"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Tack, keeping close together doing scout work, were cut off from their companions. They had ventured too far over the Hun lines, and were in danger of being shot down. But a squadron of airmen from Pershing's forces made a sortie and drove the Germans to cover, ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... never forget that horrible afternoon. What could I say? What could I do? I felt as Horace used to, as if I should "go a-flyin'." I ran into the parlor where mother and Mrs. Duffy were putting down the carpet, and hopped about till I got a tack in my foot; and after mother had drawn it out, and I had done crying, I ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... surface of the troubled sea. The sea was made so boisterous by rain and snow, and such a stiff wind blew from the west, that for two or three days the Rose could not double the Cape. She was forced to tack towards the south until a favourable gale set in, which carried her ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... are being stitched, the soles and inner soles and counters have been made ready and brought to the lasting-room. The toe stiffeners and also the counters are now cemented into their places. The inner sole is tacked to the last, and the uppers are put in place and held there by a tack at the heel. This is done by machines; but their working is simple compared with that of the machine which now takes charge of the half-made shoe. This machine puts out sturdy little pincers which seize the edge of the uppers, pull it smoothly and evenly into place, and ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... coast, greatly noted for its fossils, where they could have a practical demonstration to supplement the information in their textbooks. On the Friday afternoon chosen for the ramble everybody started armed with hammers of all varieties, from Miss Roberts's beautiful geological pick to stout tack hammers and even ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... "A tick-tack!" declared Harry, "I'll bet, from the girls' room!" and without waiting for another word he jumped out of his window, ran along the roof to Nan's room, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... themselves, even in the strong tower of a cold unimpressible nature: they are capable of many friendships and of a true dignity in danger, giving each other a sympathetic, if transitory, regret—one sorry that another "should be foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack." Words which seem to exhaust man's deepest sentiment concerning death and life are put on the lips of a gilded, witless youth; and the saintly Isabella feels fire creep along her, kindling her tongue to eloquence at the suggestion of shame. In places the shadow deepens: ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... refused to catch, so he was compelled to shut the window and leave the swinging blind at the mercy of the wind. He then improvised a screen from a high-backed chair and an extra blanket, and again betook himself to bed. Stepping on a tack that had been left over when the floor matting was laid provoked certain exclamations calculated to exorcise the demon—or should I say alarm the angel?—of decorative art, and he was soon wrapped in the slumber of the just, ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... Captain of Patriot Volunteers,—'Independence of Poland! Shall Poland be dictated to!" cried Stanislaus and an indignant Public at one stage of the affair. His Uncles Czartoryski were piloting him in; and in that mad element, the cries, and shiftings of tack, had to be many. [In HERMANN, v. 362-380 (still more in RULHIERE, ii. 119-289), wearisome account of every particular.] He is Nephew, by his mother, of these Czartoryskis; but is not by the father of very high family. 'Ought he to be King of Poland?' argued some Polish Emissary at Petersburg: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... that were now gone to smash. Therefore I hated them. And straightway, remembering that the day was her birthday, and accepting the fact as a good omen, I rebuilt my air-castles and resolved to try on a new tack. So irrational is human nature at twenty-one, when in love. And isn't it ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... married to Edgar. Now any thing more absurd, more discordant with all our previous impressions, and with the characters as unfolded to us, can hardly be imagined. "I cannot conceive," says Schlegel, "what ideas of art and dramatic connection those persons have, who suppose we can at pleasure tack a double conclusion to a tragedy—a melancholy one for hard-hearted spectators, and a merry one for those of softer mould." The fierce manners depicted in this play, the extremes of virtue and vice in the persons, belong ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... the character of that extraordinary town will be surprised when I say that, within an hour after the occurrences related in the last chapter, Troy had resumed its workday quiet. By two o'clock nothing was to be heard but the tick-tack of mallets in the ship-building yards, the puffing of the steam-tug, the rattle of hawsers among the vessels out in the harbour, and the melodious "Woo-hoo!" of a crew at capstan or windlass. Troy in carnival and Troy sober are as opposite, you must know, as the poles. ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... row of shops which I was to follow until they joined the iron railings of Hyde Park. I was to keep to the railings until I reached the gates at Hyde Park Corner, where I was to lay a diagonal course across Piccadilly, and tack in toward the railings of Green Park. At the end of these railings, going east, I would find the Walsingham, and my ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... returned the other, gravely, "thou hast miss'd thy tack. It waur but a slip, maybe a kin' of a sudden start which took me, as they say, by the nape. I jumped back, I own—a foul accident, by which he took advantage. He comes behind me, thou sees, and with a skip 'at would have seated him upo' the topmost perch o' the castle, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... tie the latter as tightly as possible over it. By now turning the peg, the cords will be twisted and tightened and the various pieces of the coops will be drawn together with great firmness, in which state they may be secured by the aid of a tack driven in the top board against the end of the peg as shown at (b). Thus we have a neat and serviceable coop, which will last for many seasons. To set the affair it is necessary to cut three sticks of the shapes shown in our illustration. The prop piece ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... house seemed! Nothing broke the silence but the solemn "tick-tack" of the big clock in the hall, which had been ticking in the same sedate manner since the days when Elsie's grandmother had been a little girl. Feeling her way down the length of the hall, not without an occasional bump against chairs and other such obstacles, Elsie came to a little lobby or cloak-room, ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... long passages and large rooms, was full of those nameless sounds which fill the air in the quiet of night. He heard his father's footsteps as he paced up and down in his study, he heard the tick-tack of the old clock on the stairs, the bureau creaked, the candle spluttered, but there was no human voice to break the silence, With a yawn he rose, stretching his long legs, and, throwing back his broad shoulders, made his way ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... night. I grasped the handle of the Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the carpet, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... good wig, you should shape a piece of calico to fit the head; then sew fire shavings or tow all over it. If you wish for a curly wig, it is a good plan to wind the shavings or tow tightly round a ruler, and tack it along with a back stitch, which will hold the curl in position after you have slipped it off the ruler. These few hints will give you some idea of the very many different costumes which can be made by children out of ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... ask her in Arithmetic? (The 2ND PIRATE whispers to him.) Excellent. (To her) If you really are a teacher as you say, answer me this question. The brigantine Cocktail is in longitude 40 deg. 39' latitude 22 deg. 50', sailing closehauled on the port tack at 8 knots in a 15-knot nor'-nor' westerly breeze—how soon before ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... Warden had banished outside of the gate. The fiddler, fiddling his hardest the while, "Called off" in the regular foot-hill style: "Circle to the left!" and "Forward and back!" And "Hellum to port for the stabbard tack!" (This great virtuoso, it would appear, Was Mate of the Gatherer many a year.) "Ally man left!"—to a painful degree His French was unlike to the French of Paree, As heard from our countrymen lately abroad, And his "doe cee doe" was the gem of the fraud. But what can you hope from a gentleman ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... the whole of the long and tangled conversation that ensued. The Captain tried to explain, tumbled down, metaphorically speaking, got up again, and started off on another tack. In his anxiety to make his position perfectly clear, he quoted from Elsie's remarks of the previous evening, and then, thinking perhaps he had gone too far, tried to smooth these over by more explanations. ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... slightly different tack. Its editorial writer was a former New York newspaperman of unusual abilities who had been driven to the Southwest by tuberculosis. In an editorial which was deplored by many prominent business men, he pointed ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... sailed along we saw coming towards us another vessel, the Luisa, which suddenly executed a very extraordinary tack; and in a minute or two its crew sent up a loud shout of joy, having succeeded in stealing a fishbox which the fishermen of Marinduque had sunk in the sea. They had lowered a hook, and been clever enough to grapple the rope of the floating buoy. Our captain was beside ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... say, but I shan't be much the barer for that! It's hard, confounded hard, though, when they're all a fellow has got!—Now don't say a word! I don't like being contradicted!—not at all! It sends one round on the other tack, I tell you—and there's my gout coming! Only mind this: if once you say who you are as long as you're at college, or before I give you leave, I have done with you. I won't have any little plan of mine forestalled for your vanity! Don't any of you say who he is. It ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... hesitate in his choice of route. He knew his canoe and loved every rib and thwart in her. He had learned also the woodsman's trick of going light. A blanket, a tea pail which held his grub, consisting of some Hudson Bay hard tack, a hunk of bacon, and a little tea and sugar, and his drinking cup constituted his baggage, so that he could make the portages in a single carry. Many a mile had he gone, thus equipped, both by trail and by canoe, in his journeyings up and down these ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... horizon. On sped the boat till they could almost touch the ledges. The rounded outline of the old fortification on the upper hill towered above their heads. Then suddenly she curved and wheeled off on the other tack, with the sharp line of Castle Hill and the Agassiz Point full ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... though by no means a coward, screamed out, "We are lost!" She flung herself into the bottom of the boat and laid her head in Greenleaf's lap like a frightened child. He soothed her and denied that there was danger; he did not venture to tack again, however, for fear of being swamped, but determined to run northwardly along the coast in the hope of getting ashore on some sandy beach before the fury of the storm should come. The boat now careened so far that her gunwale was under water; he saw that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... he resumed imperturbably, "Mrs. Kershaw was never requested to produce a specimen of her husband's handwriting. Why? Because the police, clever as you say they are, never started on the right tack. They believed William Kershaw to have been murdered; they looked ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... himself as in the right, and animated by the noblest intentions, though misunderstood, and thus further enhances his self-esteem; but sometimes he takes the other tack and pictures himself as wicked—but as very, very wicked, a veritable desperado. It may be his self-esteem has been wounded by blame for some little meanness or disobedience, and he restores it by imagining himself a great, big, important sinner instead of a small ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... abundant and excite no remark; but to the woodsman each article possessed a separate and particular value. The tent, an iron kettle, a side of bacon, oatmeal, tea, matches, sugar, some canned goods, a box of hard-tack,—these, in the woods, represented wealth. Wallace's rifle chambered the .38 Winchester cartridge, which was unfortunate, for Thorpe's .44 had barely a ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... "I was driving her to work off it with the sea getting up when the breeze burst on us. She put her rail right under, and we had to let go 'most everything before she'd pick it up. She's pointing somewhere north, jammed right up on the starboard tack just now, but ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... chap, but he must learn not to try this trick again. Let him lie there until he wakes. Then give him some breakfast, hard tack and water, remember, and then give him the task I set for him. When the first fishing smack, bound for Eastville ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... the irate face of his companion, in which the crow-feet of forty years were distinctly visible, and perceived that he had gone on a wrong tack. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... of the young folks who may yet have some leeway to make up, I shall indulge myself a little by quoting it: and, since I am on that tack, follow it by another which presents Stevenson in his favourite guise of quizzing his own characters, if not for his own advantage certainly for ours, if we would in the least understand the fine moralist- casuistical qualities of his ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... as there was no one on the poop, I left the wheel, and stepped aft to the taffrail. It was thus that I came to see something altogether unthought of—a full-rigged ship, close-hauled on the port tack, a few hundred yards on our starboard quarter. Her sails were scarcely filled by the light breeze, and flapped as she lifted to the swell of the sea. She appeared to have very little way through the water, certainly not more than a knot an hour. ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... the moving rays as he held the launch on her seaward tack. The light was moving nearer, but its beams were paling. The cutter evidently had not moved from her anchorage. Doubtless she would be kept fully occupied at the goose-neck. The next instant the fog-wall ahead dripped in the rays of ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... of bells, Tabors, or signals made from castled heights, And with inventions multiform, our own, Or introduc'd from foreign land; but ne'er To such a strange recorder I beheld, In evolution moving, horse nor foot, Nor ship, that tack'd by sign from land ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... on one tack, we on the other, and by and by we lost her below the horizon; but standing in, after some hours found her again; and finding her, were pleased to see that we had made up something on her. We filled away once more, and ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... for Ithuel was right as to the name of the stranger, had got within a league of the entrance of the bay and had gone about, stretching over to its eastern shore, apparently with the intention to fetch fairly into it on the next tack. The smoke of her gun was sailing off to leeward in a little cloud, and signals were again flying at her main-royal-mast-head. All this was very intelligible to Raoul, it being evident at a glance that the frigate had reached in nearer ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... with three windows, each shaded by white cotton curtains. On the floor was a home-made carpet; no hand was employed in its manufacture save its owner's, from the time she commenced tearing the rags in strips, to the final blow given to the last tack that confined it to the floor. A very high post bedstead, over which were suspended white cotton curtains, gave an air of grandeur to one side of the room. No one had slept in it for ten years, though it was made with faultless ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... a cloth cover for your pail in the shape of a tall hat. The rim of the hat must reach out to the edges of your case and be tacked there. Take out your pail, fit this cloth cover into the hole and tack the edge ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... Bull(6) was published yesterday; it is equal to the rest. I hope you read John Bull. It was a Scotch gentleman,(7) a friend of mine, that writ it; but they put it upon me. The Parliament will hardly be up till June. We were like to be undone some days ago with a tack; but we carried it bravely, and the Whigs came in to help us. Poor Lady Masham, I am afraid, will lose her only son, about a twelvemonth old, with the king's evil. I never would let Mrs. Fenton see me during my ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... own wardo, a very fine one which had belonged to her mother. Lester Montague, of Sea Tack, Maryland, who makes the wagons of Romanys for all the Atlantic coast tribes, like his father before him, had done an especially good job of it. The princess had been certified, by the Romany rites, to old John's eldest son, George, for she had flatly refused to be married according to the ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... got in the oar with which the mainsail was boomed out. "Now, Jack, brail up the sail as she comes round. Haul in the sheet as fast as you can, Tom, and pay it out again handsomely as it comes over. That is the way. Now fasten the sheet and throw off the main-tack and trice the sail up pretty near to ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... not quite agree with them; but as he seemed to enjoy the experience, the other three bore their condition as well as they could without grimace or complaint, till the young man, observing their discomfort, gave immediate directions to tack about. On the way back to port they sat ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... carpet tack," declared Dorothy. "Let's call Tavia and get her to pull him out. She ought to do something ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... being abreast of Littlehampton, and about eight miles off the shore, the Aurora went about once more, and stood over towards France, close-hauled on the starboard tack. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... whenever you like. You were too sleepy to take note of it last night, but you came up here by a track fit for a lady's pony-carriage. My predecessor engineered it to connect his two places of business. In its way, it's the most palatial thing in the Rockies—two long legs with a short tack between, gentle all the way—and it brings you out by the Necropolis gate. You can hitch the ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he soothingly, holding up his hand, 'don't do that! You're on the wrong tack, Mister, 'deed you are. There's another guess a comin' to you. It ain't money we want this time, no, siree! Money don't cut no ice this trip, though it is a mighty handy thing to have a jinglin' in your jeans—ain't it? No, it ain't the "sinews," as Jim McGubbin calls it; ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... which had been joined by the small boat, flung to the breeze its white sails, and began to draw in its cable, by which it was attached to the mooring. The brigantine, with a graceful movement, began to tack; during a few seconds it completely hid the disk of the sun, and appeared enveloped in a brilliant aureole. Then the swift vessel, turning its prow toward Cayman's Cove, began to make toward the ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... to watch his interest, "look at that. Blast me if there aint Banker Lindsley; and see them reporters. And there's the editor of the Whistler. Say, this aint no bloody church meeting; there aint a preacher on the stage. Them fellers mean business. We've got to watch out if they keep on this tack. And would you look ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... with skirts turned back, and a blue apron still further protecting them, was everywhere at once; laughter and encouragement marked her path. She wore a paper of pins on the breast of her silk dress, she had a tack hammer thrust in her belt. In her apron pockets were string, and wire, and tacks. A big pair of scissors hung at her side, and a pencil was thrust through her smooth black hair. She advised and consulted ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... of his arms, and rapped sharply on the door panel. It opened instantly, and big Mike, closely followed by another man, pushed forward into the room. West was trapped, helpless; one man pitted against three. He backed slowly away, brushing tack the dishevelled hair from his eyes, watching them warily, every animal instinct ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... after her departure, the schooner, thwarted by strong breezes from the east, was obliged to tack to larboard to make headway against the wind. So, at the date of February 2d, Captain Hull still found himself in a higher latitude than he would have wished, and in the situation of a sailor who wanted ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... author of the Ardintoul manuscript says, that the lands of Kenlochewe were held by Kenneth Mackenzie "and his predecessors by tack, but not as heritage, for they had no real or heritable right of them until Alexander of Kintail got heritable possession of them from John, Earl of Ross," at a much later date. Ellandonnan Castle, however, held out during the whole ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... words of wisdom. HOWARD VINCENT is quite right. If there was more of this in our elementary schools, there would be, if I may say so, more men like me. You remember what Who's-This said, 'Let me write their copy-book headings, and I don't care who makes their laws.' HOWARD VINCENT is on the right tack; think ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... gars the sweat hail doon like rain. Whiles Tam gangs dancin' owre the flair, Whiles cheeky-on intil a chair, Whiles some sma' comfort he achieves By brizzin' hard wi' baith his nieves; In a' his toilsome tack o' life Ne'er had he kent sic inward strife, For while he couldna' sit, forbye ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... you'll hatter gi' 'im credit fer, an' dat wuz keepin' his face an' han's clean, an' in takin' keer er his cloze. Nobody, not even his mammy, had ter patch his britches er tack buttons on his coat. See 'im whar you may an' when you mought, he wuz allers lookin' spick an' span des like he done come right out'n a ban'-box. You know what de riddle say 'bout 'im: when he stan' up he sets down, an' when he walks he hops. He'd 'a' been ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... no one to issue fresh rations. Again I had the cows milked, gathered up all the corn-bread that was left, with some hard-tack, and with the aid of the few decrepit nurses before mentioned made a fire, and warmed up the soup and soup-meat which had been prepared for the convalescent table the day before, but was not consumed. My patients, comprehending the situation, made the best of it. But the distribution was ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... the point, gave one majestic wave of his hat in farewell, and put the Rosan over on the starboard tack, for the course was southeast, and followed practically ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... thievin' varment,' says the ranger, 'you won't lave me a tack to my feet; but no matter,' says he, 'your head's worth more nor a pair o' brogues to me any day, and by the Piper of Blessintown, you're money in my pocket this minit,' says he: and with that, the fingers was in his mouth ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... I have always been so fond of him. And things are prettier there, somehow. There is a great difference in the way people live, and I mean to change some things. It isn't because one is ashamed to be old-fashioned; some of the old ways are lovely. It is only when you tack hardness and commonness on them and think ugliness has a real virtue in it. We will have both sides to talk about. But if you were going back to England, it ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... and closing in the rear, so as to take the enemy between them and engage them on both fronts, placing the largest ships in the rear and the lightest at the advanced points, seeing that they can most quickly tack in upon ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... you'd ought to right off. He says there 's no tellin' where anythin' 'll end 'n' it 's wise to be prepared for the worst. He said he knowed a man as walked on a tack 'n' jus' called it a tack, 'n' first they had to cut off the tack 'n' then the toe 'n' then the foot, 'n' they kept on slicin' him higher 'n' higher till he died without no will a tall. I said you wasn't no tack but a cow, but he said it was all one, 'n' I guess it is 's far 's the lawyers ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... certainly did not, so somebody else must have. Who? That's the question. I wish I were an amateur detective, like the clever people one reads about in magazines. They just get a clue, and find it all out so easily, while the police are on quite a wrong tack. The chief thing seems to be to make a beginning, and I don't know in ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... passed by, spring became summer, and summer lengthened into autumn, and there was no movement of the troops. The ardor of their patriotism died out. It was a monotonous life, waking early in the morning to answer roll-call, to eat breakfast of salt pork and hard-tack, drilling by squads, by companies, by battalion, marching and countermarching, going through the same manoeuvres every day, shouldering, ordering, and presenting arms, making believe load and fire, standing on ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... middle-aged man came in, carrying in one hand a tool-box, and in the other a two-story tin pail. Both girls watched him curiously as he set these down on the floor, and, taking tacks from his pocket and a hammer from his box, he proceeded to tack a piece of paper to the wall. Ester, from where she sat, could see that the paper was small, and that something was printed on it in close, fine type. It didn't look in the least like a handbill, or indeed like ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... seems those politicians are odious to both sides; for neither own them to be theirs. We know them, and so does he too in his conscience, to be secret whigs, if they are any thing; but now the designs of whiggism are openly discovered, they tack about to save a stake; that is, they will not be villains to their own ruin. While the government was to be destroyed, and there was probability of compassing it, no men were so violent as they; but since their fortunes are in hazard ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... hundred, Pretty, has been saved by the mercy of God, and come home, after being given over for dead, and told of all hands lost, I—I know a story, Heart's Delight," stammered the captain, "o' this natur', as was told to me once; and being on this here tack, and you and me sitting by the fire, maybe you'd like to hear me ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... in the same way. Now isn't there some way to come at him and get him to see it. When we're alone you talk about him domineering over you, but when he's here you let him say anything he wants to and you never try to help yourself. Why don't you strike out on a new tack and say you won't do it when he makes unreasonable demands? Why don't you reason with him good-naturedly, if you think that's better, without crying, I mean, and then if he won't ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... Doran! Be gorra, sir, she put her comedher an me entirely, so she did. Well, be my sowl, I'll be the flower of a husband to her anyhow. I hope your Reverence 'll come to the christ'nin'? But about the clo'es;—bad luck saize the tack I have to put to my back, but what you see an me, if we wor ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... her. She fired a gun and hoisted Spanish colours. At that time we were almost abreast of her, and Cochrane, who had the American colours ready, ordered them to be run up. This gave us time to get on to the other tack, and hold on till a little out of her direct line of fire. Then we at once pulled down the stars and stripes and hoisted the British ensign. The Spaniard fired a broadside, to which we made no reply. Our guns were trebly shotted, but Cochrane had given orders that not a shot was to be ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... knees, her calico dress sleeves, patched and darned, but absolutely clean, rolled back, uncovering a pair of plump, strong arms, a saucer of tacks before her, and a tack hammer with a claw head in her hand. She was taking up the carpet. Grace Van Horne, Captain Eben Hammond's ward, who had called to see if there was anything she might do to help, was removing towels, tablecloths, and the ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a god as he entered the room; nay, he acted like one. Schurz first took him in hand. With a lofty courtesy I have never seen equalled he tossed his inquisitor into the air. Halstead came next, and tried him upon another tack. He fared no better than Schurz. And hurrying to the rescue of my friends, McClure, looking now a bit bored and resentful, landed ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... bee-keeper to see when they have consumed all their food. The feeder is now complete, with one important exception; it has, as yet no way of admitting the bees. On the outside corners of one of the ends, glue or tack two strips, inch and a half wide, extending down to the bottom of the box, and half an inch from the top; fasten over them a piece of thin board, (paste-board will answer.) You have now a shallow passage without top or bottom, outside of your feeder; give it a top ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... the manuscript through; but she soon became fascinated in spite of herself. "Be tender to it, Sis, it's a part of myself," he had said when he handed it over to her. She thought she had detected a gleam of interest in his face, and felt that she was on the right tack. But Vincent's book was more than a part of himself, it was a fair transcript of the whole. His weakness and his strength were in it. She saw his vanity, his exaggeration; but also his sincerity, his manliness, his simple ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... not likely to be disappointed in that respect, although I have been out and home without having had to lift tack or sheet for weeks together," observed ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... it always come from. If their hearts had been full of the dinner He gave the five thousand hungry men and women and children, they wouldn't have been uncomfortable about not having a loaf. And so they wouldn't have been set upon the wrong tack when He spoke about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees; and they would have known in a moment what He meant. And if I hadn't been too much of the same sort, I wouldn't have started saying it was but reasonable to be in the ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... far from being as shrewd as the father, or he would have instantly chosen the proper tack; but he was like a vessel caught in stays, and experienced considerable internal pitching and jostling. In one sense it was a relief that the old man supposed him to be worth much more than was actually the case, but long experience hinted that a favorable assumption of this kind often led ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... "I don't see how we can talk. It keeps coming back again. I've had all those plants kept safe that you sent me, Rodney," she began, briskly, upon a fresh tack. ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... into insurrection. Jerusalem at the Passover was like a great magazine of combustibles, and into it Jesus flung a lighted brand amongst the inflammable substances that were gathered there. We have to remember, too, that all His life long He had gone exactly on the opposite tack. Remember how He betook Himself to the mountain solitudes when they wanted to make Him a king. Remember how He was always damping down Messianic enthusiasm. But here, all at once, He reverses His whole conduct, and deliberately sets Himself to make the most public and the most exciting possible ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Welcoming the chance, he resolved to enclose them north and south, to do which not an hour could be lost; even the fruits and wines and women of Naxos must be left behind. So he sailed away without stop or tack until, a little before nightfall, Mount Ocha was seen upreared against the sky, and the pilot ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... claim her for his wife. On the dresser stood a small photograph of him in a cheap frame; tacked over the head of the bed was a larger portrait. A small bow of dainty blue ribbon at the top covered the tack, and underneath was a bunch of violets, now withered, but a silent and touching ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... on; or you kin take it off and stir the fire with it in a way that would depress the spirits of a man with a real leg. It makes the most efficient potato-masher ever you saw. Work it from the second joint, and let the knee swing loose; you kin tack carpets perfectly splendid with the heel; and when a cat sees it coming at him from the winder, he just adjourns, sine die, and goes down off the fence screaming. Now, you're probably afeared of dogs. When you see one approaching, you always change your base. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... at the discovery. "Wa'al," he said, looking around as if to take the entire Posada into his confidence, "way up in North Liberty, where I kem from, he was allus known as Dick Demorest, and didn't tack any forrin titles to his name. Et wouldn't hev gone down there, I reckon, 'mongst free-born Merikin citizens, no mor'n aliases would in court—and I kinder guess for the same reason. But folks get peart and sassy when they're way from hum, and put on ez many airs as a buck ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... future. All this must have taken up the most of twenty minutes, yet after getting as far as Mr. Shylock's I remembered that I required what one's hatter (and no one else) calls a "boater," and back I went to order one in addition to the cap. And as the next tack fetches the buoy, so my next perambulation (in which, however, I was thinking seriously of a new bowler) brought me face to face ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... promising than the Hut was before Clarence and Geoff and I took hold of it. See, Elsie,—this room is done. I think Miss Young will choose it for her bedroom, as it is rather the largest; so you might tack up the dotted curtains here while I sweep the other rooms. And that convolvulus chintz is to ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... rang, and the children recognised the high towers, and the large town; it was that in which they dwelt. They entered and hastened up to their grandmother's room, where everything was standing as formerly. The clock said "tick! tack!" and the finger moved round; but as they entered, they remarked that they were now grown up. The roses on the leads hung blooming in at the open window; there stood the little children's chairs, and Kay and Gerda sat down on them, holding each other by the hand; they both had forgotten the cold ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Igloolik, there was such splendid weather, that I just used up a little coal to drive her along the coast of King William's Land; and there, as we waited for little duck-shooting on the edge of a floe one day, as our luck ordered, a party of natives came on board, and we treated them with hard-tack crumbs and whale-oil. They fell to dancing, and we to laughing,—they danced more and we laughed more, till the oldest woman tumbled in her bear-skin bloomers, and came with a smash right on the little cast-iron frame by the wheel, which ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... re flect' taint ca nal' ex pand' re fresh' trail cra vat' a bet' re lent' aim de camp' be deck' re ject' maim pro tract' be held' re quest' train re cant' be quest' re bel' strain re fract' de fect' re gress' chain re lax' e lect' re press' paint at tack' e rect' sub ject quaint at tract' e ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... they sailed, and each craft they hailed; While down in the cabin they bailed and bailed; For the sea was rough, and they had to luff And tack, till the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... we the long, unvarying course, the track Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind; Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack, And each well-known caprice of wave and wind; Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find, Cooped in their winged sea-girt citadel; The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind, As breezes rise and fall, and billows swell, Till on some jocund morn—lo, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... tack remembrances to Mrs. Williams and your daughters and Miss Kavanagh to all my letters, because that makes an empty form of what should be a sincere wish, but I trust this mark of courtesy and regard, though rarely expressed, is always ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... happened to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks before and its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes, then he would come to, and by that time she would be away down wind on another tack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment—but only just a moment—then it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... him, discussing him floridly once with Querida at the Thumb-tack Club in the presence of a dozen others, characterised him as "one of those passively selfish snobs whose virtues are all negative and whose modesty is the mental complacency of ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... the subject rapidly exhausting itself and tried one more tack. "Yes, it's simpler than I supposed," I admitted, "but it doesn't seem quite an every-day thing to sell the Balaklava Coronal ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... a true conception of our future. We shall have, beyond question, the ordinary collapse of speculation that follows a sudden expansion of paper currency. We shall have that shivering and expectant period when the sails flap and the ship trembles ere it takes the wind on the new tack. But it is no idle boast to say that there never was a country with such resources as ours. In Europe the question about a man always is, What is he? Here it is as invariably, What does he do? And in that little difference lies the security of our national debt for whoever has eyes. ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... acted the martinet with MacRae, he took another tack and became the very essence of affability toward me. (I'd have enjoyed punching his proud head, for all that; it was a dirty way to serve a man who had done ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... what he said, you see; it was the way he said it. I've made more fuss before now over pounding my finger with a tack hammer. And I did a lot of talking myself in that next minute or two. A man can say a whole lot that is almost worth while when he talks strictly to himself. It wasn't alone the fact that he had been able to get back on ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... doing?" Jim demanded fiercely, but the man only drove another tack. It was Mr. Harbison who stepped outside ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... time. I thought the night would be over and the daylight come before it was all done; it was so slow. I could hear the tick-tack of his iron every time he knocked one of the spikes in. Of course he went higher every time. They were just far enough apart for a man to get his foot on from one to another. As he went up he had one end of the coil of the rope round his wrist. When he ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... He tried another tack. 'Still, wherever you went, this man Higginson—the only other person, you admit, who knows about the previous existence of the will—turned up simultaneously. He was always turning up—at the same place as you did. He turned up at Lucerne, ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... the myriad heads assembled in the infinitesimal photograph which you view through one of those little half-inch lorgnettes; and you had the satisfaction of knowing that to any lovely infinitesimality yonder you showed no bigger than a carpet-tack. The whole performance now seemed to be worked by those tireless figures pumping at the organ, in obedience to signals from a very alert figure on the platform below. The choral and orchestral thousands sang and piped and played; and at a given point in the scena from Verdi, a hundred fairies ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... his face. He looked at his sturdy arms, and took the only resolution possible; he began to row with all his might toward the island of Talim. The sun was coming up. The bark shot rapidly over the water; on the falua, which changed its tack, Elias ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... rules the sea or sky, The perjured villains promise to comply, And bid me hasten to unmoor the ship. With eager joy I launch into the deep; And, heedless of the fraud, for Naxos stand: They whisper oft, and beckon with the hand, And give me signs, all anxious for their prey, To tack about, and steer another way. 80 "Then let some other to my post succeed," Said I, "I'm guiltless of so foul a deed." "What," says Ethalion, "must the ship's whole crew Follow your humour, and depend on you?" ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... piece of brass in both states, a piece of iron in both states, a piece of steel in both states, a piece of tinfoil, a piece of solder, a screw, a clasp nail, a clout nail, a hob nail, a spike nail, a sparable, and a tack. ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... what they had left. Of course I had to write my little copy of verses with the rest; here it is, if you will hear me read it. When the sun is in the west, vessels sailing in an easterly direction look bright or dark to one who observes them from the north or south, according to the tack they are sailing upon. Watching them from one of the windows of the great mansion, I saw these ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... ages by heart from his world-bible, the "Peerage:" as this is an indisputable fact, and as it is in this particular class of Britons that our agent must look to find clients, I need not say it is necessary that the agent should be as high-born as possible, and that he should be able to tack, if possible, an honorable or some other handle to his respectable name. He must have it on his ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on the staff of General Meade. The Colonel invited us to take supper with him and some of his friends, and the kind and unexpected proposal was gladly accepted, for recently we had had nothing but hard-tack to satiate our hunger. At sunset he sent a guard to conduct us to his tent, which was large and comfortable. We found the table well supplied with a variety of savory eatables, and we were struck by the contrast of the tent and the table ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... hair. Just let anybody try to stop him! He knew what he was about! But he really didn't know what he was about; he hadn't the slightest notion as to whether he would go up and invite their dear cribbage-companion Mrs. Carter to come and see them or tack up a "T ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... the wind was such that they could steer well clear of it. But the channel leading to the harbour was very sinuous, and, as the pilot observed, required careful steering. In one part this channel was so crooked that it became necessary to go on the other tack a short distance. In ordinary circumstances the captain would have thought nothing of this, but he felt anxious just then, because some of the stores and cordage furnished by mistake to him had been intended for ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... as were liable to float off, and I looked out for some passing boat or vessel to pick us up. We were drifting steadily out to sea, while I was signaling to a boat about three miles off, toward Saucelito, and saw her tack and stand toward us. I was busy watching this sail-boat, when I heard a Yankee's voice, close behind, saying, "This is a nice mess you've got yourselves into," and looking about I saw a man in a small ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Colonial Secretary; "burnt, sir; disgracefully burnt up to a cinder, sir. I have been consulting the honourable member for the Cross-jack-yard (I allude to Mr. Tack's N.C., my honourable friend, if he will allow me to call him so) as to the propriety of calling a court-martial on the cook's mate. He informs me that such a course is not usual in naval jurisprudence. I am, however, of opinion that in one of the civil courts of the colony an action for damages ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... Walters did, get a cup of coffee and a hard-tack; that'll go way ahead of nothin' ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... mothers use no pins in the dressing of their children; they tack every part that requires fastening with a needle and thread. They do not even use pins to fasten the baby's diapers. They make the diapers with loops and tapes, and thus altogether supersede the use of pins in the dressing of an infant. The plan is a good one, takes very ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... answer? Should she condole with the man because he had to work? It did not seem prudent! She would try another tack! ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... look, "my secrecy about the matter has puzzled my father to such an extent that his confidence in me is entirely shaken. I have been all my life accustomed to open all my heart to him, and now, without rhyme or reason, as he thinks, I have suddenly gone right round on the other tack, and at the same time, as he says, I have taken up with doubtful ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... padre, but look here, I'm not a Christian, and I take a common-sense view of these things, but I'm bound to say I think you're on the wrong tack, too. Didn't Christ have compassion on people like that? Didn't He eat and drink with publicans ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... tack, just as it's wanted. But there was Moffat, yesterday, in a room behind the milliner's shop near Cuthbert's Gate; I was with him. The woman's husband is one of the choristers and an elector, you know, and ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Lost of Milton, or the tragedies of Shakespeare; the effect indeed may be seen by comparing, with some of the noblest speeches of the latter, the few couplets which he seems to have considered himself bound by custom to tack on to their close, at the end of a ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... of the ladder in a new regiment that is to be recruited. Meanwhile I was put through the manual of arms, with a lot of other awkward fellows, by a drill officer. I kept shady and told my people to be mum until something came out of it all. Come, fellows, thirteen dollars a month, hard tack, and glory! ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... speak. The world is nothing but babble; and I hardly ever yet saw that man who did not rather prate too much, than speak too little. And yet half of our age is embezzled this way: we are kept four or five years to learn words only, and to tack them together into clauses; as many more to form them into a long discourse, divided into four or five parts; and other five years, at least, to learn succinctly to mix and interweave them after a subtle and intricate manner let us leave ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... N.W. Being at this time in the latitude of 56 deg. 4' S., longitude 53 deg. 36' W., we sounded, but found no bottom with a line of one hundred and thirty fathoms. I still kept the wind on the larboard-tack, having a gentle breeze and pleasant weather. On the 8th, at noon, a bed of sea-weed passed the ship. In the afternoon, in latitude 55 deg. 4', longitude 51 deg. 43' W., the variation was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr |
