"Chisel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... point of the stone vault. The tracery of the roof is a fine specimen of the fan-vault which is rarely to be found in Continental architecture, but is the peculiar glory of the English style. It can truly be said that stone seems, by the cunning labour of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density and suspended aloft as if by magic, while the fretted roof is achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb. Similar roofs appear in Bath Abbey (the architect of which was Dr. Oliver King, a member ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild
... far below its present merit. Let me ask you especially to mark the broad border, where is set forth the late triumph, and ambassadors, captives, and animals of all parts of the earth, especially of the East, are seen in their appropriate forms and habits. That is all from the chisel of my brother. Behold here'—and rising he approached the vase, and vast as it was, by a touch, so was it constructed, turned it round—'behold here, where is figured the Great Queen of—'; in the enthusiasm of art, he had forgotten for a moment ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... associated with the human figure in art, and thus sculpture, which deals chiefly with the human form, becomes familiar with geometric motives and acquires them. Through sculpture these motives enter architecture. But textile decoration pervades architecture before the sculptor's chisel begins to carve ornament in stone and before architecture has developed of itself the rudiments of a system of surface embellishment. Textile art in mats, covers, shelters, and draperies is intimately associated with floors and walls of houses, and the textile devices are ...
— A Study Of The Textile Art In Its Relation To The Development Of Form And Ornament • William H. Holmes
... Professor Zepplin had not been idle. He had made frequent trips to the vicinity of the cave, bringing away with him each time a bagful of the ore, which he had detached with his hammer and chisel, all of which he had submitted to the blow-pipe, acid tests, and, in most instances, with the same result that had followed his ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... he said in a more normal tone, "if you are ready to go, get a wrench and a cold-chisel, smudge your face with a little oil and iron black, and ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... this Square. Mr. Robinson, one of the partners of a firm which has just completed one of these warehouses, was good enough to show us over it. It is built of a warm grey stone, which lends itself easily to the chisel, and it is decorated with a wealth of carving and of architectural ornaments such as the great burghers of Flanders lavished on their public buildings. The interior arrangements are worthy of the external ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... Margaret commenced life, if not with a heavy purse, at least with each a light heart. He immediately took a house in Ballykeerin, and, as it happened that a man of his own trade, named Davis, died about the same time of lockjaw, occasioned by a chisel wound in the ball of the thumb, as a natural consequence, Art came in for a considerable portion of his business; so true is it, that one man's misfortune is another man's making. His father did all he could for him, and Margaret's sisters also ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... it? Why, in everything! Do not the consequences of luxury and magnificence bring ease and comfort to the hundreds of families that weave silks and laces, chisel gold and silver, carve precious stones, build palaces, sculpture the ebony of furniture, varnish carriages, breed thoroughbred horses, and cultivate rare flowers? Have not artists, architects, musicians, singers, ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... and friendships beyond the grave, and to snatch as much as we can from oblivion—such is our natural love of immortality; but it is here that letters obtain the noblest triumphs; it is here that the swarthy daughters of Cadmus may hang their trophies on high; for when all the pride of the chisel and the pomp of heraldry yield to the silent touches of time, a single line, a half-worn-out inscription, remain faithful to their trust. Blest be the man that first introduced these strangers into our islands, and may they never want protection or merit! ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... bacon in a stewpan, for the skillet had been divided with a cold chisel and neither half was of the slightest use to anybody. After he had eaten his pilot-bread, after he had drunk his cup of bitter tea and crept into bed, he was prompted to amend his prayer, for he discovered that two blankers were not ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... the company had observed me ascending the hill, their attention being fixed upon two men in the centre. One was turning a small stock, which was supported by two stakes standing perpendicularly, with a cleft at the top, in which the crown piece went round in the form a carpenter holds a chisel on a grinding stone; the other was holding a small branch of fir on that which was turning. Directly below it was a quantity of tow spread on the ground. I observed that this work was taken alternately by men and women. As I was turning about in order to leave them, ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... longer even than those of the hedgehog. The next time you see a rabbit at table, ask to see the head; and you will find that it has four pretty little teeth, very sharp, shaped like a joiner's chisel; that is to say, with a "bevelled edge," to use the received expression; in other words, with one edge thinner ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... the prototype of St. Peter's; basilicas which enshrine the ashes of some of the mightiest of the dead; the stone where Dante stood to gaze on the Campanile; the house of Michael Angelo, still occupied by a descendant of his lineage and name, his hammer, his chisel, his dividers, his manuscript poems, all as if he had left them but yesterday; airy bridges, which seem not so much to rest on the earth as to hover over the waters they span; the loveliest creations of ancient art, ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... in age or in youth? Man, woman or child—a dog or a mouse? Or are you, at once, each live thing in the house? Each live thing did I ask?—each dead implement too, A workshop in your person—saw, chisel, and screw! Above all, are you one individual?—I know You must be, at least, Alexandre and Co. But I think you're a troop, an assemblage, a mob, And that I, as the sheriff, should take up the job: And, instead ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... organic differences of races can be obliterated by the education of the schools. The qualities of races are perpetuated by descent, and are the result of historical influences reaching far back into the generations of the past. An educated negro is a negro still. The cunning of the chisel of a Canova could not make an enduring Corinthian column out of a block of anthracite; not because of its color, but on account of the structure of its substance. He might indeed, with infinite pains, give it the form, but ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... chisel disposed of the resistance of the door in a few minutes. But some article of furniture had been placed against it inside, as a barricade. By pushing at the door, we thrust this obstacle aside, and so got admission to the room. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... crawl through it, and where a light burns before a figure which lies there wrapped in a linen cloth; and the Church of Notre Dame, which contains some treasures, such as a lovely white marble statue of the Virgin and Child, from the chisel of Michael Angelo; the tombs of Charles the Bold of Burgundy and his daughter—the 'Gentle Mary,' whose untimely death at Bruges in 1482, after a short married life, saved her from witnessing the misfortunes which clouded the last years of her husband, the Archduke ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... stood two or three weeks longer than is necessary for cigar leaf, it is ready to cut. This is done with a knife made for the purpose. It resembles a wide chisel, except that the handle and chisel are at right angles. Before cutting, the stalk is split down through the center. Being ripe, it splits before the knife, and following the grain the leaves escape unharmed. This splitting is done in as little time as is necessary to cut the stalk off in ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... a bunch of keys, but none of them would fit the little English lock. Then my gentleman takes out of his pocket a chisel and hammer, and falls to work like a professional burglar, actually ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the cupboard and tried it. It was locked. Desmond had little respect for Mr. Bellward's property so he went over to the tool drawer and selected a stout chisel with which to burst the lock of the cupboard. But the cupboard was of oak, very solidly built, and he tried in vain to get a purchase for his implement. He leant his left hand against the edge of the cupboard whilst with his right he jabbed valiantly ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... the saucepan to the grindstone, while Rectus turned, and we soon ground the bottom off. This left us a deep brass band, quite big enough for a crown, and as the top edge was rounded off, it could be turned over on a person's head, so as to sit quite comfortably. With a cold-chisel I cut long points in what would be the upper part of the crown, and when I had filed these up a little, the crown looked quite nobby. We finished it by punching a lot of holes in the front part, making them ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... Common is the famous Toad Rock, which is to Tunbridge Wells what Thorwaldsen's lion is to Lucerne, and the Leaning Tower to Pisa. Lucerne's lion emerged from the stone under the sculptor's mallet and chisel, but the Rusthall monster was evolved by natural processes, and it is a toad only by courtesy. An inland rock is, however, to most English people so rare an object that Rusthall has almost as many pilgrims as Stonehenge. The Toad is free; the High Rocks, however, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... have not eaten for so long that too much bread will be poison to you now." And she at once dropped her hand, laid her bread upon the plate, and gazed into his eyes like a submissive child. And if any words could express—But neither chisel, nor brush, nor mighty speech is capable of expressing what is sometimes seen in glances of maidens, nor the tender feeling which takes possession of him who ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... got its name not from its churning water but because the boiler of the steamer Wrigley was lost here and still remains at the bottom of the basin. The walls of this rapid are as clear-cut as if wrought into smoothness by mallet and chisel. The tar-soaked sands appear off and on all the way to McMurray. Next comes the Long Rapid (Kawkinwalk Abowstick), which we run close ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... quarantine demands that ships shall not carry vermin that are themselves plague-carriers. In the donkey-engine section of the for'ard house is a complete fumigating apparatus. The mutineers had merely to lay and fasten the pipes aft across the coal, to chisel a hole through the double-deck of steel and wood under the cabin, and to connect up and begin to pump. Buckwheat had fallen asleep and been awakened by the strangling sulphur fumes. We in the high place had been smoked out by our ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... soothed her, gave her of the same cordial to drink, and placed her once more in her dais-seat. Her veil was thrown back, her wide blue eyes fixed on me in intense strain, her face and lips still blanched more bitterly beneath that hue, her features sharp as chisel-graven death. Ah, God! must I endure that too? Was she to hear me,—she, not knowing why, never knowing why,—she in whom that look of aching passion and pity was to die out and freeze and fade ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... see where the power of his brush lay. No timid, uncertain, niggling stroke ever came from that torso or forearm or thigh. He hewed with a broad axe, not with a chisel, and he hewed true—that was the joy of it. The men of Meissonier's time, like the old Dutchmen, worked from their knuckle joints. These new painters, in their new technique—new to some—old really, as that of Velasquez and Frans Hals—swing their brushes ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... behind them to betray its secret unawares. And the perfect oval of the outline of her face was lifted, so to say, into the superlative degree of soft fascination by a faint suggestion of the round ripeness of a fruit in its bloom, as if the Creator, by some magical extra touch of his chisel, had wished to exclaim: See how the full loveliness of a woman surpasses the delicate promise of a girl! And she was rather tall, and she stood up very straight indeed, so straight, that my heart laughed within ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... bird, far taller than an ostrich, with a vulture-like neck and cruel head which made it a walking death. As Challenger climbed to safety one dart of that savage curving beak shore off the heel of his boot as if it had been cut with a chisel. This time at least modern weapons prevailed and the great creature, twelve feet from head to foot—phororachus its name, according to our panting but exultant Professor—went down before Lord Roxton's rifle in a flurry of waving feathers and kicking limbs, ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cannot see my heart, Molly; and the Master knows just how many strokes of his chisel are needed to fashion the soul in his image; he will not make one too many. Besides should I grudge him one of the many darlings he has given me? or her the bliss he has taken her to? Ah no, no! his will be done with ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... of his ovens made the cook dive into his tent. Andy picked up a chisel dropped by the cook. He opened six casks standing on the ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... of paddlers carved in wood and dressed in full costume; the latter executed with such singular fidelity of feature, that although the speaking figures sprung not from the experienced and classic chisel of the sculptor but from the rude scalping knife of the savage, the very tribe to which they belonged could be discovered at a glance by the European who was conversant with the features of each: then there ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... Review" which served as the principal channel of publication. It contained successively "Footprints on the Beach," January; "Snowflakes," February; "Howe's Masquerade," May; "Edward Randolph's Portrait," July; "Lady Eleanore's Mantle," "Chippings with a Chisel," and a sketch of Jonathan Cilley, his friend who had just been shot by Graves in a duel, all in September; and these tales he signed as by The Author of "Twice-Told Tales." The Province House series was concluded by "Old Esther Dudley," in this same periodical, April, 1839, and to this he ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... first I thought it promised well. But alas! the boys went for a holiday, missed a train, and were not heard of at home till late at night. Poor Fleeming, the man who never hesitated to give his sons a chisel or a gun, or to send them abroad in a canoe or on a horse, toiled all day at his rehearsal, growing hourly paler, Triplet growing hourly less meritorious. And though the return of the children, none the worse for their little adventure, brought the colour ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... your little sun shall set; Leaving her the future task: Loving her too well to ask. Eglantine that climbs the yew, She her darkest wreathes for those Knowing her the Ever-new, And themselves the kin o' the rose. Life, the chisel, axe and sword, Wield who have her depths explored: Life, the dream, shall be their robe Large as air about the globe; Life, the question, hear its cry Echoed with concordant Why; Life, the small self-dragon ramped, Thrill for service to be stamped. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... o'clock the foundation-stone was laid to hand. It was of a square form, containing about twenty cubic feet, and had the figures, or date, of 1808 simply cut upon it with a chisel. A derrick, or spar of timber, having been erected at the edge of the hole and guyed with ropes, the stone was then hooked to the tackle and lowered into its place, when the writer, attended by his assistants—Mr. Peter Logan, Mr. Francis Watt, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and chisel I cut the inscription deep into the rock, and we filled the letters with white lead to counteract the effect of ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... frights in marble are as snug in their little squares, in front of their little halls, as are the majestic ruins in their poplar groves. In both instances, Nature and Circumstance have harmonised between the subject and the background. Come along. And let the rhymsters chisel on the monument whatever they like about sculptures and the wali. To condemn in this case is ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... and struggled up the mountain-slopes of Montepulciano. But when the church, which this triumph of art adorned, came to be repaired, the miracle of beauty was dismembered. The sculpture for which Aragazzi spent his thousands of crowns, which Donatello touched with his immortalising chisel, over which the contractors vented their curses and Bruni eased his bile; these marbles are now visible as mere disjecta membra in a church which, lacking them, has little to detain ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... of the statue of Philip Lebon, the inventor of lighting by gas, occurred on the 26th of June, at Chaumont, under the auspices of the Technical Gas Society of France. The statue, which we illustrate herewith, is due to the practiced chisel of the young sculptor Antide Pechine, who has perfectly understood his work, and has represented the inventor at the moment at which he observes a flame start from a glass balloon in which he had heated some sawdust. The attitude ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... Armed with chisel, axe and hammer,— Weapons new for warlike deed; Towards the herbage-freighted vessels, They ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... which they are impressed being white marble, proves conclusively that the slab could never have formed part of the pavement of the Appian Way, which it is well known was composed of an unusually hard lava, found in a quarry near the tomb of Caecilia Metella; and the distinct marks of the chisel which the impressions bear—for I examined the original footprints very carefully some years ago—indicate a very earthly origin indeed. The traditional relic in all probability belonged to the early subterranean cemetery—leading by a door out of the left ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... days factories. The master of a craft worked, surrounded by his craftsmen and apprentices. Every wheel and spring were made upon the premises, fashioned and finished with chisel and file; and there was an interest in the work far beyond any which it possesses in the present day, when watches are turned out wholesale, the separate parts being prepared by machinery, and the work of the ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... husband. After listening to them for some time, with thoughtful attention, I at length succeeded perfectly in translating their import. They were sounds occasioned by the artist in prying open the oblong box, by means of a chisel and mallet—the latter being muffled, or deadened, by some soft woollen or cotton substance in which its ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... the three. "All of them are well known to most of you. Now mark what I say of these three:—first, the limestone gets burned principally; second, the marble gets sculptured principally; third, the granite gets hammered and chiselled principally. Fire, chisel, and hammer at work on these three rocks; but, they are all quarried first. This fact of their being quarried puts them ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... would have to cut Cupid's head out of the calf of William's leg, and there wasn't room enough, let alone the fact that the knee-joint would give the god of Love the appearance of having a broken back. And as for wings, if the man had been born who could chisel wings out of the flap of a hat, all he wanted was to meet that man, so that he could gaze on him and study him. Finally Whitaker suggested that Mix should make the statue into an angel and sell it for ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... workman's skill. Even when the highest point of finish is attained we cannot say that the hand is any more cunning than it was from the first. As well might we say that the last light touches of the sculptor's chisel upon the perfected statue are more skilful than its first vigorous strokes upon ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... leaning is towards the use of special instruments, but who, at the same time, do not care to use the saw, will find their wants supplied in the hoof plane (Smith's), Fig. 146, or the hoof chisel (Hodder's), Fig. 147. With the hoof plane the groove in the wall is made by a succession of downward scraping movements, while with the chisel the cut in the wall is made either from below upwards, or from above downwards, according as the foot is held forward or backward—whichever, ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... at hand, for he was the ticket agent and station master as well, and they soon signed for the box. Then they took it to a secluded corner of the station, and with a borrowed hammer and chisel pried off the cover. ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tip-toe on the highest point of being, he passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this happy- starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into the ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... parents' criticisms as a matter of fact; she would have preferred to postpone parrying them. She acknowledged this to herself with a little irritation that it should be so, but when her father insisted, chisel in hand, she went down on her knees with charming willingness to help him. Mrs. Bell took a seat on the sofa and clasped her hands with the expression of one who prepares ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... continue his investigations, and he presently had examined all the jars ranged on two sides of the room; and his grumbling curses increased constantly in vigor as jar after jar yielded only arrow-heads, and lance-heads, and chisel-shaped pieces of obsidian, that I perceived must have been intended for the making of the cutting edges of the maccahuitl, or Aztec sword; but, for my part, all of these things filled me with the liveliest pleasure as I took them from Young and attentively ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... together the timbers for a dwelling. The plotniki in the villages are never any thing more than these general carpenters, and never acquire any regular knowledge of their business. The real Russian plotniki seldom carries any other tools with him than an axe and a chisel, and with these he wanders through all parts of the empire, ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... still in the possession of Mr. Daft, who would doubtless be glad to show it to any one wishing to see it.—N.B.—the term “celt” is not connected with the name Celtic or Keltic, but is frem a Latin word celtis, or celtes; meaning a chisel, and used in the Vulgate, Job xix., 24, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... warfare against every form of intellectual freedom. Without their approbation no manuscript can be seat to the press, no new editions issued, no thought promulgated. Even the stone-carver is not permitted to use his chisel until they have decided how far love or pride may go in commemoration of the dead. They mutilate, with equal sovereignty of will, the printed pages of a classic and the manuscript of an unknown scribbler,—sit in judgment upon Botta and Laplace, as their predecessors sat in judgment ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... an examination of the door which had been forced. It was evident that a chisel or strong knife had been thrust in, and the lock forced back with it. We could see the marks in the wood where it had been ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... The chisel or gouge is the best tool to employ in this work. A sharp hawk-billed knife will be useful in cutting off the loose bark. Coal tar is the best material for covering wounds because it has both an antiseptic and a protective effect on the wood tissue. Paint, which is very often ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... not yet touched by the sun. There was a thoughtful turn of modelling in the smooth, white forehead, which it was utterly beyond Reanda's art to reproduce, often as he had tried. He thought a great sculptor might succeed, and it was the one thing which made him sometimes wish that he had taken the chisel for his ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... brow of the hill he heard the first click of the workman's hammer on the chisel with which he proposed to eliminate the word Anitra from the ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... ne'er saw justice done, and yet she was A frequent model; and if e'er she must Yield to stern Time and Nature's wrinkling laws, They will destroy a face which mortal thought Ne'er compass'd, nor less mortal chisel wrought. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... sheath-like cotyledons are likewise straight; they, however, terminate in a sharp crest, which is white and somewhat indurated; and this structure obviously facilitates their emergence from the soil: the first true leaves escape from the sheath through a slit beneath the chisel-like apex and at right angles to it. In the case of the onion (Allium cepa) we again meet with an arch; the leaf-like cotyledon being abruptly bowed, when it breaks through the ground, with the apex still enclosed within the seed-coats. The crown of the arch, as previously ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... "Not far from the three cairns is the so called 'Caiy-stone' of Maitland and Whyte. It has always, however (he maintains), been known among the people of the country by the name of the Ket-stane." It is of whinstone, and "appears not to have had the chisel, or any inscription upon it." "The craig (he adds) or steep rocky mountain which forms the northern extremity of the Pentland Hills, and makes a conspicuous figure at Edinburgh, hangs over this field of battle. It is called Caer-Ketan Craig. ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... tongs from the forge; for which he received a pretty severe flogging, and was sent out from the ship. Notwithstanding the example made of this man, in the afternoon another had the audacity to snatch the tongs and a chisel from the same place, with which he jumped overboard, and swam for the shore. The master and a midshipman were instantly dispatched after him in the small cutter. The Indian, seeing himself pursued, made for a canoe; his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... burn the barrel, and we almost succeeded in fitting it to a stock of elder. Elder has a thick pith running down the centre: by removing that the gouge and chisel had not much work to do to make a groove for the old bell-mouthed barrel to lie in. The matchlock, for as such it was intended, was nearly finished when our hopes were dashed to the ground by a piece of unnatural cunning. One morning the breechpiece that screwed in was missing. This was fatal. ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... a chisel of gray steel, He bored the life and soul out of the beast.— 50 Not swifter a swift thought of woe or weal Darts through the tumult of a human breast Which thronging cares annoy—not swifter wheel The flashes of its torture and unrest Out of the dizzy eyes—than Maia's son 55 All that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... business is requested to keep away!" said the magistrate, when, after much hammering and shaking, the door yielded to ax and chisel. "I request this, in the interest of the investigation. Orderly, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... verbal sense its most arresting quality is a combination of something haunting and harmonious that flows by like a river or a song, with something else that is compact and pregnant like a pithy saying picked out in rock by the chisel of some pagan philosopher. It is at once a tune that escapes and an inscription that remains. Thus, alone among the reckless and romantic verses that first rose in Coleridge or Keats, it preserves something ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... or what he had taken for that city, had seemed to be visible. A milestone, now as always, stood at the roadside hard by. Jude drew near it, and felt rather than read the mileage to the city. He remembered that once on his way home he had proudly cut with his keen new chisel an inscription on the back of that milestone, embodying his aspirations. It had been done in the first week of his apprenticeship, before he had been diverted from his purposes by an unsuitable woman. He wondered if the inscription ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... they made a detour to avoid it, only to run plunk into another miniature industrial centre which they also "side-stepped," though indeed the iron fist seemed not to be very tightly closed upon these primitive knights of the jack-knife and chisel; and they saw ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... been eager and active that night, for the key turned in the lock with a smoothness that made honesty impossible—almost foolish. And the old, weak lock on the box itself—why, a chisel had soon made an end of that! Only five minutes—it had been so quick—there had been no trouble. God had ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cut out with a fret saw two pieces shaped like Fig. 179 (3), to form the ends of the box. Allow a little surplus, so that the edges may be finished off neatly with chisel and plane. The two ends should match exactly, or there will be trouble at a ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... blue flag-flowers. The master of the pool would turn up a fierce eye, and watch the swimmer's progress breaking the golden surface into long, parabolic ripples; but he was too wise to court a trial of the muskrat's long, chisel-like teeth. ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... often ingeniously discover traces of the sculptor's hand where they do not exist. It is true, that, in some cases, the finishing touches are introduced by the artist himself; but I suspect that few who have accomplished and competent workmen give much of their time to the mallet or the chisel, preferring to occupy themselves with some new creation, or considering that these implements may be more advantageously wielded by those who devote themselves exclusively to their use. It is also true, that, although the process ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... as Alyrus and Sahira had been. He was unusually handsome, very tall, with broad, well-formed shoulders and a face and head like one of the ancient pagan gods, whose statues have come down to us from the chisel of Phidias, the Greek sculptor. His skin was fair and his hair yellow as gold. Between him and the dark Moor who walked near him, there was the difference between light and darkness. It was not a difference in physical beauty, altogether, ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... their attention to the felled tree once more, studying the innumerable teeth marks, like so many tiny chisel cuts, on stump and butt. Then they noticed the great chips lying about the stump, some of them half as ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... people, armed with guns and machetes, dancing drinking about them. As one barrel of rum was finished another was brought in, and the supply seemed endless. The days went by, and Mr. Ovens lost patience, and declared he would go and get a chisel and hammer and free the prisoners at all costs. "Na, na," replied Mary wisely, "we'll have a ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... and the surest way to have our faces shining like that of Moses when he came down from the mountain, or like Stephen's when he 'saw the heavens opened,' to keep near Jesus Christ? It is slow work to hammer bits of ore out of the rock with a chisel and a mallet. Throw the whole mass into the furnace, and the metal will come out separated from the dross. Get up the heat, and the light, which is the consequence of the heat, will take care of itself. 'In the Lord' ye shall ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... gradually would the change occur, as individual after individual found larger room for action than that in which she is now pent. As this discussion has been going on, woman after woman has been enlarging the sphere allowed her. Women write admirable books, paint admirable pictures, chisel admirable statues, make most excellent and well-instructed physicians. Women are doing everything which it is now claimed they have the right to do, except voting, which they are not yet permitted to do; and I am not sure, in regard to that, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... he turned with a sigh to find among the fragments of his fetters what piece of iron might best serve him for a chisel. To work he set, and many and weary were the hours he wrought, for his attempts appeared to him nothing better than those of a child, and again and ever again as he carved, he had to change his purpose, and cut away what he had carved; for the thing he wrought ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... ago, I let the fire out. I took my cylinder and unscrewed it while it was still so hot that it punished my hands, and I scraped out the crumbling lava-like mass with a chisel, and hammered it into a powder upon an iron plate. And I found three big diamonds and five small ones. As I sat on the floor hammering, my door opened, and my neighbour, the begging-letter writer, came in. He was drunk—as he usually is. ''Nerchist,' said he. ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... profession of a man called Sam Newton, I believe; at least I will call him that for the sake of argument. My business was to weigh wheat, deduct as much as possible on account of cockle, pigeon grass and wild buckwheat, and to chisel the honest farmer out of all he would stand. This was the programme with Mr. Newton; but I am happy to say that it met with its reward, and the sheriff afterward ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... remains of this huge carnivorous dinosaur were found in England nearly a century ago, and the descriptions by Dean Buckland and Sir Richard Owen and the restorations due to the imaginative chisel of Waterhouse Hawkins, have made it familiar to most English readers. Unfortunately it was, and still remains, very imperfectly known. It was very closely related to the American Allosaurus and unquestionably similar in appearance ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... do? You're right! Hah! they dance Spanish dances. I've seen black eyes that went through you like a sword; I've seen blue eyes that drilled through you like an auger; and I've seen gray ones that bit through you like a cold-chisel; and I've seen—now, there's Miss Garnet's, that just see through you without going through you at all—O I don't like any of 'em! but Fannie Halliday's eyes—Miss Fannie, I should say—they seem to say, 'Come out o' that. I'm not looking at all, but I know ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... that Stokes, the second carpenter, had not returned. The fellow had gone to his quarters, to fetch some implement, nearly an hour before. When another half-hour had gone by, Anthony, in some impatience, dispatched Blake for the tool. Twenty minutes later the latter returned, chisel in hand, but with no news of his mate. When it was five o'clock and there was still no sign of Stokes, Anthony struck work and ordered an organized search. It seemed rather hopeless, but, on the whole, the best thing to do. The man was missing. If possible, more ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... And his perfect mood Would dwell about the token of God's mood, Until in bird or flower or moving wind Or flock or shepherd or the troops of heaven It sprang in one fierce moment of desire To visible form. Then would his chisel work among the stone, Persuading it of petal or of limb Or starry curve, till risen anew there sang Shape out of chaos, and again the vision Of one mind single from the world was pressed Upon the daily custom of the sky ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... scornfully. "Don't you worry; I'll take good care that you don't fight any more. The event you're going to win is 'Pushing the Chisel.' I've been watching you, and you've got the most perfect neck and calf-muscles for it I've ever seen. No more fighting for you, my boy; nor cricket, nor anything else. I'm not going to let you spoil ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... a collection of ferns and pot-plants, fresh and cool, smelling of green gardens and moist earth. Over the way, men lingered with serious faces, trying the edge of a chisel with their thumb, examining saws, planes, knives, and shears with a workman's interest in the tools that earn ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... resolution:—"Your sub-committee believe You can lighten the curse of Adam when you've lightened the curse of Eve. But till we are built like angels, with hammer and chisel and pen, We will work for ourself and a woman, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... other artistic things are, or have been, credited with similar ghastly inclinations. The great carven dragon which writhes above the entrance of the Kitzuki haiden used, I am told, to crawl about the roofs at night—until a carpenter was summoned to cut its wooden throat with a chisel, after which it ceased its perambulations. You can see for yourself the mark of the chisel on its throat! At the splendid Shinto temple of Kasuga, in Matsue, there are two pretty life-size bronze deer, -stag and doe—the heads of which ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... as a man of dwarfish stature clothed in bearskin, or merely in leaves or with an apron of leaves. He has two horns on his head. In his right hand he holds a hammer and in his left a chisel (sometimes these are reversed), the only implements he used in carrying out his great task. Other pictures show him attended in his labours by the four supernatural creatures—the unicorn, phoenix, tortoise, and dragon; others again ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... belonged to the Villa-Ludovisi, whence it was removed to the Museum of the Capitol by Clement XII. It is from the chisel of AGASIAS, a sculptor of Ephesus, who lived 450 years before the ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... have been a valuable shiny thing that a man in the road would give a child forty cents for. He knew its value. I should say Vladimir and Elisabeth had tapped the same till. Helen, go and see if you can find out anything more from the child or his mother. And Roger, get a chisel and hammer and hatchet and perhaps you and Mr. Schuler and I can take down these boards and see what there is to ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... during which Max stood before the duke, a noble figure of manly beauty worthy the chisel of a Greek sculptor. The shutter in the ladies' gallery was ajar and I caught a glimpse of Yolanda's pale, tear-stained face as she looked down upon the man she loved, who was to put his life in ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... yon mountain top Nae purer is than thee, Annie; The haughty mien and pridefu' look Are banish'd far frae thee, Annie. And in thy sweet angelic face Triumphant beams each modest grace; And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace A form sae bright ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... you will find it is not so little. That worn face is still a perfect portrait of the old man, though like one struck out at a venture, with a few rough touches of a master's chisel. And that falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines, faultless, ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... intervened John Grier. "You push the brush and use the chisel, don't you?" asked Tarboe in spite of himself with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... our gentlemen went ashore and were astonished to find a native occupied in building a small sloop of about thirty tons: the tools of which he made use consisted of a half worn-out axe, an adze, about two-inch blade, made out of a paring chisel, a saw, and an iron rod which he heated red hot and made it serve the purpose of an auger. It required no little patience and dexterity to achieve anything with such instruments: he was apparently not deficient in these ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... is quickly seen to be a halter, held by a hand all but concealed within the draperies; while the sunken features and, horrid to relate, the rent flesh upon the cheek-bones, proclaim the King of Terrors. These figures are evidently the production of no unskilled chisel; and should it chance that any of your correspondents are able to throw light upon their origin and significance, my obligations to your valuable ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... of the well-sinking naturally depends upon the quality of the soil; if rock is to be cut through, it is worked with a mason's axe and the cold chisel. Fortunately the geological formation is principally sedimentary limestone, which offers no great resistance. At length the water is reached. The well is now left open for a few days that an opinion ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... architecture in our colleges? Is it that men study to more advantage in a palace than in a cell? One single performance of taste or genius confers more real honour on its parent university than all the labours of the chisel.' Present State of Polite Learning, ch. 13. Newton used to say of his friend, the Earl of Pembroke, 'that he was a lover of stone dolls.' Brewster's Newton, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... without stooping. At the further end are two miners, just distinguishable by the tiny glow of their lanterns. From these proceed the ring of steel—the muffled tinkling in the thick air we had heard—and we see that they are preparing for a "blast." With a long steel rod, or chisel, they are driving a way into the hard rock (geologists say there is little else in the Erzebirge than the primitive gneiss and granite), and thus prepare a deep, narrow chamber, within which a charge of gunpowder is placed and exploded. The hard material is rent into a thousand pieces, bringing ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... simple game. One player goes out. The others decide on some workman to represent, each pretending to do some different task belonging to his employment. Thus, if they choose a carpenter, one will plane, one will saw, one will hammer, one will chisel, and so on. Their occupation has then to be guessed. It is perhaps more interesting if each ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... prongs of the antlers. They used them as wedges in prying the bark loose from the sap-wood of young trees. All the women had learned to make hammers of antler by making two cuts near the base. And sometimes they used the broad end of the brow antler instead of a stone chisel. ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... replied Jack, showing a thin steel wedge and a small steel cold chisel. "It just happened to strike me that they might have forgotten something, so I took a look ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... else can bring. A born artist loves to paint for painting's sake; to such an one there is something almost sacramental in the very mixing of the colours. The true sculptor hears music in the tapping of the mallet upon the chisel as he shapes the marble into grace and beauty. There is no drudgery in the calling that is yours by ordination of nature, by right of true heartfelt affection. The kind of preacher we mean would rather talk about preaching than about any other subject, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... turned the pinkest rivals pale Alike with sceptre, chisel, pen or palette, And could at any moment, gloved in mail, Smite ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... publication; works, opus, oeuvre. biogeny^, dissogeny^, xenogeny^; tocogony^, vacuolization. edifice, building, structure, fabric, erection, pile, tower, flower, fruit. V. produce, perform, operate, do, make, gar, form, construct, fabricate, frame, contrive, manufacture; weave, forge, coin, carve, chisel; build, raise, edify, rear, erect, put together, set up, run up; establish, constitute, compose, organize, institute; achieve, accomplish &c (complete) 729. flower, bear fruit, fructify, teem, ean^, yean^, farrow, drop, pup, kitten, kindle; bear, lay, whelp, bring forth, give birth to, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... drew out an ugly knife and tried to force it between his lips like a lever or chisel. But Pinocchio as quick as lightning caught his hand with his teeth, and with one bite bit it clean off and spat it out. Imagine his astonishment when instead of a hand he perceived that he had spat a cat's paw on ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... have a wood fire, you must have a pair of bellows. I know a man who always calls them "bellus," which is, I believe, the professional pronunciation. He also talks about a "hussif" and a "cold chisel." A cold chisel is apparently the ordinary sort of chisel which you chisel with; what a hot chisel is I never discovered. But whether one calls them "bellows" or "bellus," in these days one cannot do without them. They are as necessary to a wood fire as a poker is to a coal ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... making playthings. "How can peace," I burst out, "how can peace find lodgment even for a single moment in your breast, so long as the memory of your horrible deed preys like a serpent upon you?" He gazed at me in amazement, and laid his chisel aside. "What do you mean, my dear sir?" he asked; "pray take a seat." But my indignation chafing me more and more, I went on to accuse him directly of having murdered Antonia, and to threaten him with the ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... probably the more it may be admired. Even the famous capital fares not much better. "In point of fine architectural features, monuments of art, and magnificent structures, (excepting only the great Mosques,) the chisel of the mason, the marble, the granite, Constantinople is more destitute than any other great capital. But then, you are told that these objects are not in the style and taste of the people. Be it so; but then do not let the minds of those who cannot see for themselves be led away by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... burst upon his delighted gaze. No ascetic monk, no curled cavalier, looks down from the pedestal. The apocryphal portraits of Europe may peer out of their frames in this guise, but it has been the artist's aim here to chisel a man, not a monk; and a noble man, rather than a cringing courtier. Above the massive pedestal of simple design, which bears the terse legend, "Erected by the World's Columbian Exposition, A. D. 1893," stands the noble figure of the Noah of our nation. The open ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various |
