho, which had its source near the scene. Thus was discovered the fundamental ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... spear-blade is usually lashed to one end of the sumpitan, like a bayonet, thus providing a weapon for use at close quarters. The dart is made from a sliver of bamboo, or from a palm-frond, scraped to the size of a steel knitting-needle. One end of the dart is imbedded in a cork-shaped piece of pith which fits the hole in the sumpitan as a cartridge fits the bore of a rifle; the other end, which is of needle-sharpness, is smeared with a paste made from the milky sap of the upas tree dissolved in a juice extracted from the root of the tuba. With the possible ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... not in love. And nothing else will matter either way. You see, if men and women had been primarily designed to be rational creatures, there would be no explanation for their being permitted to continue in existence," he lucidly explained. "And to have grasped this fact is the pith ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... speech nothing but form condemn it because it is vulgar. Youth has been left to meet these high needs alone, and the prevalence of these crude forms is an indictment of the delinquency of pedagogues in not teaching their pupils to develop and use their intellect properly. Their pith and meatiness are a standing illustration of the need of condensation for intellectual objects that later growth analyzes. These expressions also illustrate the law that the higher and larger the spiritual content, the grosser must be the illustration in which it is first couched. Further studies ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... young lady, and I think Rupert was pleased, though she looked rather funny and very red. And so Henrietta nursed him altogether, and used to read battles to him as he lay on the sofa, and Rupert made plans of the battles on cardboard, and moved bits of pith out of the elder-tree about for the troops, and showed Henrietta how if he had had the moving of them really, and had done it quite differently to the way the generals did, the other side would have won instead ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... of Serra and Portola at San Diego in 1769, began the Spanish period of California. The chief events of this period are in a pith, the following: The establishment of the missions, the christianizing of the Indians and the exploration and colonization of California. It is from the Spanish period that the history and standing of California ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... Catholics and all other creeds. I will not pitch into any man's religion as an excuse for giving him my hand. I admire Ingersoll because he is not afraid to speak what he honestly thinks, and I am only sorry that he does not think as I do. I never heard so much brilliancy and pith put into a two hour speech as I did on that night. I wish my whole congregation had been there to hear it. I regret that there are not more men like Ingersoll interested in the affairs of the nation. I do not wish to be understood as indorsing ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... said 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
... well-kept lawns and flower-beds and entered a long avenue of fig-trees. The purple fruit hung abundantly among the large green leaves. Miss Williams opened one of the figs and showed Strowbridge the red luscious pith. ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... perfect. When I was in New York it was just about to be opened, and I was invited to take part in the ceremony by delivering an inaugural address. I took for my subject the Influence of Women on Industry; and the pith of what I had to say was compressed into a single anecdote which I had heard only the day before. My informant had just been told it by one of Tiffany's salesmen. A few days previously the great jeweler's shop had been entered by a couple ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... removing the skin and pith, make a dressing with 3 tablespoonfuls of olive oil, a tablespoonful of lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Serve ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous
... name, rice-paper 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 with a number of large leaves, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... conclusions arrived at by Brewster, and sought to explain the source of the silica by studying the composition of different parts of the bamboo. While the ashes of the wood contained 0.0612 of the whole weight of the wood, the pith was found to contain 0.448 per cent., the inner wood much less, and the greatest proportion occurred in the external wood. On these determinations Guibourt founded a theory of the mode of formation of tabasheer based on the suggestion that at certain periods of its growth the bamboo needed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... to see nothing 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, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... intelligence. This is necessary for wholesome life in any age, but particularly amidst confused affairs and shifting standards. Genuineness is not mere simplicity, for that may lack vitality, and genuineness does not. We expect what we call genuine to have pith and strength of fiber. Genuineness is a quality which we sometimes mean to include when we speak of individuality. Individuality is lost the moment you submit to passing modes or fashions, the creations of an artificial ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... February, Lord John Russell made a statement in regard to colonial 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 ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... indiscretion and injustice on their parts, and of justifiably indignant feeling on the part of the Americans. By many of the writers on America, the little discrepancies, the mere trifles of custom have been dwelt upon, with a sarcastic, ill-natured severity to give their works that semblance of pith, in which, in reality, they were miserably deficient; and they violated the rights of hospitality that they might increase their ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... boy, simply nothink, and natural right don't exist, Unless it means natural flyness, or natural power of fist. It's brains and big biceps, wot wins. Is men equal in muscle and pith? Arsk BISMARCK and DERBY, dear boy, or arsk JACKSON ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... 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 the preserving kettle, simmer ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... quintessence of things, their last concentrated, intensified meanings, for the pith and marrow of men and events, and not for their body and bulk. He wanted the ottar of roses and not a rose garden, the diamond and not a mountain of carbon. This bent gives a peculiar beauty and stimulus to his writings, while at the same time it makes the reader crave a little more body and ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... described as "the size of a thumb" because of its abiding-place in the heart, often likened to a lotus-bud which is similar to a thumb in size and shape. Through the process of steadfast discrimination, one should learn to differentiate the Soul from the body, just as one separates the pith from ...
— The Upanishads • Swami Paramananda
... is in evidence, intent on seeing all the sights as well as securing the best bargains from the shopkeepers. All these foreigners have modified their garb to suit the climate. They wear suits of white linen or pongee with soft shirts, and the solar topi, or pith helmet, which is a necessity in summer and a great comfort at other seasons. The helmet keeps the head cool and shelters the nape of the neck, which cannot be exposed safely to the sun's rays. Instead of giving health as the California ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... the idea of sitting down on this tempting log was conceived and executed simultaneously by the whole party, and the whole party sunk together through its treacherous surface into a mass of rotten rubbish that had formed part of the pith and marrow of the eternal forest a hundred ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... vs, to beware of crusts eating, because they ingender a-dust cholor, or melancholly humours, by reason that they bee burned and dry. And therefore great estates the which be [orig. the] chollerick of nature, cause the crustes aboue and beneath to be chipped away; wherfore the pith or crumme should be chosen, the which is of a greater nourishment then the crust." Regimen Sanitatis Salerni, ed. 1634, p. 71. Fr. chapplis, bread-chippings. Cotgrave. [[Added ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... you, Dick? doesn't this tempt your ambition? The whole wealth of Fudge, that renowned man of pith. All brought to the hammer, for Church competition,— Sole encumbrance, Miss Fudge to be taken therewith. Think, my boy, for a Curate how glorious a catch! While, instead of the thousands of souls you now watch, To save Biddy ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... predecessors, dealt much in the home-made. The Treatise of the fifteenth century bids you make your 'Rodde' of a fair staff even of a six foot long or more, as ye list, of hazel, willow, or 'aspe' (ash?), and 'beke hym in an ovyn when ye bake, and let him cool and dry a four weeks or more.' The pith is taken out of him with a hot iron, and a yard of white hazel is similarly treated, also a fair shoot of blackthorn or crabtree for a top. The butt is bound with hoops of iron, the top is accommodated with a noose, a hair line is looped in the noose, and the angler is equipped. Splicing is ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... got any pride where she's concerned. Why should I? She's—she's my soul, I think. I can't put it into words, because you can't put feelings into words, but she's the pith of life. Then I wrote her. Half a dozen times I wrote her. I got down to the level of bribing the colored maid to take the notes to her, one every hour, like a medicine, and slip them under her door. I know she received them. I repeated it again to-day. It's Mary Virginia at ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... which had plagued us so oft. Was away,—running after its head or its tail! Oh joy, Dobbin, dear, to jog on, and go soft, No row, no obstruction by hedge-gap or rail. Ah, then they discovered the pace and the pith Of Dobbin the dull, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... went off to Cheltenham two days after Alick was announced as "down," to find there the security of living which had failed them here. They were people of the highest respectability—people who are the very pith and marrow of English social virtue; but they had not been touched with the divine fire of self-sacrifice for humanity, and they had no desire to hush the groans of the afflicted if they thereby ran the risk of having ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... plenipotentiary of Spain, By spies informed, had swiftly warned his king, Who sent out mandates through his huge empire From Gaudalchiber to the golden West For the instant sinking of all English ships And the instant execution of their crews Who durst appear in the Caribbean sea. Moreover, in the pith of their emprise A peril lurked—Burleigh's emissaries, The smooth-tongued Thomas Doughty, who had brought His brother—unacquitted of that charge Of poisoning, raised against him by the friends Of Essex, but in luckless time released ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... 