"Blade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... began to tell. I felt powerless, and his eyes gleamed with fiendish triumph. He raised the shining blade preparatory to sheathing it in my body, when I suddenly felt the ground giving way beneath my feet, and in less time than it takes to relate it, we were rolling over a precipice with a sheer fall of about ten feet. The savage ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... to ask For friendship's aid; Deign not to wear a mask Nor wield a coward's blade, But still persist, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... circle each other, waiting an opportunity to strike, which presently came to my opponent, who aimed a blow at me which I caught when his blade was within an inch of my heart. Putting forth my strength I strove to force his hand so that with his own blade he might kill or wound himself, but after a desperate struggle he broke away. Not a word was spoken by the onlookers, and no sound was heard save ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... crowd was aroused to fury by a bugler from the adjoining barracks playing retreat at the moment of decision. All at once the matador seizes the favorable instant. He poises his sword as the bull rushes upon him. The point enters just between the left shoulder and the spine; the long blade glides in up to the hilt. The bull reels and staggers and dies. Sometimes the matador severs the vertebrae. The effect is like magic. He lays the point of his sword between the bull's horns, as lightly as a lady who touches her cavalier with ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... and piteous manner begged him to lend him his knife. Joe drew it from his pocket, but could not brace his nerves sufficiently to venture within the suffocating man's reach. At length he bethought him of his pole, and opening the blade thrust it in the end of it and cautiously handed it to Sneak. Sneak immediately ran the sharp steel through the many folds of the snake, and it fell to the ground in a dozen pieces! The poor man's strength ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... weapons; "his powder had a good kernel, and he kept it dry; his pistols were of excellent proof; the barrels true, and clean, the trigger went easy, the caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his poignard; the blade had a good temper, stiff enough and yet springy withal; the point was sharp."[213] After the immediate danger was over and Knight and Hughes had avoided the city, where they had received such welcome from the friends of this Court, such was the tone of the political newspapers and ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... farmer is going to sell out and Peabody wants a wagon. So I have to ride that horse fourteen miles and back —and he has a backbone like a razor blade!—to buy a wagon; that is, if no ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... passage which I will show you, which is hidden from the wild beasts, to the Serpent's palace. You will find the King asleep upon his bed, which is all hung round with bells, and over his bed you will see a sword hanging. With this sword only it is possible to kill the Serpent, because even if its blade breaks a new one will grow again for every head the monster has. Thus you will be able to cut off all his seven heads. And this you must also do in order to deceive the King: you must slip into his bed-chamber very softly, and stop up all the bells which ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... Silly Shepheards gray cloake, and arm'd with a paltery sheephooke? And yet no pety God, no God that gads by the mountaines, But the triumphantst God that beares any sway in Olympus: Which many times hath made man-murdring Mars to be cursing His blood-sucking blade; and prince of watery empire Earth-shaking Neptune, his threeforckt mace to be leaving, And Jove omnipotent, as a poore and humble obeissant, His three-flak't lightnings and thunderbolts ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... mouth the horn he drew—(it hung below his cloak) His ten true men the signal knew, and through the ring they broke; With helm on head, and blade in hand, the knights the circle brake, And back the lordlings 'gan to stand, and the false ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... the eyes of the happy leaves! How whispers each blade, "I am blest!" Rosy heaven his lips to flowered earth gives, With the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... years ago I vowed to Heaven upon my falchion blade To build the tower; and to this hour my vow hath not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... sort of single combat, without any object but to try each other's powers and temper—ensued between them; in which the one on the offensive came on with a tomahawk, and the other stood on the defensive parrying with a polished blade of Damascus; and sometimes, when the adversary was off his guard, making a sly cut at an ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... in the open wilderness. The stars are in my heart by night, I sing beneath the opening light, As envious of the bird; I live Upon the payment, yet I give My soul to every growing tree That in the narrow ways I see. My heart is in the blade of grass Within the courtyard where I pass; And the small, half-discovered cloud Compels me till I cry aloud. I am the wind that beats the walls And wander trembling till it falls; The snow, the summer rain am I, In ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... who seeks protection shall be safe. The humbled foe who seeks thine aid, Thou mayst not smite with steely blade. Be ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... You will pay more taxes in the future, and be mulcted in a fine. It is disquieting, indeed, to find our acts so spied upon, and the most private known. But is this new? Have we not long feared and suspected every blade ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... melons in a row on the oilcloth-covered table and stood over them, brandishing a butcher knife. Before the blade got fairly into them, they split of their own ripeness, with a delicious sound. He gave us knives, but no plates, and the top of the table was soon swimming with juice and seeds. I had never seen anyone eat so many melons as Peter ate. He assured us that they were good for one—better than medicine; ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... shape. Only the first lion awaits their onset, the other two are in full flight. The whole work is characterized by extraordinary vivacity; but it is the technique that is of interest. The picture is made up out of various metals inlaid on a thin bronze plate, which is let into the dagger-blade. The lions and the bare skin of the men are inlaid in gold, the loin-cloths and the shields are of silver, all the accessories, such as shield-straps and the patterns on the loin-cloths, are given in a dark substance, ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... turned to the subject of fruit and shade trees in a garden. There are those who say that trees shade the garden too much, and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may be something in this: but when I go down the potato rows, the rays of the sun glancing upon my shining blade, the sweat pouring from my face, I should be grateful for shade. What is a garden for? The pleasure of man. I should take much more pleasure in a shady garden. Am I to be sacrificed, broiled, roasted, for the sake of the increased vigor of a few vegetables? The thing is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... not a physical affair at all, but an affair of the soul. You may be spiritually bald-headed at twenty-five or a romping young blade at eighty. Byron was ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... young blade who for thirty years had been the Beau Brummel of George Brotherton's establishment; but a rather weazened little man whose mind illumined a face that still clung to sportive youth, while premature age was claiming ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... to explain his dealings with the rogue Lapo. There is also trouble about a sword-hilt(94) Michael Angelo had designed for Pietro Aldobrandini. However, Aldobrandini objected that the blade was too short. Michael Angelo affirmed that it was ordered exactly to the measure sent, and bade his brother present it to Filippo Strozzi as a compliment from the Buonarroti family; but the stupid fellow bungled it in some way, for Michael Angelo ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... Isot, claims to have achieved the deed, but his fraud is exposed through the machinations of the women. Queen Isot and her daughter have recognized in Tristan their former acquaintance Tantris, and when polishing his armour the princess finds the sword with a gap in its blade exactly fitting the splinter which she has taken from Morold's skull. She now realizes who Tristan is, and, filled with anger and hatred, she goes with the sword to where Tristan is in his bath, determined to wreak instant vengeance upon the slayer of her uncle. Tristan cries for mercy, obscurely ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... warriors have brandished their swords right royally, and such splendor has flashed from Excalibur and Morglay that our dazzled eyes have scarcely discerned the brawny smith who not only stood in the twilight of the background and fashioned with skilful hand the blade which radiates such light, but passed through all the land, changing huts into houses, houses into homes, and transforming into a garden by his skill the wilderness which had been rescued by the sword. Vigorous brains, clear eyes, sturdy arms have wrought out, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... closer spirals of dark blue Were never seen than in his cheek's tattoo; Fine as if engine turned those cheeks declared No cost to fee the artist had been spared; That many a basket of good maize had made That craftsman careful how he tapped his blade, And many a greenstone trinket had been given To get his chisel-flint ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... back like a snail, and confident the others would do their part, Keith thrust his knife blade deep into the narrow crack, and began probing after the latch. In spite of all caution this effort caused a slight noise, and suddenly he started back, at the sound ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... My husband blasphemes the fierce winds and extreme cold in a very picturesque manner; but the disapprobation he feels is a moral ope, not a physical discomfort. He cleaves the air like a Damascus blade, so finely attempered that he is unharmed. I never knew any person in such fine health as he is; because he is not obtusely well—he has no brute force; but every part of his frame seems in perfect diapason, like a bird's. I should be afraid of him if he were in ferocious ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... that I goes there for nothing except to keep up my burial. And with all the work there is upon this place, the Lord only knows when I may be requiring of it. Ah! I never see the like; I never did. And a blade of grass the wrong way comes down on ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... shoulders, and her hair was dressed with lace and drooping flowers. Her arms, not fat but dimpled, were graced by deep ruffles to her sleeves. She was like a luscious fruit coquettishly served in a handsome dish, and making the knife-blade long to be ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... the Angel bade poor Margaret enter. As she passed the threshold, she dropped a blade of straw—straw from her bed—that bed which she had set alight to save the people on the ice, and lo! it had changed into gold! dazzling gold! yet flexible withal, and ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... of "To-morrow;" A superficial wit, who 'll write For Shandy little books of spite, When cash he wants to borrow. The pious soul who 's driving by, And at the poet looks so shy, Is parson A- the gambler;{37} His deaf-lugg'd daddy a known blade In Pandemonium's fruitful trade, 'Mong Paphians a rambler. Augusta H-ke (or C-i) moves Along the path—her little doves— Decoys, upon each arm. Where 's Jehu Martin, four-in-hand, An exile in a foreign land From fear of legal charm. A pensioner of Cyprian queen, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... hot blood of the nation beat high; With rapture she catches the rallying cry: From mountain and valley and hamlet they come! On every side echoes the roll of the drum. A people as firm, as united, as bold, As ever drew blade for the blessings they hold, Step sternly and solemnly forth in their might, And swear on their altars to die ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... bare spot of the prairie he discerned the print of a hoof. It was not that of one of the train's animals. Alfred knew this, because just to one side of it, caught under a grass-blade so cunningly that only the little scout's eyes could have discerned it at all, was a single blue bead. Alfred rode out on the prairie to right and left, and found the hoof-prints of about thirty ponies. He pushed his hat back and wrinkled his brow, ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... Max threw away the seaweed and picked up one of the abundant black flint pebbles. For some moments he amused himself by striking sparks from it with the back of a knife blade. ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... proceeded to draw his sword in earnest, he found himself purely and simply armed with a stump of a sword about eight or ten inches in length, which the host had carefully placed in the scabbard. As to the rest of the blade, the master had slyly put that on one side to ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... silence than itself, each stalk Of flower just swayed by it, we'll walk, Mary and I, when every fowl Hides beak and eyes in breast, the owl Only awake to hoot."—But clover Is beaten down now, and birds hover, Peering for shelter round; no blade Of grass stands sharp and tall; men wade Thro' mire with frequent plashing sting Of rain upon their faces. Sing, Then, Mary, to me thro' the dark: But kiss me first: my hand shall mark Time, pressing yours the while ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... rushing sound as of a strong wind beaten through with wings, and a Voice, grand and sweet as a golden trumpet blown suddenly in the silence of night, answered: 'HERE! ... AND EVERYWHERE!' With that, a slanting stream of opaline radiance cleft the gloom with the sweep of a sword-blade, and I was caught up quickly ... I know not how ... ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the sole performer. His function is to entice the bull towards him by waving the muleta or red flag, and, standing in front of the animal, to inflict the death-wound by plunging his sword between the left shoulder and the blade. "The teams of mules now enter, glittering with flags and tinkling with bells, whose gay decorations contrast with the stern cruelty and blood; the dead bull is carried off at a rapid gallop, which always delights the populace."—Handbook for Spain, by Richard ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... which was like that of a mischievous boy amusing himself by breaking a bird's wings and legs. Nor shall I ever forget the man's stupefaction when he saw that his dagger no longer consisted of anything but the pommel and a harmless and ridiculously small stump of the blade, just long enough to keep it in its sheath. His fury was revealed by a splutter of curses and he at once rushed at one of his friends and snatched ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... lying upon the table, which was believed to be the cause of death, until the arrival of the coroner and Mr. Mahr's own physician, when it was discovered that the victim's heart had been pierced by a very slender blade or stiletto. The wound was so small and the aperture closed by the head of the weapon in such a manner that no blood ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... the brave. The brave Respect the dead; but you—you draw That ancient blade, the ass's jaw, And shake it ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... "To inspection, sweet love, all my castle I leave, "But remember with this key be on the quivive! "It is not a natural key—think of that! "My sword's in the key of one sharp, and that's flat! "(Then he half drew his blade, and it was sharp ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... toward the fat bad actor. On the way his hand encountered the blade of an oaken oar. Thereafter for the next twenty feet he trailed the oar after him. He came within range and above the head of the fat bad actor lifted the ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... Before the blowpipe on a piece of wood charcoal it gives off fumes of sulphur, fuses, boils, and finally leaves a globule of copper. In nitric acid it dissolves, but the sulphur in combination with it separates as a white powder. A steel knife blade placed in this solution receives a coating of copper ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... on the seriousness of this event—my first fight in earnest—he was keeping me busy to parry his point and watch his dagger at the same time. I was half-surprised at my own success in turning away his blade, but after I had guarded myself from three or four thrusts, I took to mind that offence is the best defence, and ventured a lunge, which he stopped with his dagger only in the nick of time to save his breast. His look of being almost caught gave me encouragement, making me realize I had received ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Helen carved, and the beauty of its slimness gave her joy; but suddenly the blade slipped, and she saw blood on Helen's hand and, rushing from the table to the garden, ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... in a saucepan a teacupful of barley, an onion, a small piece of cinnamon, half a blade of mace and three pints of water in which potatoes have been boiled. When the mixture boils remove from the center of the fire and allow to simmer slowly for three hours or more. Pass through a fine sieve ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... A blade and a setting that has the colors of a simple sample of right resolution is so sweet that there is ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... his blade back into its sheath. "Then that's over and done with, for the nonce at least! Sufficient unto the day, etcetera. 'S life! I'm hot and dry! You've sacked cities, Ralph Percy; now sack me the minister's closet and bring out ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... prolongations. Judging from the height at which it grows, it would probably prove hardy in this country, and, if so, the distinct aspect and graceful habit of the tree would render it a decided acquisition. It is a moderate-sized tree, with thin gray bark, and slender, drooping warted branches. The blade of the smooth leave measures from 3 inches to 4 inches in length, the hairy leaf-stalk being about half an inch long. It is a native of Himalaya, where it occurs at elevations of from 5000 to 7000 feet above sea-level. As in our common hornbeam, the male catkins appear before the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... are those of the black walnut, but thicker than are those of the Persian walnut. When well matured, the shell of the heartnut tends to open slightly at the apex, after which it can be readily split in half with a knife blade. The flavor of the kernel is much like that of the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... chilled iron hulling-plate with pyramidal teeth cast on the plate. Both are adjustable to different varieties of coffee. In still another type of machine, the hulling takes place between steel ribs on an internal cylinder, and an adjustable knife, or hulling blade, in ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... such fine steel was Balisarda's blade, That arms against it little shelter were; And by a person of such puissance swayed, By Roland, singe in the world or rare, It splits the shield, and is in nowise stayed, Though bound about with steel the edges are: It splits the shield, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... your beds. Part the heads into seuerall cloues, and euery cloue set in the latter end of February, will increase to a great head before September: good for opening, euill for eyes: when the blade is long, fast two & two together, ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... Show me the man, and come he cased in steel, In complete panoply and pride of war, Ay, guarded by a thousand men-at-arms, Yet I shall reach him through their spears, and feel The last black drop of blood from his black heart Crawl down my blade. Show me the man, I say, ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... me a stave of song, the Master said, On yonder cherry-bough, whose white and red Hangs in the sunset over those green seas. The young knight looked upon his untried blade, Then shrugged his wings of gold and blue brocade: How should a warrior play ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... This is the place first identified by Robinson, who says nothing about the remains, with Ezion-geber, while Dean Stanley ("Sinai," etc., p. 85) opines that we have no means of fixing the position of the "Giant's shoulder-blade."[EN128] Josephus ("Antiq.," viii. 6, 4) places it near lana; and the present distance from the sea, like that of Heroopolis (Shaykh el-Ajrd?) from Suez, may show the rise of the Wady el-'Arabah within historic times. The Shaykh assured us that "Mar" was to be found everywhere ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... gone, the parents looked at each other and shook their heads. They knew that Viola was feeling keenly on account of something but felt that her cheerful nature would soon throw it off. But the blade was in her heart deeper than they knew. Viola entered her room, fastening the door behind her. She went to her desk, secured the three letters that she had written and placed them on the floor a few inches apart in a position where they would attract immediate ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... vegetables would not be wasted. But the practical people only laughed at economic platitudes. Vegetable seeds were in great demand, and families were everywhere to be seen reclaiming their ten by ten feet patches of common-age—where half a blade of grass had never grown before! Some enthusiasts, to enlarge their holdings, went even so far as to pull down their untenanted fowl-houses. The soil was not so favourable to horticulture as it might have been, but the best was made of it. Inspired by a determination to live as long as possible ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... the astonished Indians beheld the statue with a menacing rifle at its shoulder. Then came a flash and a report. The Indians ducked, and the blade of the steersman's paddle, poised in mid-air, was shattered ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... from England. Let our manufacturers at home look to this in time, and, eschewing the spirit of gain, cease to make cutting tools like Peter Pindar's razors. In the finer departments, such as surgical and other scientific instruments, Jonathan is as far astern; and, although he may use a sword-blade very well, he has not yet ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... your sister or you plant a grain or grains of corn for me, and watch them into various stages of germination.[42] I want to study the mode of root and blade development. And I am sure you two will know best how ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... as much a question of experience as of temperament, and, as it happened, she had, like other women in that country, seen men struck down by half-trained horses, crushed by collapsing strawpiles, and once or twice gashed by a mower blade. This was no doubt why she remembered that the impatient team would probably move on if she left the sleigh, and she drove them to the first of the birches before she got down. Then she knotted the reins about a branch, and ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... shots, should have a fairly straight face with very little loft upon it. It should have a thick blade, should be fairly heavy, and its shaft should be stout and stiff. This makes a powerful club, with which some fine long work can be accomplished. I am inclined to think that one reason why so many players find it extremely difficult to get good work out ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... of her solitary friend she flew to Copsley, finding Sir Lukin absent, as usual. They drove out immediately after breakfast, on one of those high mornings of the bared bosom of June when distances are given to our eyes, and a soft air fondles leaf and grass-blade, and beauty and peace are overhead, reflected, if we will. Rain had fallen in the night. Here and there hung a milk-white cloud with folded sail. The South-west left it in its bay of blue, and breathed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... number which had been destroyed, the mass appeared in no way diminished in size. Onwards they flew to their unknown destination; but what a scene of desolation met our eyes across the country on which they had rested! For miles, as Donald had feared, not a blade of grass was to be seen. As far as the eye could reach, where the evening before the ground had been green and smiling, it now looked brown and parched up, as if a fierce fire had passed ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... the famous workshop where Merlin forged the enchanted sword so celebrated by the bards, and where the stones were found by which alone the sword could be sharpened. Three British heroes were fated to wield this blade in turn; viz., Lemenisk the leaper (Leim, meaning leap), Utherpendragon, and his son King Arthur. By orders of this last hero, when mortally wounded, it was flung into the sea, where it will remain till he returns to ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... rain From the blade of the resting oar, Again we take, our place, and again That clear voice wakes the shore: "Go!" And we bend to our oars once more, And banks fly past, till the gleaming meadows Give place to the woods and ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... in the face of one of the yelling savages, and in a moment got possession of the spear which he had poised, while the whirl of Hassan's blade cleared our path. I heard the whirr of a spear as it narrowly missed my head and pierced the ground before me. Wrenching it out of the hard ground I followed Hassan and Denviers as they darted up the zigzag path. On we went, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... humiliation of so horrible a charge, immediately issued his warrant to search my house. I was absent at Derval Court; the house was searched. In the bureau in my favourite study, which was left unlocked, the steel casket was discovered, and a large case-knife, on the blade of which the stains of blood were still perceptible. On this discovery I was apprehended; and on these evidences, and on the deposition of this vagrant stranger, I was not, indeed, committed to take my trial for murder, but placed in confinement, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... show that birds are nature's great check on the excess of insects, and that they keep the balance between plants and insect life. Ten thousand caterpillars, it has been estimated, could destroy every blade of grass on an acre of cultivated ground. In thirty days from the time it is hatched an ordinary caterpillar increases 10,000 times in bulk, and the food it lives and grows on is vegetable. The insect population of a single cherry tree infested with aphides was calculated by a prominent entomologist ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... vast hall panelled up to the ceiling with old oak. The immense fireplace with its brass dogs and andirons tells of the yule log that still at Christmas burns upon the hearth, and trophies of arms of all ages—from the Toledo blade that can be bent by the point into a semicircle, so perfect is the temper of its steel, to the Sikh sword that was brought home after the Indian mutiny—form fitting ornaments ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... were, and if one of the order were known to possess a cupboardful of pendent heads, would Englishmen sit quiet while he whetted his butcher's knife quite calmly on his doorstep? Would they say as he sat there in untroubled assurance of safety, feeling the edge of the blade with his thumb, and muttering almost audibly the name of his intended victim, "We have no right to interfere, he is only sharpening his knife; an intent to commit, or even the preparation for crime, is not ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... upon his aggressor, but the guard's keen, straight sword flashed out of the scabbard, and the sight of the rest of the party cowed him, while pointing forward, the guard sat watching him sternly till the party had passed the gang, when, with a quick sweep of his sharp blade he caught the whip close to the shaft, sheared it off, and then pressing his horse's sides he bounded on, leaving the brute scowling in ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... at thy day's decline When came the shade from Appennine, And suddenly on blade and bower The fire-flies shed the sparkling shower, As if all heaven to earth had sent Each star that gems the firmament; 'Twas sweet at that enchanting hour, To bathe in fragrance of the Italian clime, By ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... Austria rides homeward with a wreath.) And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain, And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade.... (But Don John of Austria rides ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... kitchen, and the children gathered for the sacrifice and their mouths watering; I know the crackling sound it makes when the carving-knife enters its end, and I can see the split fly along in front of the blade as the knife cleaves its way to the other end; I can see its halves fall apart and display the rich red meat and the black seeds, and the heart standing up, a luxury fit for the elect; I know how a boy looks, behind a yard-long slice of that melon, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... side of Birt, extending for about 65 miles from N.E. to S.W. in a nearly straight line, terminating on the south at a very peculiar mountain group, the shape of which has been compared to a stag's horn, but which perhaps more closely resembles a sword-handle,—the wall representing the blade. When examined under suitable conditions, the latter is seen to be slightly curved, the S. half bending to the west, and the remainder the opposite way. The formation is not a ridge, but is clearly due to a sudden change in the level ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... the Prince of the Asturias and the King, knelt, and Valouse knelt behind him. Some moments after, the King made a sign to them; Valouse drew the sword from its sheath which he put under his arm, held the naked weapon by the middle of the blade, kissed the hilt, and presented it to the King, who, without uncovering himself, kissed the pommel, took the sword in both hands by the handle, held it upright some moments; then held it with one hand, but almost immediately with the other as well, and ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... had been told about us Sikhs. I read their faces as I rode. Fear is an ugly weapon, sahib, whose hilt is more dangerous than its blade. If our officers had told us such tales about Germans as their officers had told them about us, I think perhaps we ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... metatarsus. A fragment of the frontal or coronal bone, containing half of an orbital cavity. A middle third of the tibia. Two more fragments of tibia. Two astragoli. One upper portion of shoulder-blade. One fragment of the lower jawbone. One half of an os humeri, the whole constituting thirteen small and twenty-eight large fragments, there being others reduced ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... Christ promised to his followers was not of this world; the good gift he brought them was not peace, but a sword. It was no sword of territorial conquest, but that flaming blade of conscience and self-conviction which lightened between our first parents and their lost Eden,—that sword of the Spirit that searcheth all things,—which severs one by one the ties of passion, of interest, of self-pride, that bind the soul to earth,—whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... his hand to his belt, in which a stout keen hunting or bowie-knife was stuck, and drew out the glittering blade. ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... upon the knife. John Bull used to laugh at Brother Jonathan for whittling, and Mr. Punch always drew the Yankee with a blade in his fingers; but they found out long ago in Great Britain that whittling in this land led to something, a Boston notion, a wooden clock, a yacht America, a labor-saving machine, a cargo of wooden-ware, a shop full of knick-knacks, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... ancient Egypt, and do not appear in the sculptures before the XV. and XVI. dynasties. But even then, the horse was only known as a draught animal, and the only representation of a horseman yet found in the Egyptian tombs is on the blade of a battle axe of uncertain origin and period.] that he was unknown to the Carthaginians until after the downfall of their commonwealth; and that his first appearance in Western Africa is more recent still. The Bactrian camel was certainly brought from Asia Minor to the Northern shores ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... to demand gentle violence, and the unwavering water needed slight tremors to teach it the tenderness of its calm; then my guide used his blade, and cut into glassiness. We crept noiselessly along by the lake-edge, within the shadows of the pines. With never a plash we slid. Rare drops fell from the cautious paddle and tinkled on the surface, overshot, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... contained a tin-type of herself; a card with a hole in it (made evidently by having been forced over a button), on which was her name and the old address in town; then there was a ring and a saber, and on the blade of the saber was etched, "Presented to Lieutenant Jas. Dillon, for bravery on the field of battle." At the bottom of the parcel was a note in a strange hand, saying simply, "Found on the body of Lieutenant Dillon after ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... rested on the crest of the farthest hill. In desperation, she turned aside and galloped after a mailed horseman who was trotting down a clover-sweet lane with a rattle and clank that frightened the robins from the hedges. He reined in with a guffaw when he saw what mettle of blade it was that had ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... danger in a moment. The road curved sharply not a dozen yards behind him, and at that curve was the sheer precipice of the cliff. He was powerless to apply the brakes, and he could not even throw himself out. The sudden consciousness of this ran through him piercing as a sword-blade. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... on his face fell the moonlight, a face never to be mistaken. It was the wraith of Ralph de Wilton, who had been sent by Marmion to exile and to death. Thrice over his victim did the grim, ghast spectre shake his blade, but when Marmion, white with terror, prayed for life, the seeming vision dashed his sword into its sheath, sprang lightly to his saddle, and vanished as he came. The moon sank from sight, and the poor, shivering, wretched English knight lay groveling on the plain. Could it be his mortal enemy ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... control of her senses, faint, deadly pale, and trembling all over, fell on her knees, and made an attempt to hide the blade in her own bosom; and this no doubt she would have done had not the blade, dreading the commission of such a crime, glided out of her rash hand. And now, faint and unnerved as she was, she felt ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... says Rupert quickly. And before I had time to answer he brought down his cutlass with such force that unless I had guarded it the blade would ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... air-photographs of Pozieres as it was in 1914, with its peaceful little streets and rows of trees. What a contrast to the Pozieres as it was in 1917—MUD. Further on, the Butte stood out on the right, a heap of chalky mud, not a blade of grass round it then—nothing but mud, with a white cross on the top. On the left, the Crown Prince's dug-out and Gibraltar—I suppose these have gone now—and Le Sars and Grevillers, at that time General Birdwood's H.Q., where the church had been knocked ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... still, though the modifications are vastly greater, the essential framework of the organization remains unchanged. Here, for instance, is a Porpoise: here is its strong backbone, with the cavity running through it, which contains the spinal cord; here are the ribs, here the shoulder blade; here is the little short upper-arm bone, here are the two forearm bones, the ...
— The Present Condition of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... healing effort of Nature and therefore fail to see that it is vital force, the physician within, that, if conditions are favorable, cures measles and smallpox as easily as it repairs the broken blade of grass or heals the wounded deer of ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... which the party soon stood, was not of an inviting aspect. It was sterile, naked, and very rocky, as Biarne had described it, and not a blade of grass was to be seen. There was a range of high snow-capped mountains in the interior, and all the way from the coast up to these mountains the land was covered with snow. In truth, a more forbidding spot could not easily have ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... everywhere; occasionally a purao is seen; and there are several useless weeds. According to M. Cuzent, the whole number of plants on an atoll such as Fakarava will scarce exceed, even if it reaches to, one score. Not a blade of grass appears; not a grain of humus, save when a sack or two has been imported to make the semblance of a garden; such gardens as bloom in cities on the window-sill. Insect life is sometimes dense; a cloud of mosquitoes, and, what is far worse, a plague of flies ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it. Another rush was made a little higher up. But the attempt to ford the stream was as unsuccessful as the attempts to cross the bridge. Near the ford, some of those Indians, so much dreaded by General Hull, lay concealed in the grass. Not a blade stirred until the whole of the Americans were well in the stream, and some had gained the bank, on the Canadian side, when eighteen or twenty of the red children of the forest, sprang to their feet, and gave a yell, so hideous, that the ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Ben Gillam, a giff-gaffing blade home from the north sea, so topful of spray that salt water spilled over at ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... weird primordial scream, as the first man might have screamed in the face of the first saber-tooth, he hurled his axe among them and sprang forward, flashing the cold, gray blade of ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... Dundaniel, near Cork, and was considered to be under fairy control. For a long time he suffered from "the falling sickness," owing to the long journeys which he was forced to make, night by night, with the fairy folk on one of his own cabbage stumps. Sometimes the good people made use of a straw, a blade of grass, or a fern, a further illustration of which is furnished ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... a great general, had he entered the military profession: had he received a competent education, he might have been a virtuous and eminent citizen. His first crime was an act of vengeance, and all his following delinquencies flowed from the same source. An enthusiastic feeling placed the blade in his hand against the invaders of the Roman States, and a superior sagacity aided his terrible energies. He died stigmatised with the titles of brigand and assassin; but the French, on whom he had exercised the most striking acts of revenge, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... knight in steel armour had not in his haste put on his helmet; but it seemed as if he in no wise needed such protection, for his good sword afforded him sufficient defence even against the spears and darts which were incessantly hurled at him, as with rapid skill he received them on the shining blade, and dashed them far ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... think that the weapon used was a knife with a very sharp, triangular blade judging from the wound," the spruce-looking doctor explained. "The police, however, have failed ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... cried the grasshopper, jumping over to another blade of grass. "I wouldn't be afraid! What kind of a man do you think you'll ...
— The Grasshopper Stories • Elizabeth Davis Leavitt
... off my hat as I stroll into the garden and look about; and it does seem as if Nature had sounded a truce. I did n't ask for it. I went out with a hoe; but the serene sweetness disarms me. Thrice is he armed who has a long-handled hoe, with a double blade. Yet to-day I am almost ashamed to appear in such a belligerent fashion, with this ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... call for two brave warriors arm'd to prove Each other's skill with weapons keen, this prize Disputing, next, in presence of us all. 1000 Who first shall through his armor reach the skin Of his antagonist, and shall draw his blood, To him this silver-studded falchion bright I give; the blade is Thracian, and of late Asteropaeus wore it, whom I slew. 1005 These other arms shall be their common meed, And I will banquet both within my tent. He said, then Telamonian Ajax huge Arose, and opposite the son arose Of ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... stranger. She did not recognize him. The cold blade cut down, deep into Brangwen's soul. It cut him off ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... put them away some gait," was then Magaret's comfort, but less soothing to Gavin. Yet if he upbraided her in his hurry, it was to repent bitterly his temper the next instant, and to feel its effects more than she, temper being a weapon that we hold by the blade. When he awoke and saw her in his room he would pretend, unless he felt called upon to rage at her for self- neglect, to be still asleep, and then be filled with tenderness for her. A great writer has spoken sadly of the shock it would be to a ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... I haven't seen such a pretty flower in all my life. Here are forget-me-nots, and—and these I have picked for you," she added, taking from under the tansies a small bunch of cornflowers, tied around with a thin blade of ...
— The Rendezvous - 1907 • Ivan Turgenev
... The long blade flicked harmlessly over Retief's shoulder as Illy fell. Retief whirled, leaped past Magnan, took the unarmed servant by the throat and belt, lifted him and slammed him against the third man. Both scrambled, yelped and fell from ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... too quick for him, however, and caught the blow upon the edge of his own trusty blade. After a few passes Robin feinted, and, catching the other unawares, dealt him a thwack with the flat of his blade. The scarlet ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... and in her small hand there gleamed in the moonlight the sheen of her dagger blade. She thrust it ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser |
