"Weft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more threads than one in the split, and by adopting this we can make cloth in our day having between 400 and 500 in the inch. However, the ancient cloths are much finer in the warp than woof, probably from want of appliance for driving the threads of the weft close enough, as they do not appear to have lays as we have for this purpose. Pliny refers to the remains of a linen corselet, presented by Amasis, king of Egypt, to the Rhodians, each thread of which was composed of 365 fibres: "Herodotus mentions this corselet, and another presented by Amasis ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... he strove to lay bare the very substance of the soul beneath the crust of dogma and the froth of traditional beliefs; nor does it seem to have occurred to him that, while he stripped the rags and patches that conceal the nakedness of ordinary human nature, he might drag away the weft and woof of nobler thought. In his poet-philosopher's imagination there bloomed a wealth of truth and love and beauty so abounding, that behind the mirage he destroyed, he saw no blank, but a new Eternal City of the ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... weft of sky, and castles stare High from a wizard shore, Sun-arrowed, tower-strong; Gold parapets in air Down-pour, down-pour Sea-falls of peri song; Then earth, the dragon's lair; Cave eyes and burning breath; And the lance the Grail lords ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... a strange sight, the tall, pillar-like clouds sweeping along over the level sand like so many parts of a vast machine preparing warp and weft for spinning a garment to clothe the earth, and there were moments when the pillars were so regular in distance and motion that it seemed impossible not to believe ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... butter, however, the play was growing scene by scene. In the lone hours of the night he spun upon the loom of his fancy a brilliant weft of swift desire—heavy, perfumed, Oriental—interwoven with bits of gruesome tenderness. The thread of his own life intertwined with the thread of the story. All genuine art is autobiography. It is not, however, necessarily a revelation of the artist's actual self, but of ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... the spokes of a wheel, from a point in the centre, where they were all made fast and connected together. As soon as this radiating framework or scaffolding was finished, like the woof on a loom, the industrious craftswoman started at the middle, and began the task of putting in the cross-pieces or weft which were to complete and bind together the circular pattern. These she wove round and round in a continuous spiral, setting out at the centre, and keeping on in ever-widening circlets, till she arrived at last at the exterior or foundation threads. How she fastened these ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... was safe enough, where all was weed and weft, And the conger-eels were a-making meals, and the pick of the tackle left Was a binnacle-lid and a leak in the bilge and the chip of a cracked sheerstrake And the corporal's belt and the moke's cool pelt and a portrait of ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... I left, 'Midst dames and maids who stood to aid; They wrapped me first in silken weft, And ...
— The Verner Raven; The Count of Vendel's Daughter - and other Ballads • Anonymous
... to a bower, and there they were all lost to his sight. He went to that bower and looked in through a window slit that was in it, and saw that there were women inside, and they had set up a loom. Men's heads were the weights, but men's entrails were the warp and weft, a sword was the shuttle, ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... of thought; and theirs is a consciousness of warring history; of dominion long since taken from them, and debauched like pearls by swine; of hope, eternally upwelling, born of love of their trampled fatherland. They began to sing, and the weft and woof of their songs were grief for all those things and a cherished, secret promise that a limit had been set ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... feelings of relief, also, that Burns left the super-scholarly litterateurs; 'white curd of asses' milk,' he called them; gentlemen who reminded him of some spinsters in his country who 'spin their thread so fine that it is neither fit for weft nor woof.' To such men, recognising only the culture of schools, a genius like Burns was a puzzle, easier dismissed than solved. Burns saw them, in all their tinsel of academic tradition, ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... dance Before my startled gaze quivering did wake. Fair is thy woof, soft woven, yet the snake Out-dazzles it. The beetle that doth boom Its dull life out among the tangled gloom, Lift his wide wing above thy weft, or trail His splendor there, and thy poor web will pale; Yea, the red wayside lily that doth snare The girdled bee, is softer still, more fair Than finest woven cloth." But tenderly She smoothed the gleaming folds. "Much pleaseth me, Natlhess," ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... and beater-in. All being ready