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 papyrus grew in profusion along ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... stems, the leaf stalks and the midribs of the leaves make a pleasing aromatic candy. When fresh gathered the plant is rather too bitter for use. This flavor may be reduced by boiling. The parts should first be sliced lengthwise, to remove the pith. The length of time will depend somewhat upon the thickness of the pieces. A few minutes is usually sufficient. After removal and draining the pieces are put in a syrup of granulated sugar and boiled till full candy density is reached. The kettle is ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... friends who are left will understand what I mean. But I can hardly make those who did not know him, or live in his time, comprehend it. That was his rare and unequalled gift of gathering and uttering the sentiment of the people. When new and doubtful matters of pith and moment were to be dealt with, and after a long apparent hesitation, and backing and filling, and what people who did not know him thought trembling in the balance, he would at last make up his mind, determine on his action, and strike a blow which had in it not only ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... rice and draw liquor from certain trees in the manner before described. There are likewise trees that yield a species of meal. They are of a large size, have a thin bark, under which is a hard wood about three inches in thickness, and within this the pith, from which, by means of steeping and straining it, the meal (or sago) is procured, of which he had often eaten with satisfaction. Each of these kingdoms is said to have had its peculiar language. Departing from Lambri, and steering northward from Java minor one hundred and fifty miles, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... worth so much as one of these rushes upon your floor. If you carry grace of congruity to the gates of Heaven, I warn you it shall never bear you one step beyond. Lay down those miserable rush-staffs, wherein is no pith; and take God's golden staff held out to you, which is the full and perfected obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. That staff shall not fail you. All the angels at the gate of Paradise know it; and the doors shall fly wide open to whoso smiteth on them with ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... passage would introduce a jarring note; moreover, the raked embers of past controversy seldom tend to the spiritual improvement of the present. An interesting judgment by Professor Horstman on Rolle's place in mysticism is too long for quotation; but the following sentence may be taken as the pith of it:—"His position as a mystic was mainly the result of the development of scholasticism. The exuberant luxuriant growth of the brain in the system of Scotus called forth the reaction of the heart, and this reaction is embodied in Richard Rolle, who as exclusively represents the ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... the payments were eccentric, the master of arts was in recurrent distress. If this money came from his own share of his father's estate, as seems likely, Herrick had cause for complaint; if otherwise, the pith is ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... traveller returns) puzzles the will; And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of; Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprizes of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn away, And lose the name ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... even the Galvanic battery, and it was seriously proposed to have as many wires as there were letters; each wire to have a frictional battery for generating electricity at one end of the circuit, and a pith-ball electroscope at the other. The modern reader may smile at the idea of the hurried sender of a message taking a piece of cat-skin, or his silk handkerchief, and rubbing up the successive letter-balls of glass or sulphur until he had spelled out his telegram. Later ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... 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, it was merely to express ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... zone of fire and steel. Her villas and homesteads flamed or smoked; her orchards flared heavenward in a torrent of sparks or stood black sapless trunks charred to their inmost pith; the promise of her harvests lay as grey ashes over the land. But her ramparts, though breached in places, were yet manned by her sons, and their assailants recoiled pierced by the shafts or stunned by the catapults of the defence. Kaiser Frederick sat in his tent, giving secret audience ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... 