"Rack" Quotes from Famous Books
... world else, 'twouldn't be to you, mother. You knaw that, I reckon. I'm hopeful; I'm more; I'm 'bout as certain of fair fortune as a man can be. Venwell rights[6] be mine, and theer's no better moorland grazing than round these paarts. The farm-land looks a bit foul, along o' being let go to rack, but us'll soon have that clean again, an' some gude stuff into it, tu. My awn work'll be staring me in the faace before summer; an' by the time Phoebe do come to be mistress, nobody'll ... — Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... the wedding breakfast was over. She looked the very image of sorrow and despair. She did not tell me where she was going. I don't believe she even knew herself. There, that's all that I have got to tell you, even if you had the power to put me on the rack, as you used to have in the bad old times!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, once more folding her arms and ... — The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... did she answer? Did she say, 'It is I who am wearing her to death, I who am keeping her on a rack and am the executioner, yet she tells me every night that she loves me devotedly, though she knows what I make her undergo?' No; my first memorable experience was true to what I knew her to be, and to all my experience. She began sobbing and weeping (to ... — Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... should be made to listen, by means of a special course in tone production, which should go hand in hand with the technical exercises used at the very beginning. Otherwise they imagine they are making music when they place the printed page on the rack, and set the ... — Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... There were a hat-rack, and two waste-baskets filled with little things done up in newspaper, and a little table, and a paste-board box filled with hats, and two mirrors about as tall as David, and a maid's wash-stand, and a bundle of pictures tied up in newspapers, and a wooden box full of rubbers, and ... — The Doers • William John Hopkins
... stepped across him, and made for the farther corner. A young fellow swung his golf clubs into the rack and sat down opposite. The train gave a gentle lurch, they were off. William glanced up and saw the hot, bright station slipping away. A red-faced girl raced along by the carriages, there was something strained ... — The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... availing himself of Grim's knowledge and test-tubes and acid-bottles with the utmost freedom. The analysis of Lancaster's mixture gave various results, but when Rogers "found" rhubarb and black-lead this was held the correct find, and after this verdict the generous five put up the test-tubes in the rack. They all said Rogers had settled the matter, and anyway they ... — Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... thorough-bred Englishman,' by some 'a genuine John Bull;' but they all agreed in one respect, and that was, that it was a pity there were not more like him, and that because there were not, the country was going to rack and ruin every day. He was in the commission of the peace, and could write his name almost legibly; but his greatest qualifications were, that he was more severe with poachers, was a better shot, a harder rider, had better horses, kept better dogs, ... — Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... victim's scalp is lodged among the trophies of the tribe. To endure with unshaken fortitude[277] is the greatest triumph of an Indian warrior, and the highest confusion to his enemies, but often the proud spirit breaks under the pangs that rack the quivering flesh, and shouts of intolerable agony reward the demoniac ingenuity ... — The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... young and beautiful woman, was nearly wrenched asunder on the rack, in the hope of making her implicate the Queen in her heresy. She was afterward burned because she insisted that the bread and wine used in the communion service seemed to her to be simply bread and wine, and not in any sense the actual body and blood of Christ, as the King's statute ... — The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... this Comyn Menteith, very young too at the time, and who has turned out a good-natured, reckless, dissipated fellow, who is making away with his property as fast as he can, and to whom Keith's advice is like water on a duck's back. It is all rack and ruin and extravagance, a set of ill-regulated children, and Isabel smiling and looking pretty in the midst of them, and perfectly impervious to remonstrance. He is better out of sight of them, for it is only pain and vexation, an ... — The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... big black Newfoundland dog, and a couple of graceful greyhounds, one of them gnawing a bone, cunningly watched by a keen-looking raven, with his head on one side; while peeping out from the bars of the bottle-rack was the demure face of the sandy cat, on the watch for either ... — The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is my profession: I am a twister of words; I torture language by trade. You know it, for you have known me a long time, and, if you will pardon my vanity, or rudeness, I observe that my mode of putting the dictionary on the rack amuses you. The fact that you ask for a story shows that well enough. I am a plain man, and there never was any poetry in me, but I have seen it in other people, and I understand why some persons like it. As for stories, I have plenty ... — Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... to pick it up, when with a decided gesture she stopped me. I looked at her surprised. Her face was flushed, indignant, I thought, and instantly my conscience was on the rack. What had I done, for my lady was ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... bosom friend and disciple of Anne Askew. And she had sat in Smithfield, with blood curdled by horror, to see the hapless Court beauty, a month before the paragon of Henry's Court, carried in a chair (so crippled was she by the rack) to her fiery doom at the stake, beside her fellow-courtier, Mr. Lascelles, while the very heavens seemed to the shuddering mob around to speak their wrath and grief in solemn thunder peals, and heavy drops which hissed upon ... — Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... old, prefect and hero, stretched himself with calm satisfaction in a corner of a smoking carriage in the Irish night mail. Above him on the rack were his gun-case, his fishing-rod, neatly tied into its waterproof cover, and a brown kit-bag. He smoked a nice Egyptian cigarette, puffing out from time to time large fragrant clouds from mouth and nostrils. ... — Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... of the Virgin in it, and is amazed at the princely fortune in precious gems and jewelry that hangs so thickly about the form as to hide it like a garment almost. All about the apartment the gaudy trappings of the Greek Church offend the eye and keep the mind on the rack to remember that this is the Place of the Crucifixion—Golgotha—the Mount of Calvary. And the last thing he looks at is that which was also the first—the place where the true Cross stood. That will chain him to the spot and compel him to look ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the dining room just as his little daughter brought in the breakfast. When he saw the steaming coffee pot and the covered dishes and toast-rack his face brightened. But he had to be told of the ... — Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... by her mother as to where she had been, evaded any direct answer. If questioned more closely, she would show a rising spirit and a decision of manner that had the effect to silence and at the same time to trouble Mrs. Dinneford, whose mind was continually on the rack. ... — Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... method,—unless he were a certain CANDIDATUS of Divinity to whom some trace of evidence pointed, but who sorrowfully persisted in absolute and total denial. This poor Candidatus had been threatened with the rack; and would most likely have at length got it, had not the real murderer been discovered,—much to the discredit of the rack in Berlin. This Candidatus was only threatened; nor do I know when the last actual ... — History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... their attention upon Scraggs, who had dodged below like a frightened rabbit and sought shelter in the shaft alley. He had sufficient presence of mind, as he dashed through the engine room, to snatch a large monkey wrench off the tool rack on the wall, and, kneeling just inside the alley entrance he turned at bay and threatened the invaders with this weapon. Thereupon Hicks and Flaherty pelted him with lumps of coal, but the sole result of this assault was to force Scraggs further back into ... — Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... witnessing our behaviour—not so could any addition be made to the awfulness of the fact that the eye of God was upon us—but witnesses to the truth, people who did what God wanted them to do, come of it what might, whether a crown or a rack, scoffs or applause; to behold whose witnessing might well rouse all that was human and divine in us to chose our part with them and their Lord.—When I came home, I had an early dinner, and then betook myself to my Saturday's resort.—I had never ... — Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... purpose gives strength and power, while the use of faculties without an aim or end only weakens them. The mind must be focused on a definite end, or, like machinery without a balance-wheel, it will rack itself to pieces. ... — Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... rich infusion, Have a barrel, not a huge one, But clean and pure from spot or taint, Pure as any female saint— That within its tight-hoop'd gyre Has kept Jamaica's liquid fire; Or luscious Oriental rack, Or the strong glory of Cognac, Whose perfume far outscents the Civet, And ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... difficulty bore herself as usual throughout the next day and evening, though constantly on the rack to get possession of her book again. It was not spoken of nor hinted at. When another morning came she could stand it no longer; she went soon after breakfast into Mr. Lindsay's study, where he was writing. Ellen came behind him, ... — The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... yu trellis-built rack of bones, come along there! Whoop!" he yelled, turning the prisoner over to ... — Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... light room with no reservations, the array of bottles on the shelves smiling down on the little green cloth-covered tables where the domino and card games go on. There may be an ancient billiard table in one corner with its accompanying cue rack, and there is almost sure to be a little hole in the ceiling through which the proprietor's wife, who resides above, can peep down and watch the card games. It is a genuine family resort, too, for between four and seven all the town is likely to drop in, the women ... — A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... descend to my room. Have I yet described it? Nine feet six by seven wide by seven high At the for'ard end a bunk overtopped by two ports looking out upon the main deck. At the after end a settee over which is my book-case. A chest of drawers, a shelf, a mirror, a framed photograph, a bottle-rack, and a shaving-strop adorn the starboard bulkhead. A door, placed midway in the opposite side, is hung with many clothes. A curtain screens my slumbers, and a ventilator in the ceiling chills my toes when turned to the wind. ... — An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... fireplace was a great black eagle which Gavotte had killed, the wings outspread and a bunch of arrows in the claws. In one corner near the fire was a washstand, and behind it hung the fishing-tackle. Above one door was a gun-rack, on which lay the rifle and shotgun, and over the other door was a pair of deer-antlers. In the center of the room stood the square home-made table, every inch scrubbed. In the side room, which is the bedroom, was a wide bunk made of pine plank ... — Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... more that there is only one step from the ridiculous to the sublime. We carefully removed all our small traps, including H.C.'s numerous antique parcels. But he forgot his umbrella, which he had placed up in the rack. A dreadful umbrella, which had been a martyrdom to me ever since we had left England. An umbrella that was only fit for a poet or a Mrs. Gamp; huge, bulky, tied round like a lettuce, with half a yard of stick ... — The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... who are well equipped to dehorn cattle, and able to perform this operation for a very moderate fee. It is not advisable to attempt to dehorn a number of adult cattle if the operator is not well equipped for the work. Unless a well-constructed dehorning rack is available for confining the animals, there is danger of injuring them and it is very difficult to saw off the horn quickly and satisfactorily. This increases the pain that the animal suffers, and horn ... — Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... of Willow Springs, Kansas, a stage station, twenty-five miles west of Council Grove, I discovered twenty-five horses hitched to the rack. There was no retreat, so I had to drive right on in. Just as we drove up twenty-five men came out of the settlers' ... — The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... barred the gates: and the peal of laughter, Sudden and shrill that followed after, Died off into a dismal tone, Like a parting spirit's painful moan. "I wish," said Rudolph, as he stood On foot in the deep and silent wood; "I wish, good Roland, rack and stable May be kinder ... — International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... voice. Joel looked meaningly at Outfield, and as the latter nodded the two rushed at the members of the Sacred Order of Hullabalooloo. But the latter were prepared. Over went the nearest armchair, down from the wall with a clatter came a rack of books, and this way and that swayed the forms of the maskers and the two roommates. The battle was short but decisive, and when it was done, Joel lay gasping on the floor and Outfield sprawled ... — The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... I pity AEgon. His cattle, go they must To rack and ruin, all because vain-glory was his lust. The pipe that erst he fashioned is ... — Theocritus • Theocritus
... ran up the steps, took the baby's hand and led her through the entry into a square little room, evidently the parlor of the home. It was dusty and disorderly. The center-table of fine old mahogany was littered with pipes and newspapers. A patent rocker was doing duty as a clothes rack for hats and coats. A mahogany desk was almost indistinguishable under a clutter of doll's furniture. The sunset glow pouring through the window disclosed rolls of dust on the faded ... — Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... appearance came into the house and asked them for a glass o' sper'ts, and that he'd be obleeged to them if they'd help him with his horse that slipped his shouldher; and, 'faith, afther that, they'd stay in the place no longer; and signs on it, the house is gone to rack and ruin, and it's only this barn that is kept up at all, because it's convaynient for owld Skinflint on ... — Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... days had probably been a mass of crisp curls, but now shaggy tufts, matted and uneven, altogether a shockingly repulsive physiognomy, and yet an "honest Injin" in every respect and one who would always look on the happy side of life, but for twinges of neuralgia—"monda" he calls it—which rack his head and face with pain. I saw only the peaceful side of Mickie's nature, and therefore this chronicle will be unsensational as well as imperfect. There is a tradition that the Palm Island blacks are of a milder, less bellicose ... — The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... inherent in all direct self-revelation; the thing, perhaps, is greatly said, yet there is no great occasion for the saying of it; a fine reticence is observed, but it is, after all, an easy reticence, with none of the dramatic splendours of reticence on the rack. In the midst of his pleasant confidences the essayist is brought up short by the question, "Why must you still be talking?" Even the passionate lyric feels the need of external authorisation, and some of the finest of lyrical poems, like the Willow Song of Desdemona, or Wordsworth's Solitary ... — Style • Walter Raleigh
... then distraught?" said the Queen. "Indeed we doubted not of it; her whole demeanour bears it out. I found her moping in a corner of yonder grotto; and every word she spoke—which indeed I dragged from her as by the rack—she instantly recalled and forswore. But how came she hither? Why had you ... — Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... their ingenuity to invent torments for their victims—how useless—the rack, the boot, tire,—all that they have imagined are not to be compared to the torture of extreme thirst. In the extremity of agony the sufferers cry for water, and it is not refused: they might have spared themselves their refined ingenuity of ... — The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... may rack with a bilious attack, And your senses with toothache you're losing, And you're mopy and flat - they don't fine you for that If you're properly quaint and amusing! Though your wife ran away with a soldier that day, And took with her your trifle of ... — Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... don't!" he agreed sympathetically, mentally going over his rack of tires, not quite sure that he had four in that size, but hoping that he had five and that he could persuade the man to invest. He surely needed rubber, thought Casey, as he scrutinized the two casings on the car. He stood aside while the man backed, turned a wide half-circle and ... — Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... return'd: I every hour like him less. There were several ladies, French and English, with Miss Fermor, all on the rack to engage the Baronet's attention; you have no notion of the effect of a title in America. To do the ladies justice however, he really look'd very handsome; the ride, and the civilities he receiv'd from a circle of pretty women, for they were well chose, gave a glow to ... — The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... rapine, lust up to the nth power, let us concede his claim. Not otherwise two hundred years ago the Indian, with his scalping knife, his war-whoop and his tomahawk, was "a superman" in terms of savagery. Not otherwise the Spaniards under Bloody Alva were "supermen" in terms of rack, thumbscrew ... — The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... a discipline, my dear boy. But, all the same, it has fallen to my lot to treat a bayonet-dig or two when our fellows have got at the rack. Well, I am glad you are all right. I thought you looked a ... — Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... the tops of the hills, on the turreted cones— Chief temples of thunder— The gale, like a ghost, in the middle watch moans, Gliding over and under. The sea, flying white through the rack and the rain, Leapeth wild at the forelands; And the plover, whose cry is like passion with ... — The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... you may say what you have overheard; for, in not answering me directly, you put my soul upon the rack; and half the trouble I have had with you would have brought to my arms one of the ... — Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... fancied he had lost a stroke and miscalculated. Either voluntarily or involuntarily, he said to himself, when it had finished striking, "You 're wrong; it is nine, not ten." He turned round that he might not see the dial, and thus he stood for some time, with his hands upon the wagon-rack, gazing at the wood. He knew not how long he had been thus standing, when some one tapped him on the shoulder, and said, "How much ... — Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... to understand why, given the teachings at first, they are not naturally fulfilled. Nor, again, does it know how existing conditions may be removed or bettered. It resorts to this expedient and that to restrain evil, but it cannot attain the art of uprooting and destroying it. With the sword, rack and gallows the judge may restrain public crime, but he cannot punish more than what is known and witnessed to before the court. Whatever is done secretly and never comes before him, he cannot punish or restrain. The Word of God, ... — Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... some unknown signal it as suddenly dispersed, vanished, and disappeared, leaving the coach empty—vacant and void of all that had given it life, weight, animation, and purpose—a mere skeleton on the roadside. The afternoon wind blew through its open doors and ravaged rack and box as if it had been the wreck of weeks instead of minutes, and the level rays of the setting sun flashed and blazed into its windows as though fire had been added to the ruin. But even this presently faded, leaving ... — Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... plant, and it flourishes in every soil; but it had found no root in Ida's nature. She was too absorbed in the round of her daily tasks, in the care of her father and her efforts to keep the great place from going to rack and ruin, to think of herself; and if her glass had ever whispered that she was one of the loveliest of the daughters of Eve, she had turned a deaf ... — At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... breath, to pour himself some spirits. "Joke?" he muttered. "Where the devil is it? I see no wit in that." And he picked up a fresh pipe from the rack on the table and moistened the clay with ... — The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... of December Corporal Wiegandt would sometimes observe, in a pause of the drill, that the recruits were beginning to look a little like soldiers; and in the bar-rack-room, after drill was over, he occasionally even went so far as to give them ... — 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... the two ports was occupied by a rack, on which were arranged with much taste, a number of richly-embossed arms, pistols, swords, and daggers—and against the bulkhead was another stand, filled with ... — The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... she said, as he struck a chord or two. "I can't read if you do." But almost instantly she added with a laugh, "Oh, all right, go ahead. I can't read this anyway. Why, it's frightful!" She came swiftly toward the piano and stood the big flat quires of score paper on the rack. "Show me how this goes," she commanded, but he pushed back a little with a ... — Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... without adverting to another cause of that irritability of genius which is so closely connected with their pursuits. If we look into the history of theories, we shall be surprised at the vast number which have "not left a rack behind." And do we suppose that the inventors themselves were not at times alarmed by secret doubts of their soundness and stability? They felt, too often for their repose, that the noble architecture which they had raised ... — Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Mackay's farm is due, Noel. I really think you might bestir yourself a little to look after the estate. Jones is the most execrable manager I ever knew. Here you are, with nothing to do all day except smoke or shoot, letting things go to rack and ruin. We shall be in the poor-house soon. Umph! I've ... — Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... talking briskly with the Chief and another engineer. The conversation, in which we were immediately engulfed, was so vivacious that we had small chance to examine the surroundings as we would have liked to. But save for the typewriter on the desk and a few books in a rack, there was nothing to suggest literature. "Plutarch's Lives," we noticed—a favourite of Mac's since boyhood; Frank Harris's "The Bomb" (which, however, the Chief insisted belonged to him), E.S. Martin's "Windfalls of Observation," and some engineering works. We envied Mac the little reading lamp ... — Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... evening, which is meatless and is given up largely to asparagus (just beginning, thank God!), you certainly see no toast in the rack, but find that the tender green faggot reposes on a slab of it large enough ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... might as well take off our hats and stay awhile," agreed Laura, following suit. "Say, girls," she added, as she stuck her hat up in the rack above her head, "I just thought ... — Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... no clew to the secret entrance of their stronghold, and that none of their band had been captured in the conflict: for they would rather hear of the death of their comrades than that they had been taken prisoners; because, were the latter the case, the tortures of the rack or the exhortations of the priest might elicit confessions hostile to the ... — Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... and set them down in the sieges of the chapel. And as they spake of one thing and other, for heaviness they fell asleep, and there befell them both marvellous adventures. Sir Gawaine him seemed he came into a meadow full of herbs and flowers, and there he saw a rack of bulls, an hundred and fifty, that were proud and black, save three of them were all white, and one had a black spot, and the other two were so fair and so white that they might be no whiter. And ... — Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... the royal Audiencia were governing. They put aside their togas and girded on their swords. They divided the most dangerous and important posts. One of them was charged with the fortification of Cabite, and the repair of three galleys and other boats that had been going to rack and ruin there; another with the casting of new pieces from the little metal remaining in the royal magazines, and he, because by its scarcity the sudden need for artillery could not be supplied, tried to use the waste left from former ... — The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... the verandah and the road. The floor was covered with oil-cloth; the walls were hung with curios, South Sea spears and masks, Japanese armour, boomerangs, nullahs, a multitude of quaint workings in wood and grass and beads. Against the wall facing the door was an umbrella stand and hat rack of polished wood, with a mirror in the centre. There were two pannelled doors to the left; a doorless stairway, leading downwards, and a large window to the right; at the end of the passage a glazed door, with coloured panes. A gas jet burned in a ... — The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... instant, owing to the surprise she was in, I easily seized her by the mane, and notwithstanding her resistance, led her into the stable, where I put a halter upon her head, and when I had tied her to the rack, reproaching her with her baseness, I chastised her with a whip till I was tired, and have punished her every day since in the manner ... — The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... Alfred Godfrey, of Clapton. According to this improvement, as represented at Figs. 1 and 2, a rack, A, is employed vibrating on the pivot a, and a pinion, a1, so arranged that instead of the pinion moving on a universal joint, or the rack moving in a parallel line from side to side of the pinion at the time the motion of the table is ... — Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... bruisings, or lacerations, or even of floggings; but a word is used the common-parlance import of which is, slight chastisement; it is not even whipping, but 'correction' And as if hypocrisy and malignity were on the rack to outwit each other, even that weak word must be still farther diluted; so 'moderate' is added: and, to crown the climax, compounded of absurdity, hypocrisy, and cold-blooded murder, the legal definition of 'moderate correction' is covertly given; which is, any punishment ... — The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... poison had not been used, but in the course of his interrogation he had failed to remember where the residue of the poisons had been put. He now recollected. The unused portion of the arsenic had been put in a niche of a bottle-rack. ... — She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... Rushed their great canoes of thunder. "Then a darker, drearier vision Passed before me, vague and cloud-like; I beheld our nation scattered, All forgetful of my counsels, Weakened, warring with each other; Saw the remnants of our people Sweeping westward, wild and woful, Like the cloud-rack of a tempest, Like the withered leaves ... — The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... with diamonds. The same case or a similar one to that purchased by Van Sneck from Walen's in Brighton. Come, rack your brains a bit. Did you ever see anything of Van Sneck about the time of his accident? You ... — The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... some telegraph-forms in the stationery rack on a small writing-table, and taking one scribbled a couple of lines to Sir Bernard, at Hove, informing him of the mysterious affair. This I folded and placed in my pocket in readiness for the re-opening of the telegraph office ... — The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... school was located about half a mile from the town of Haven Point on Clearwater Lake, a beautiful sheet of water about two miles long and nearly half a mile wide. At the head of the lake was the Rick Rack River, running down from the hills and ... — The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... Novelty of entertainment was then sought for in the splendid courts of Italy, in order to celebrate events which were thought great in their time, such as the marriages of princes, or the triumphs of their arms. Invention was on the rack for novelty, and the skill of the machinist was taxed to the utmost. It has been supposed that the art of the old Roman pantomimi was then revived, to add to the attractions of court-dances. Under the Roman empire the pantomimi had represented either ... — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... robes of righteousness. All the life, all the music, and the blood and electricity rolling over the mountains with the elements of pietude spread all over the fundament. Ottah!! R-R-R-Rose Ottah! Rack-a-tack." ... — A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... a cubical box with rounded corners and edges. This box has hollow gudgeons at two diagonally opposite corners and these gudgeons are open as shown to provide for charging and discharging. The box is rotated by gears meshing with a circumferential rack midway between gudgeons and another set of gears operate to tilt the mixer. The inside of the box is smooth, there being no deflectors, as its shape is such as to fold the batch repeatedly and ... — Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... wounded, too, last spring, weren't you?" queried the King's Messenger, burrowing in his suit case for his flask. "Squat down at the end there—got your glass?" He measured out two portions of whisky and from the rack produced a bottle ... — The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... of the farm had fallen entirely upon Betty's shoulders. Wilson, the overseer, was in the army, and Hosea had gradually risen to take his place. "We must keep things up," the girl had insisted, "don't let us go to rack and ruin—papa would have hated it so," and, with the negro's aid, she had struggled to keep up the common tenor ... — The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... brought round and placed on the rack behind the wagon. It was a large black trunk, securely bound with brass bands, and showed marks of service, as if it had been considerably used. Two small strips of paper pasted on the side bore the custom-house marks of Havre and ... — Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... supper, which was very brisk and gay, was over, and Captain Costigan and Mrs. Bolton had partaken of some of the rack punch that is so fragrant at Vauxhall, the bill was called and discharged by Pen with great generosity, "like a foin young English gentleman of th' olden toime, be Jove," Costigan enthusiastically remarked. And as, when they went out of the box, he ... — The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... has started to go home," Dimple said to herself, in real alarm. "Oh, dear, I hope there hasn't been any train along that she could take." She put on her hat, seized an umbrella from the rack, and sallied forth. It was still raining hard, and as she splashed along, the little ... — A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... reason of his so doing. So he began and said, This night, as I was in my sleep I dreamed, and behold the heavens grew exceeding black; also it thundered and lightened in most fearful wise, that it put me into an agony. So I looked up in my dream, and saw the clouds rack at an unusual rate, upon which I heard a great sound of a trumpet, and saw also a man sit upon a cloud, attended with the thousands of heaven—they were all in flaming fire; also the heavens were in a burning flame. I heard ... — The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of a success. This time I led to the altar a buffalo cow, as they call the "muley" down South,—a large, spotted, creamy-skinned cow, with a fine udder, that I persuaded a Jew drover to part with for ninety dollars. "Pag like a dish rack (rag)," said he, pointing to her udder after she had been milked. "You vill come pack and gif me the udder ten tollar" (for he had demanded an even hundred), he continued, "after you have had her a gouple of days." True, I felt ... — Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... I received a surprise of a totally different sort. Following the cook's instructions, I had gone into Wolf Larsen's state-room to put it to rights and make the bed. Against the wall, near the head of the bunk, was a rack filled with books. I glanced over them, noting with astonishment such names as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, and De Quincey. There were scientific works, too, among which were represented men such as Tyndall, Proctor, and ... — The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... a glance at the gun-rack. The rifle was gone. The patent-clasp which held the weapon in place had been wrenched free. Her eyes traveled to the empty provision-locker, which stood open. Close by it lay a small monkey-wrench with which some ... — El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... time there lived a king who was so fond of wine that he could not go to sleep unless he knew he had a great flaskful tied to his bed-post. All day long he drank till he was too stupid to attend to his business, and everything in the kingdom went to rack and ruin. But one day an accident happened to him, and he was struck on the head by a falling bough, so that he fell from his horse and lay dead ... — The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... comprehendingly, for he hastily flung a napkin over the ice and gently set the decanter back in its rack. "But dynamite, it comes in sticks and not in bottles. And it would shake the roots of them old poplars clean most down ... — The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... hands trembled with anger. If the fellow had stood looking at him for another second, he would have got up and knocked him down. But Krafft turned nonchalantly to the piano, where his attention was caught by a song that was standing on the rack. He chuckled, and set about making merciless fun of the music—the composer was an elderly singing-teacher, of local fame. Madeleine grew angry, and tried ... — Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... to one, two, or three hundred dollars in giving all our friends an indigestion from a midnight meal, seems to me a very poor investment. Yet if we once begin to give the party, we must have everything that is given at the other parties, or wherefore do we live? And caterers and waiters rack their brains to devise new forms of expense and extravagance; and when the bill comes in, one is sure to feel that one is paying a great deal of money for a great deal of nonsense. It is, in fact, worse than nonsense, because our dear friends are in half the cases, ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... behind the stove which served as a sort of store room for the scant supplies, and this had a flap at the top, so that it was partly curtained off. Another box nailed against the wall behind the table served as book case and paper rack, holding, among a scant array of ancient standard volumes, a few dog-eared paper-backed books of cheap and dreadful sort, some illustrated journals showing pictures of actresses and film celebrities—precisely the sort of literature ... — The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... And in an earthy, the dark dungeon mine. Cold shivering agues, melancholy care, And bitter blasting winds, and poison'd air, Are mine, and wilful death, resulting from despair. The throttling quinsey 'tis my star appoints, And rheumatisms ascend to rack the joints: When churls rebel against their native prince, I arm their hands, and furnish the pretence; And housing in the lion's hateful sign, 410 Bought senates, and deserting troops are mine. Mine is the privy poisoning; I command Unkindly seasons, and ungrateful land. By me kings' ... — The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the west was dark, and inky black The level ruffled water underneath, And up the wind-cloud tossed, a ghostly rack, In ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... said. "What has it done for me? You have been a good sister to me, but your attentions have been a little embarrassing sometimes. And if you had hoped to change me, you had your trouble for your pains. You may put me on the rack and torture me, but not one ... — The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... It would, in fact, be a God-send—so he protested—to have somebody dependable lodged in that empty house, to keep the cobwebs out of the corners and the mildew off his books and save the whole disintegrating shebang from the general rack and ruin which usually overtakes empty mansions of that type. He gave me the name and address of the caretaker, on Euclid Avenue, and concluded by saying it wasn't very much of a place, but might be endured for a winter for the ... — The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... message along the track; The Prod's out West, but he's coming back; Put plenty of veal for one on the rack, Trolla lala, la ... — A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... easy for Betty, found her a carriage without company ("I can cry here if I like," said the Betty that Betty liked least), arranged her small packages neatly in the rack, took her 50 centime piece as though it had been a priceless personal souvenir, and ran half the length of the platform to get a rose from another porter's button-hole. He handed it to her ... — The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... would have slipped silently away if they had not seen and called to her. "He's not gone I guess you'll find him in the parlor," said Steve, divining with a lover's instinct the meaning of the quick look she had cast at the hat rack as she shut the ... — Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... him all the crosses and afflictions imaginable, that might conduce to this great and blessed end. Whenever he was unfaithful, or looked at things in any other light than the true one—to tend to this death of self—I felt myself on the rack, which, as I had till then been so indifferent, very much surprised me. To the Lord I made my complaint; He graciously encouraged me, both on this subject and on that entire dependence on Himself which He gave me, which was such that I was like a ... — The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... and made inquiry of the men concerning the fleet. They protested that they had not seen a ship since they left Gogo, and earnestly implored their mercy; but, instead of treating them with lenity, they put them to the rack, in order to extort farther confession. The day following, a fresh easterly wind blew hard, and rent the galliot's sails; upon this the pirates put her company into a boat, with nothing but a try-sail, no provisions, ... — The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... banker," said I, "are two. The first and the smaller is that all he has got to attend to is not to deal wrongly, which is a very small matter to an habitual player; and all the time the punter has to rack his brains on the chances of one card or another coming out. The other advantage is one of time. The banker draws his card at least a second before the punter, and this again gives ... — The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... mere half-hour from Florence, Impruneta an hour and a half; but Vallombrosa asks a long day. One can go by rail, changing at Sant' Ellero into the expensive rack-and-pinion car which climbs through the vineyards to a point near the summit, and has, since it was opened, brought to the mountain so many new residents, whose little villas cling to the western slopes among ... — A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... Whether we force the man's property from him by pinching his stomach, or pinching his fingers, makes some difference anatomically;— morally, none whatsoever: we use a form of torture of some sort in order to make him give up his property; we use, indeed, the man's own anxieties, instead of the rack; and his immediate peril of starvation, instead of the pistol at the head; but otherwise we differ from Front de Boeuf, or Dick Turpin, merely in being less dexterous, more cowardly, and more cruel. More cruel, I say, because the fierce baron ... — The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... rack and pinnion, and two stops; where rack and pinnion is not required, deduct 8s. ... — Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... boat—"agaynste an Heck." Heck in this and other passages was a puzzle. From the context it obviously meant "rock," but where did Chatterton get it? Mr. Skeat explains this. Heck is a provincial word signifying "rack," i.e., "hay-rack"; but Kersey misprinted it "rock," and Chatterton followed him. A typical instance of the kind of error that Chatterton was perpetually committing was his understanding the "Listed, bounded," i.e., edged (as in the "list" or selvage of cloth) for ... — A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... for Tam'rack Spicer," said the boy, succinctly, "but I don't 'low ter let him lay in no jail-house, unlessen he's got a right ter be thar. What's he ... — The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... indignant, though natural jealousy in the other for being so regarded; and, finally, by leading those who most entertain it into habits of expense, torturing their means, if I may so speak, on the rack of false opinion—disposing them to think, in their blindness, that to be genteel is a first consideration, and to be honest merely a secondary one—it has the effect of so hardening their hearts, that, like those Carthaginians ... — Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... replaced both bowl and book, a door slammed below stairs took him to the hall in an instant. Maitland's Panama was hanging on the hat-rack, Maitland's collection of walking-sticks bristled in a stand beneath it. Anisty appropriated the former and chose one of the latter. "Fair exchange," he considered with a harsh laugh. "After all, he loses nothing ... — The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... the stink of a lion's breath; Swimming, a white belly, a crescent of teeth, Agony, and a spirting shredded limb, And crimson blood staining the green water; And, horror of horrors, the slow grind on the rack, The breaking bones, the stretching and bursting skin, Perpetual fainting and waking to see above The down-thrust mocking faces of cruel men, With the power of mercy, who gloat ... — Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... from the rack in the companion and, slinging it over his shoulder, mounted the ratlines to ... — At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... rifles or ammunition belts. The rifles are lying on the ground and scattered everywhere—in case of an attack the men would not know where to lay their hands on them. It takes only two forked sticks and a ridge-pole with nicks in it, to make an excellent gun-rack, but there is none of any sort. As for the sanitary arrangements of the camp, they are nil. The refuse from the troop kitchen is scattered all over the place, and so are the branches on which the men have ... — Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... "The rack!" Bjelke smiled disdainfully, and shrugged. "Your men, Lillesparre, were very prompt and very obdurate. They would not allow me to take leave of the Baroness, so that she has escaped me. But I am not sure that it is not a fitter vengeance to let her live and remember. That letter may ... — The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... character to be appreciable only by the eye, escaping altogether the ear: thus it is with 'draft' and 'draught'; 'plain' and 'plane'; 'coign' and 'coin'; 'flower' and 'flour'; 'check' and 'cheque'; 'straight' and 'strait'; 'ton' and 'tun'; 'road' and 'rode'; 'throw' and 'throe'; 'wrack' and 'rack'; 'gait' and 'gate'; 'hoard' and 'horde'{117}; 'knoll' and 'noll'; 'chord' and 'cord'; 'drachm' and 'dram'; 'sergeant' and 'serjeant'; 'mask' and 'masque'; 'villain' ... — English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... Julia tartly. "I don't bother myself much with abstractions. I know it is you and I." And she put her things on the hall-rack, as she was going out again ... — The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... was not to be balked. He pointed to the coat-rack on the wall in front of them both. "There is Henry de Spain's coat. He hung it there just before he went down to the inn. Under it, if you look, you'll find his belt of cartridges. Don't take my word—look ... — Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... and filth and pitchy blackness, knowing day from night only by the fact that once in twenty-four hours food would be slipped through a hole in the wall by unseen hands; lying here until oftentimes death or the cruel mercy of madness came upon them before the overworked executioner found time to rack their limbs ... — Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... up," Gresham's daughter said, catching another musket out of the same rack from which Pierre had gotten the matchlock and passing it over to Rand. He grasped the heavy piece, approving of the easy, instinctive way in which the girl had handled it. "Look on the barrel," she told him. "On top, right ... — Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... monarchy in Mexico, she would, still bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the Polish insurrection, madly launch her armies upon the Rhine, or start her hiding fleet from behind the fortified shelters of Cronstadt and Helsingfors, make it pass the Sound and Skager Rack, unmindful of the frowning batteries of Landscrona and Marstrand, pass the Strait of Dover, and the English Channel, and enter the Atlantic, quietly leaving behind Calais, Boulogne, Cherbourg, and Brest, ... — Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... Martinez, unless, indeed, it be my equerry, Gil de Mesa, who to this day follows my evil fortunes. But Mesa at that time was as yet untried, whilst in Diego I knew that I had a man devoted to me heart and soul, a man who would allow himself to be torn limb from limb on the rack on my behalf. ... — The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... was quite a mistake," I went on in my character as matrimonial oracle. "Love never made a law so cruel, a law that would rob true lovers of each other's society for a whole month in a year, stretching them on the rack of absence—" There my period broke down, so I began another ... — The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... kind of hard fortune pursue you every day you rise, you desavin' villain, that would have me turn informer, bekase your brother-in-law, rack-rintin' Moore's stables and horses were burnt; and to crown all, make the innocent childre the means of hanging their own fathers or brothers, you rap of the divil! but I'd see you and all your breed in the flames o' ... — The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... you've had with him. You'll get a husband worth waiting for. He's one in a million. One hundred and five bouts in ten months and victor in all of them! He's a jewel, a pearl I I'd do anything for you, as I told you, I'd keep myself on the rack day and night for you and him. You are a pair! There's not on earth the match for the two ... — The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... was Corbin, the little white pony that belonged to all of the children together, and was saddled and bridled every fair day, and tied to the horse-rack, that the little girls might ride him whenever they chose; and 'twas no unusual sight to see two of them on him at once, cantering down the big ... — Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... laboratory, Langford attentively studied the ebullitions occasioned by an ultimate dilution and aggregation of the chemicals in the formula HP O^(22). During this time the sensations in his brain successively continued to rack and agonize him; but, faithful to his mission, he remained immersed in thought until his intellect grasped the key of the problem. Issuing then from the recess, he promulgated the results of his investigation to the four masters of the house, These, with the aid of the forty-eight deputies, executed ... — Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... among them the Duke of Gandia, Varano of Camerino, Astorre and Ottaviano Manfredi, the Duke of Biselli, the youthful Bernardino of Sermoneta, and the Bishop of Cagli. Micheletto was brought before the representatives of the Senate for examination. He was placed upon the rack and confessed, among other things, that it was the Pope Alexander himself who had given the command for the murder of the youthful Alfonso of Biselli. This the magistrate ... — Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... bashfulness that rendered her almost as unstable of mood as before. But she was one of that mettle—fervid, cordial, and spontaneous—who had not the heart to spoil a passion; and her affairs having gone to rack and ruin by no fault of her own she was left to a painfully narrowed existence which lent even something of rationality to her attachment. Thus it was that her tender and unambitious soul found comfort in ... — Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... is it to remain here?" I asked, torturing him with more zest than ever he had experienced over the agonies of some poor victim on the rack. "In bearing yourself gallantly there lies a slender chance for you. Your people seeing you in arms and ready to defend them may yet be moved to ... — The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... prickling over scalp and skin—for its talons stretched out to grasp a steed that Death himself might have ridden, a rack whose bare skull hung ... — The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... answered. "We were as much surprised as you are. Read that!" pointing to a card tilted against the music rack. ... — Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... to my soul. And my nerves, on the rack for these three days, with the culmination of the last six hours seemed suddenly ... — The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Desgrais with a subtle smile, "perhaps, Mademoiselle, you would alter your mind after you had heard Brusson. Did you not yourself exhort the President to be human? And he is being so, in that he gives way to Brusson's foolish request, and thus resorts to the last means before putting him to the rack, for which he was well ripe some time ago." De Scuderi shuddered involuntarily. "And then, honoured lady," continued Desgrais, "it will not be demanded of you that you again enter those dark gloomy rooms which filled you with such horror ... — Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... royal order. According to law, torture, the disgrace of the Roman jurisprudence, could not, in any circumstances, be inflicted on an English subject. Nevertheless, during the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity. But it would be a great error to infer from such irregularities that the English monarchs were, either ... — The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... actually was startling to encounter. And strange, vague, wild, unformed memories arose, and odd ideas, and fantastic suspicions. Her face became thus like one of those which one sees in a crowd hastily, and then loses, only to rack his brain in vain endeavors to discover who the owner of the face might be. So it was with me as I saw the dark face and the lustrous ... — The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... back to the guard-room again. An hour passed away in suspense. It seemed as though every ear in the regiment were on the rack for the discharge of that musket. Hardly a man spoke, but as the minutes dragged along the conviction gained ground that already the brave man had followed the fate of the other three. The colonel paced up and ... — The Junior Classics • Various
... Animalism? Spiders can spin, Beavers can build and show contrivance; the Ant lays-up accumulation of capital, and has, for aught I know, a Bank of Antland. If there is no soul in man higher than all that, did it reach to sailing on the cloud-rack and spinning sea-sand; then I say, man is but an animal, a more cunning kind of brute: he has no soul, but only a succedaneum for salt. Whereupon, seeing himself to be truly of the beasts that perish, he ought to admit it, I think;—and also straightway universally ... — Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... Siricus, which had crouched into the kitchen oven, where it was recently found, with its bell still attached to its neck! And the prisoners in the blackhole of the gladiators' barracks, riveted to an iron rack that jammed their legs! And the two lovers surprised in a shop near the Thermae; both were young, and they were tightly clasped in each other's arms.... How awful a night and how fearful a morrow! ... — The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... insensible clay! Thou beggar corpse! Stripp'd, 'midst a butcher'd score, or so, of men, Upon a bleak hill-side, beneath the rack Of flying clouds torn by the cannon's boom, If the red, trampled grass were all thy shroud, The scowl of Heaven thy plumed canopy, Thou might'st be any one! How is it with thee? Man! Charles Stuart! King! See, the white, heavy, overhanging lids Press on his ... — Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... and the sun, angry and red, was sinking behind the pine forests that skirted the ridges west of our camp when the Colonel concluded his address. It did not, I think, exceed more than ten minutes. The parade was dismissed, and the companies marched back to their quarters. As I put my musket on its rack and unbuckled my cartridge box, I said to one of my comrades, 'I believe the old Colonel is right; I am going right now down to the adjutant's tent and re-enlist;' and go I did, but not alone. Down to the adjutant's tent that evening streamed the boys by the score and signed the ... — The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... aft, and Dolores was left standing alone by the midship shot-rack. She singled out a few of her men by name, and commanded them to rally to her side; then, seizing a cutlas from the deck, she glided tigerishly to the main companionway, down which the pirates were now driving the beaten crew, and the men she had picked ... — The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... who knew him. And we have seen that Isaac Bawcombe was an exceptional man—physically a kind of Alexander Selkirk of the Wiltshire Downs. And he, moreover, had a dog to help him—one as superior in speed and strength to the ordinary sheep-dog as he himself was to the rack of his fellow-men. It was only after much questioning on my part that Caleb brought himself to tell me of these ancient adventures, and finally to give a detailed account of how his father came to take his first deer. It was in the depth of winter—bitterly cold, with a strong north ... — A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... gorse and skylarks, when I came out on a vast circle of land, and over me lifted a vast, voiceless structure, tier above tier of seats, as huge as a Roman amphitheatre and as empty as a new letter-rack. A bird sailed in heaven over it. It was the Grand Stand at Epsom. And I felt that no one would ever be happy ... — The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... thinking bridges necessary and roads are not for those who sit on springs and cushions. I never wished so much for a "Kodak" that I might carry away a picture which I shall always have in memory. To the long wagon, which had a high rack all around it, were yoked a pair of milk-white oxen, round and handsome. In front was seated Mrs. Elliott, holding her youngest child. At her side a boy, perhaps twelve, who guided the team by a line attached to a horn. Seated on chairs were ... — The American Missionary, October, 1890, Vol. XLIV., No. 10 • Various
... deceived. He had answered some such remark a hundred times that evening, but he would surely be put on the rack in a moment by some fantastic disclosure which none save a ... — One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... very great. The supply-ships on which it had depended fled before the action of the 20th, and the result of course made it impossible for them to return. The sultan's light cavalry harassed their communications by land. On the 25th, the general commanding wrote that his "mind was on the rack without a moment's rest since the departure of the fleet, considering the character of M. de Suffren, and the infinite superiority on the part of the French now that we are left to ourselves." From this anxiety ... — The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... to be had. Lincoln's supporters took delight in showing their contempt of Douglas's elegance by affecting a Republican simplicity, often carrying their candidate through the streets on a high and unadorned hay-rack drawn by farm horses. The scenes in the towns on the occasion of the debates were perhaps never equalled at any other of the hustings of this country. No distance seemed too great for the people ... — Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... not his ghost; O let him pass! he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough ... — Milton • John Bailey
... I passed the rope under, then over, a belaying-pin before surrendering it to Cutler to complete the operation of belaying, and then bounded aft, followed by Tom Brown, who had snatched a handspike from the rack as he passed it. My first act was to drag the tiller over to windward and pass a turn of the tiller rope round the head of it, to help the felucca to pay off; for she was now gathering headway. Then I sprang to the taffrail and looked over it. The pursuing boat had ... — A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... great deal. I was there when the crowd came in to put you on the rack. The two fellows who let you get away had a hard time of it, and it looked for a time as if there was going to be shooting. Cooler heads, however, headed it off. When you get back to your party I should advise you to pull up stakes and get out. Those fellows ... — Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... "Well—! ... Yes, there is an answer, Mason. Give me a pencil from that rack!" She scribbled two or three words; copied an address, and handed ... — Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... rack her body. She groaned and clenched her fists until the blood stained her palms. But still she hurried on, urging herself with thoughts of her journey's end, which began to loom distant and impossible through the haze of her suffering. The road ... — With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... goat-stink damned from armpits fusty one suffer, Or if a crippling gout worthily any one rack, 'Tis that rival o' thine who lief in loves of you meddles, And, by a wondrous fate, gains him the twain of such ills. For that, oft as he ——, so oft that penance be two-fold; 5 Stifles her stench of goat, he too ... — The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... whom can we look in general so confidently as to the parochial clergy? I speak now specially in regard to parishes such as I am most familiar with, in agricultural districts, small, not largely endowed, sometimes without resident gentry, and with the land occupied by rack-renting farmers, indifferent ... — Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... breakfast, which was at a round table, with a sort of circular tray, which turns at the least touch in the centre, leaving only a rim round the table for plates and cups. This was covered also with a white cloth and on it were placed all the breakfast viands, with butter, sugar, cream, bread, toast-rack and preserves. You need no servants, but turn it round and help yourself. I believe the Van de Weyers introduced it, from a visit in Wales. Tea and coffee are served from a side-table always, here. Let me tell Aunty that our simple breakfast DRESS is ... — Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... and some truth there must be in the saying. Suspicion of self-interest could not but attach to him; that was inherent in the circumstances. He must rely upon the sincerity of his passion, which indeed was beginning to rack and rend him. A woman is sensitive to that, especially a woman of Sidwell's refinement. In matters of the intellect she may be misled, but she cannot mistake quivering ardour for design simulating love. If it were impossible to see her again in private before she left Exeter, ... — Born in Exile • George Gissing
... and then Vane drew up a wicker chair to the fire for Evelyn and sat down opposite her. The room was low and shadowy, and partly paneled. Against one wall stood a black oak sideboard, with a plate-rack above it, and a great chest of the same material with ponderous hand-forged hinge-straps stood opposite it. A clock with an engraved metal dial and a six-foot case, polished to a wonderful luster by the hands of several generations, ticked in one corner; and here and there the firelight ... — Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... very finely carved in wood and realistically painted in the colours of nature, being life-size. At the end of the room opposite the dais was an engine or machine which even those who had never seen such a thing before might easily have identified as a rack; and there were four chairs, two on either side of the room, of such elaborate and sinister construction that there could be no question as to their being designed for the purpose of inflicting various kinds of ingenious and exquisite agony upon the unhappy occupants; while, in addition ... — The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... as before. He then adjures the Siem, the elders, and all the people who do not belong to either of the two clans, and pours out liquor three times as before. The three pieces of dried fish are first placed on the tympan, the high rack above the fire-place, then removed and tied to the ridge-pole of the house, amidst shouts of Ho, hoi, hoi, hoi. The poor then sacrifice a fowl, and the rich a pig without blemish (uba tlem), to u Suid nia and ka Iaw-bei (the spirits of deceased ancestors of the family), and present ... — The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... own affairs, administered justice, put down middlemen as far as possible, reorganised the letting out of the estate. Unlike many of his neighbours, he was careful not to sacrifice the future to present ease of mind and of pocket. He put down rack-rents and bribes of every sort, and did his best to establish things upon a firm and ... — A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie) |