for the weaving, the shed is opened by raising one of the heddle sticks, and a heavy knife-shaped batten of wood is slipped into the opening. This is turned sideways to enlarge the shed, and a shuttle bearing the weft thread is shot through. By raising and lowering the heddle rods the position of the warp is changed as desired, while from time to time the weft threads are forced up against the fabric by means of the reed board, and are beaten in with the batten. Tangling is prevented ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... the possessor? A new Mdlle. de Maupin, with royal lily and aureole, cloud-capped mountains, great gulfs of sea-water flowing up and reflecting as in a mirror the steep cliff's side; the straight white feet are set thereon, the obscuring weft of flesh is torn, and the pure, strange soul continues its mystical exhortations. Then the radiant vision, a white glory, the last outburst and manifestation, the trumpets of the apocalypse, the colour of heaven; the closing of the stupendous allegory when Seraphita lies ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... to weave too fine or far, O queen, the weft of sweet with bitter speech, Bright words with darkling; but the brief truth shown Shall plead my pardon for a lingering tongue, 1490 Loth yet to strike hope through the heart and slay. The sun's light still was lordly housed in heaven When the twain fronts of war encountering ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... he could not raise himself without assistance. He heard with some pleasure that they were now running right for the Wampool river, and that he would be put on shore in a very short time. The vessel accordingly lay to, and presently showed a weft in her ensign, which was hastily answered by signals from on shore. Men and horses were seen to come down the broken path which leads to the shore; the latter all properly tackled for carrying their loading. Twenty fishing ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... of the storm Far away amid the hills, Like the humming of a swarm That the summer forest fills; And a frequent fall of rain From a cloud with ragged weft; And a burst of wind amain From the ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... carpet making," she says in the Manuscript Memoir of her life, "we carried on the manufacture of shalloons and plainbacks, the whole of which I managed myself, so far as putting out the warps and weft, and taking in from the weavers. We had at one time as many as a hundred and sixty hand weavers on these goods. We sold the principal part of them in London. We had also about four looms making brace webs and body belts. The produce of these looms I sold principally to the Irish, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... the silver'd lakes, Chaste Goddess of the sweet, still shrines. The jocund river fitful makes, By sudden, deep gloom'd brakes, Close shelter'd by close weft and woof of vine, Spilling a shadow gloomy-rich as wine, Into the silver throne where thou dost sit, Thy silken leaves ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... us in the inn. We were sent, attended by a boy with a lantern, through fields of dew-drenched barley and folded poppies, to a farmhouse overshadowed by four spreading pines. Exceedingly soft and grey, with rose-tinted weft of steam upon its summit, stood Vesuvius above us in the twilight. Something in the recent impression of the dimly lighted supper-room, and in the idyllic simplicity of this lantern-litten journey ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... warp is stretched For warriors' fall, Lo! weft in loom 'Tis wet with blood; Now fight foreboding, 'Neath friends' swift fingers, Our gray woof waxeth With war's alarms, Our ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... find expression somewhere in her daughter. But where? Evelyn's mouth was thin and it drooped at the ends.... But she was only twenty; at five-and-twenty, at thirty, she might be possessed by new ideas, new passions.... The moment we look into life and examine the weft a little, what a mystery it becomes, how occult the design, and out of what impenetrable darkness the shuttle passes, weaving a strange pattern, harmonious in a way, and yet deducible to none of our laws! This little adventure, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... pairs, but large quantities of bags are made from cloths with single warp threads. In both cases the weave used for the cloth is that shown at A in the figure, but when double threads of warp are used, the arrangement is equivalent to the weave shown at B. The interlacings of the two sets of warp and weft for single and double warp are shown respectively at C and D, the black marks indicating the warp threads, and the white or blanks showing the weft. The particular style of bagging depends, naturally, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... wise, how brave, he was, how well He bore himself, let history tell While waves our flag o'er land and sea, No black thread in its warp or weft; He found dissevered States, he left A grateful ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... stuffed, smooth, or with remnants of the veil giving it a floccose scaly appearance, usually ascending because of the crowded growth. The veil is thin and only manifested in the young stage of the plant as a loose weft of threads. As the cap expands the veil is torn and adheres to the margin, ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... into the meadow where the snow battle was to be, and on its slope, against the dark weft of the young birch-trees, there was a mimic castle outlined in the masonry of white blocks quarried from the drifts and built up in courses like rough blocks of marble. A decoration of green from the pines that mixed with the birches had been suggested rather ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... pale, or covered with a white dust. The spermatia are very small, spherical, and smooth, scarcely equalling .002 mm. They are sessile, sometimes solitary, sometimes three or four together, on the slightly swollen extremities of certain filaments of the weft of the fungus.[P] Tulasne found it impossible to make these corpuscles germinate, and in all essential particulars they agreed with the spermatia found ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... his friends, and he gave more than their share of commendation to the Wallaces, out of respect to his friend Mrs. Dunlop. Of the critics of Edinburgh he said, they spun the thread of their criticisms so fine that it was unfit for either warp or weft; and of its scholars, he said, they were never satisfied with any Scottish poet, unless they could trace him in Horace. One morning at Dr. Blair's breakfast-table, when the "Holy Fair" was the subject of conversation, the reverend critic said, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... The weft of the world was untorn That is woven of the day on the night, The hair of the hours was not white Nor the raiment of time overworn, When a wonder, a world's delight, A perilous goddess was born, And the waves of the sea ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... fiber collection (139544) and in a group of woven fragments (139554). None was found in connection with the finished articles of the collection, so that their use is purely conjectural. The warp is generally 2-ply, Z-twist, medium- to hard-twist cordage; the weft is the same, but generally lighter in weight than ...
— A Burial Cave in Baja California - The Palmer Collection, 1887 • William C. Massey
... th'Office you assign me; hold the door! alas, 'tis nothing for a simple man to stay without, when a deep understanding holds conference within, say with his Wife: a trifle, Sir. I know I hold my Farm by Cuckolds Tenure; you are Lord o'th' Soil, Sir. Lilly is a Weft, a stray, she's yours to use, Sir, I claim no ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... as from a star Voices come o'er the line; Voices of ghosts afar, Not in this world of mine; Lives in whose loom I grope; Words in whose weft I hear Eager the thrill of hope, Awful ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... work—embellishment, enrichment, added. If added, there must first of all be something it is added to—the material, that is to say, on which the needlework is done. In weaving (even tapestry weaving) the pattern is got by the inter-threading of warp and weft. In lace, too, it is got out of the threads which make the stuff. In embroidery it is got by threads worked on a fabric first of all woven on the loom, or, ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... nature and a tree. Buffon says that the chain of nature is not a single long chain, but is comparable rather to something woven, "which at certain intervals throws out a branch sideways that unites it with the strands of some other weft."[135] On the following page there is a passage which has been quoted as an example of Buffon's contempt for the men of science of his time. The writer maintains that the most lucid arrangement of birds, would have been to begin with ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... reservation, did his gentle and graceful rider. The maiden looked well in a place like that, as indeed in almost any place; but now she especially set off the color of things, and was set off by them. For instance, how could the silver of the dew-cloud, and golden weft of sunrise, playing through the dapples of a partly wooded glen, do better (in the matter of variety) than frame a pretty moving figure in a pink checked frock, with a skirt of russet murrey, and a bright brown hat? Not that the hat itself was bright, even under the kiss ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... were I but a minstrel, deft At weaving, with the trembling strings Of my glad harp, the warp and weft Of rondels such as rapture sings,— I'd loop my lyre across my breast, Nor stay me till my knee found rest In midnight banks of bud and flower Beneath ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... lives are mysteries, and rarely scanned As we read stories writ by mortal pen. We can perchance but catch a straying weft And trace the hinted texture here or there, Of that stupendous loom weaving our fates. Two parents, late in life, are haply blessed With one bright child, a wonder in his years, For loveliness and genius versatile: Some ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner |