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— ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... been chosen. I hope young women will not make such mistakes as these young men have done, who might have been supposed to know something, if they had only kept still. (Laughter). If these papers, to which I have referred, were all in the hands of women, and so destitute of editorial pith and point as they now are, I should counsel against any further efforts for the elevation of the sex, believing the case to be hopeless. (Applause). If I mistake not, women have a peculiar fitness for trade. Mrs. Dall says, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... so much so briefly. Here are the facts then—bare. He found a punt and a pole, got across to the steps on the opposite side, picked up an elderly gentleman in an alpaca jacket and a pith helmet, cruised with him vaguely for twenty minutes, conveyed him tortuously into the midst of a thicket of forget-me-not spangled sedges, splashed some water-weed over him, hit him twice with the punt pole, and finally landed him, alarmed but abusive, in treacherous ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... cup of clear coffee and some thickly buttered toast. After that the three hastened in a cab to the station, stopping on the way to buy half a case each of grapefruit and oranges. Aboard the train Blake was at once set to eating grapefruit and chewing the bitter pith to allay the burning of ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... letter-writer. She writes to please two people—her correspondent and herself; she has no need, therefore, to canvass general truths, but can afford to be personal and charming. Her artful wit gives pith and moment to the most trivial enterprises, and turns domestic projects into adventures of high romance. She never makes great things small by declamation; she prefers to make small things great by insinuation. ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... told of Mrs. Anderton's arrival at La Sarthe Chase and of her own return to London with her—and then the real pith of it had crept out. Had he heard any news of Mr. Derringham? Because she had seen his writing upon a letter Mrs. Porrit was readdressing at the orchard house and, observing it was from London, she presumed he was there, and she ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... illustrated, that every natural process is a version of a moral sentence. The moral law lies at the centre of nature and radiates to the circumference. It is the pith and marrow of every substance, every relation, and every process. All things with which we deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... fifteen seeds; each considerably larger than a pea, with a membraneous covering expanding into three wings, whence the specific name of pterygosperma. On removing the winged envelope the seeds appear somewhat like pith balls; but upon dividing them with the nail, they are found to abound in a clear, colorless, tasteless, scentless oil, of which the proportion is so large that it may be expressed from good fresh seeds by the simple pressure of the nail. Geoffry informs ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... and later times "Indian ink," is now used more for drawing and engrossing than it is for commercial purposes. It belongs to the "carbon" class and in some form was the first one used in the very earliest times. In China it is applied with a brush or pith of some reed to the "rice" paper also there manufactured. It is easily washed away unless bichromate of ammonium or potassium in minute quantities be added to it, and then if the paper on which it appears ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... may make a belted knight, A marquis, duke and a' that, But an honest man's aboon his might Gude faith he mauna fa' that! For a' that and a' that, Their dignities and a' that, The pith o' sense and pride o' worth Are ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... 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. ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... thought immodest, and women and men alike go to and fro in loin-cloths, pajamas, or towels. I wore the pareu, the red strip of calico, bearing designs by William Morris, which the native buys instead of his original one of tapa, the beaten cloth made from tree bark or pith. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... 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 water alone ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... What chance of knowing facts or of living a wholesome life had a man shut off thus from all but lickspittles and slaves? No wonder that the victims of such dignity beat the sea with rods, when it was rude enough to wreck their ships! No wonder that they wallowed in sensuality, and lost pith and manhood! No wonder that Greece crushed their ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... next day buying a war correspondent's outfit: the camel, the travelling bath, the putties, the pith helmet, the quinine, the sleeping-bag, and the thousand-and-one other necessities of active service. On the Friday his colleagues at the office came down in a body to Southampton to see him off. Little did they ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... right has he 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, then, noble pride, for 'tis her ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... intend 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 ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... If Thomas Gordon had been a man like Robert Williamson I shouldn't have waited to see your Kilmeny. But they are all right—rugged and grim, but of good stock and pith—native refinement and strong character. But I must say candidly that I hope your young lady hasn't got ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fruantur." "There is certainly a place in heaven where the blessed shall enjoy eternal life." And then how nearly he had realized that doctrine which tells us that we should do unto others as we would they should do unto us—the very pith and marrow and inside meaning of Christ's teaching, by adapting which we have become human, by neglecting which we revert to paganism. When we look back upon the world without this law, we see nothing good in it, in spite of individual greatness and national honor. ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... (A MISSIONARY, pith-helmet, gloves, hymn-book, umbrella, all complete—creeps cautiously up. He bears a strong likeness to the curate, ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... during the voyage from Fremantle. There were no present means of replacing these; meanwhile, men were in daily danger of heat stroke. It was decided, therefore, to clothe all the troops in khaki cotton shorts (trousers reaching only to the knees), linen shirts, and pith helmets. These they wore with the ordinary underclothing and with boots and puttees. This issue was completed within ten days of arrival. It added considerably to the comfort of the individual and the dress in itself was ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... aim is in any way different from this. If I affirm that "species have been evolved by variation[1] (a natural process, the laws of which are for the most part unknown), aided by the subordinate action of natural selection," it seems to me that I enunciate a proposition which constitutes the very pith and marrow of the first edition of the "Origin of Species." And what the evolutionist stands in need of just now, is not an iteration of the fundamental principle of Darwinism, but some light upon the questions, What are the limits of variation? and, If a ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... fundamental part of all plants. It is the principal constituent of woody fibre, and is found in a state of purity in the fibre of cotton and flax, and in the pith of plants; but in wood it is generally contaminated with another substance, which has received the name incrusting matter, because it is deposited in and around the cells of which the plant is in part composed. Cellulose is insoluble in all menstrua, but, when boiled ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... not by bursting through, by making a violent rent, but once more by a clearly defined round hole. My Bees therefore are capable of a task for which they were not born; to come out of their reed cells they do what probably none of their race did before them; they perforate the wall of sorghum-pith, they make a hole in the paper barrier, just as they would have pierced their natural clay ceiling. When the moment comes to free themselves, the nature of the impediment does not stop them, provided that it be not beyond their strength; and henceforth the argument of incapacity cannot ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... 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 ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... whereof some that were seare and rotten, and some that of purpose were broken off, fell into the water and were all turned into stone. Of these, boughs, or parts of the tree, I brought into London, which, when I had broken into pieces, therein might be seen that the pith and all the rest was turned into stones, still remaining the same shape and fashion that they were of before they were in the water." Similarly, Sir John Maundeville notices the "Dead Sea fruit"—fruit ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... will bring you sugar-canes half as thick as your wrist, looking as innocent as may be; both ends are sealed up with bits of the pith, and when you open one end you find that all the joints have been bored through, and the cane is full of rum. But mind, lads, you are fools if you touch it; it is new and strong and rank, and a bottle of it would ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... 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 don't ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... during the winter season, there is a wide variation in the temperature, sometimes as much as thirty or forty degrees. At night you will need a couple of thick blankets; at noonday it is necessary to wear a pith helmet or carry an umbrella to protect the head from the sun, and as people do their traveling in the dry season chiefly, the dust is dreadful. Everything in the car wears a soft gray coating before the train has been in motion half ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... naked eye; if with a penknife the remaining rudiment of the last year's leaf, and of the new bud in its bosom, be cut away slice by slice. The seven ribs of the last year's leaf will be seen to have arisen from the pith in seven distinct points making a curve; and the new bud to have been produced in their centre, and to have pierced the alburnum and cortex, and grown without the assistance of a mother. A similar process may be seen on dissecting a tulip-root in winter; the leaves, which inclosed the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... called Pauloma and Astika are the root; the part called Sambhava is the trunk; the books called Sabha and Aranya are the roosting perches; the books called Arani is the knitting knots; the books called Virata and Udyoga the pith; the book named Bhishma, the main branch; the book called Drona, the leaves; the book called Karna, the fair flowers; the book named Salya, their sweet smell; the books entitled Stri and Aishika, the refreshing shade; the book called Santi, the mighty fruit; the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... the pith of his teaching. All optimism is apt to be a little irritating to men whose sympathies with human suffering are unusually strong; and the optimism of a man like Pope, vivacious rather than profound in his thoughts and his sympathies, annoys us at times by his calm complacency. We cannot ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... suggesting that the latter should 'consider what chance there is of making terms,' and since then he had been repeatedly pressing on the Envoy the 'hopelessness of further resistance.' Macnaghten, vacillating as he was, yet had more pith in his nature than was left in the debilitated old general. He wrote to Elphinstone on the 18th recommending, not very strenuously, the policy of holding out where they were as long as possible, and indeed throughout the winter, if subsistence could be obtained. He pointed ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... more pith, more force, into those words, Thomas. Speak out, man!" interjected the minister, who was ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... sat down by my side, I told him quickly what I had overheard, and how. The moment he had got the pith of the story he jumped up, looking preoccupied and anxious. "I must go at once," he said, "before the girls at the telephone exchange have time to forget the numbers of those who've called and been called up in the last twenty minutes or so. ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "Interest, pith, force, and charm—Mr. Parker's new story possesses all these qualities.... Almost bare of synthetical decoration, his paragraphs are stirring because they are real. We read at times—as we have read the great masters of ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... thirteenth century. Then we went into the side aisle of the choir, where there were one or two modern monuments; and I was appalled to find that a sermon was being preached by the ecclesiastic of the day, nor were there any signs of an imminent termination. I am not aware that there was much pith in the discourse, but there was certainly a good deal of labor and earnestness in the preacher's mode of delivery; although, when he came to a close, it appeared that the audience was not more than ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to play bachelor girl and man for a few days, and herd Miss Lavinia about, which I suppose is the pith of these heroics of yours," I said, rather astonished, for Evan seldom preaches. "I never knew that you were such an anti-whirlpooler before, and I've at times felt selfish about keeping you at the old home, though not since the boys came, it's so healthy for them, bless them. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... plantation 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 and ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... limpid brilliance of a gigantic crystal, where the smallest object was in startling focus, and the very sunbeams cut with scissors. The people below trailed shadows like running ink. The light was ultra-tropical. One looked for drill suits and pith headgear, and was amazed to find pajamas insufficient at the ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... the Church of England prior to the Reformation, called 'The Festival,' contains the pith of these lying legends and pretended miracles. Omitting the obscene parts, it ought to be republished, to exhibit the absurdities of popery as it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his person and to his fortunes; that he was the author of many a striking saying, and the advocate of equity, of love, and of humility; that he may have disregarded the subtleties of the bigots for legal observance, and appealed rather to those noble conceptions of religion which constituted the pith and kernel of the teaching of the great prophets of his nation seven hundred years earlier; and that, in the last scenes of his career, he may have embodied the ideal sufferer of Isaiah, may be, as I think it is, extremely probable. But all this involves not a step beyond ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... being in the slightest degree imaginative themselves. The vacancy of a truly imaginative work results not from absence of ideas, or incapability of grasping and detailing them, but from the painter having told the whole pith and power of his subject and disdaining to tell more, and the sign of this being the case is, that the imagination of the beholder is forced to act in a certain mode, and feels itself overpowered ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... 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 ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... as he was walking among some reeds he broke off one, and seeing that its hollow stalk was filled with a dry, soft pith, exclaimed: ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... fairly objected that, in view of what is to come later, the Carlos of the first act is a little too soft even for the sentimental age. We are required to have faith in his heroic capacity for enterprises of great pith and moment. But after his first dialogue with Posa it is as difficult for the reader or spectator to trust him as it is for King Philip. His lacrimose raptures over so simple a thing as a youthful friendship; his abject confession of despair and dependence; ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas |
