"Frayed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whose temper was badly frayed by contact with Kerry. "I should have a good laugh ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... before him, from head to foot he looked at her critically; at every inch of the shabby serge gown, at the little head with its badly arranged hair, at the little heel that caught in an unmended bit of braid, at the little shoe with its bow of frayed ribbon, and he smiled broadly behind his moustache. But when she turned round he was ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... now, some of the chief characteristics by contrast. There was a wooden leg in the line. Hats were all drooping, a group that would ill become a second-hand Hester Street basement collection. Trousers were all warped and frayed at the bottom and coats worn and faded. In the glare of the store lights, some of the faces looked dry and chalky; others were red with blotches and puffed in the cheeks and under the eyes; one or two were rawboned ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... seemed to shake the floor as he walked; everything was big about him, his hands and feet, his voice and his laugh, and when he whispered his words were audible at the other end of the room. This giant among men wore an old brown velvet coat, very frayed about the elbows, and though he was by no means handsome, there was such a pleasant, kindly expression on his face that Anna felt ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... fruit. I noticed, that, old as it was, it had been scoured up into absolute cleanness. The child's attire was in keeping with her basket. Though she had no shoes, and the merest apology for a bonnet, with a dress that was worn and faded, as well as frayed out into a ragged fringe about her feet, yet it was all scrupulously clean. Her features struck me as even beautiful, and her soft hazel eyes would command sympathy from all who might look into them. Her manner and appearance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... awakened to the consciousness that the firmament above consisted of a vast curtain of frowning, murky, black-grey cloud, streaked or furrowed in a very remarkable manner from about east-south- east to west-nor'-west, the lower edges of the clouds presenting a curious frayed appearance, while the clouds themselves glowed here and there with patches of lurid, fiery red, as though each bore within its bosom a fiercely burning furnace, the ruddy light of which shone through in places. I had never before beheld a sky like it, but its ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... tall man who had worn one suit of clothes for ten years. It was frayed at the sleeves and little holes had appeared at the knees and elbows. In the office he wore also a linen duster with huge pockets into which he continually stuffed scraps of paper. After some weeks the scraps of paper became little hard round balls, and when the pockets were filled he dumped ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... then, a rich man; no more crusades, no more stale bread and cheap tobacco, no more turning my cuffs and collars and clipping the frayed edges of my trousers. I am fortunate. There is a joke, too. Picard and his friends advanced me five thousand francs ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... sitting down nightly to the delicate table of some rich acquaintances. This arrangement was extremely ill-considered. My fable, credible enough at first, and so long as my clothes were in good order, must have seemed worse than doubtful after my coat became frayed about the edges, and my boots began to squelch and pipe along the restaurant floors. The allowance of one meal a day, besides, though suitable enough to the state of my finances, agreed poorly with my stomach. The restaurant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... derricks, and a lofty bridge and chart-house abaft the funnel. She was wall-sided. Her rusty hull was originally painted black. Here and there were squares of red lead, showing that her crew had been engaged in trying to smarten her up before she reached port. Aft, frayed and dirty with the smoke that poured from her funnel, floated ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... black waistcoat was frayed and shiny, as well as wet, and his reverted collar had an evident edge from the way the preacher kept moistening his finger and running it along the rim. In spite of this worse than a hair-shirt martyrdom, the parson seemed to be a mild and pitiful soul, and Jim felt ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... strain of continued peril, and the long abstinence from food had sapped their strength, yet to remain where they were meant certain death; all hope found its centre amid those distant beckoning trees. Mechanically the girl gathered back her straying tresses, and tied them with a rag torn from her frayed skirt. Hampton noted silently how heavy and sunken her eyes were; he felt a dull pity, yet could not sufficiently arouse himself from the lethargy of exhaustion to speak. His body seemed a leaden weight, his brain a dull, inert mass; nothing ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... straggled along two intersecting streets, and then frayed out over the flats in isolated and dejected-looking shacks. The more imposing building on the main street Shock guessed were the hotels and stores. One of the latter he recognised from its flag as that of the ancient and honourable Hudson's Bay Company. On a back street here and there ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... right hand, and he took hold of it, as he was expected to do. The finger-ends were frayed and blackened by needle-pricks, but the hand itself was plump, moist, and not unshapely. She meanwhile examined ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... specimen of an old rustic priest, who was not the less to be respected because he took a great deal of snuff, hated shaving, wore hob-nailed shoes of the roughest make, and a threadbare, soup-spotted soutane with frayed edges. He was not a bit ascetic, and although he had lived so many years by himself, his good-humour and gaiety continually overflowed. It may be that a housekeeper tends to sour a priest's temper more than anything else, and this one knew it. ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... many times. Choice remnants of prints and calicoes were also shared with the neighbours. Occasionally from trunks or boxes, long hidden in dusty attics, some of these old blocks come to light, yellowed with age and frayed at the edges, to remind us of the simple ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... bale. Then, after the manner of a sailor who is working out of sight with a life-line, he jerked the rope, which immediately began to ascend rapidly and with irregularity. Coil after coil ran easily away, and at last the frayed end passed into the darkness above Christian's head. He stood there watching it, and when it had disappeared he burst into a low hoarse laugh which suddenly broke off into a sickening gurgle, and he fell sideways and backwards on ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... some personal disinclination towards violent bodily exertion on the part of his creator, Father Brown, the criminal investigator of Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON'S fancy, is not a fellow of panther-like physique. For him no sudden pouncing on the frayed carpet-edge, or the broken collar-stud dyed with gore. He carries no lens and no revolver. Flashes of psychological insight are more to him than a meticulous examination of the window-sill. When the motive is instantly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... he smoothed what creases he could out of his sole suit of drills, whitened his soggy topee and frayed canvas shoes with a piece of chalk purloined from a billiard saloon, bluffed a drink out of an inebriated ship's engineer and snatched a free lunch on the strength of it. Thus fortified he visited the British Consul, and by means ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... and live in and for the moment. Everything in the past is dead. Only when your letter came, these old things of my old self raised their heads for a little time, but they too shall die speedily, if I mistake not. Life is too wonderful, too beautiful to be marred thus by the ends of frayed and worn-out passions, by memories or regrets of you. I have become happy, healthy, and free, free without hardness, and in my freedom and joy I have found my love, my beautiful Terry, whom I may love passionately, tenderly and for ever, ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... which led into the big Flying U field she overtook them. Glory, placid as a sheep, was nibbling a frayed end of the rope which held the gate shut, and Weary, the big box balanced in front of him across the saddle, was smoking ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... SMITH. Tan-colored costume of the seventeenth century. The coat of tattered, weather-stained brown velvet, the puffed sleeves slashed with tan satin that is soiled and frayed. Great tan boots coming to the knee. A white lace collar at neck, much the worse for wear. ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... dore with rage and threats he bet, Yet of those fearfull women none durst rize, The Lyon frayed them, him in to let: 165 He would no longer stay him to advize,[*] But open breakes the dore in furious wize, And entring is; when that disdainfull beast Encountring fierce, him suddaine doth surprize, And seizing ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... to look threadbare at the seams; his shirt front was hidden underneath a large tie, his trousers were frayed. It was an undeniable fact that the porters at the office looked down on him on account ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... espied a long-legged gentleman with a remarkably fierce pair of whiskers; he wore a coat of ultra-fashionable cut, and stood with his booted legs wide apart, staring up at the inn from under a curly-brimmed hat. But the hat had evidently seen better days, the coat was frayed at seam and elbow, and the boots lacked polish; yet these small blemishes were more than offset by his general dashing, knowing air, and the untamable ferocity of his whiskers. As Barnabas watched him, he drew a letter from the interior of his shabby ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... Through the frayed and drifting edge of the smoke could be seen the frigate and the spars of the privateer; and sticking out of the water, a jagged mizzen—all that was left of ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... dusting!" said the Major curtly, and a brush was brought from the stable, and scrubbed vigorously up and down, with the result that the surface of the cloth was frayed and roughened, though there was no appreciable removal ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... tackle, are given over to the rude hands of the longshoreman; a lumber yard for harbour refuse, a dumping ground for the ashes of the bustling dock tugs. On the hatch covers of her empty holds planks and stages are thrown aside, left as when the last of the cargo was dragged from her; hoist ropes, frayed and chafed to feather edges, swing from the yardarms; broken cargo slings lie rotting in a mess of grain refuse. The work is done. There is not a labourer's pay in her; the stevedores are ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... that he looked for them every day. It was amazing how rapidly they increased despite his efforts to exterminate them. He began to grow careless in the matter of dress. His much talked of checked suits and lavender waistcoats took on spots and creases; his gaudy neckties became soiled and frayed; his fancy Newmarket overcoat, the like of which was only to be seen in Blakeville when some travelling theatrical troupe came to town, looked seedy, unbrushed, and sadly wrinkled. He forgot to shave ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... its own fragments and of the ropes and blocks which had held its sails. Of the sails themselves there were left only some fuzzy traces clinging to the bolt-ropes, all the rest having been blown loose and frayed away by the storm. Oddly enough, some of the drinking-glasses still remained unbroken in one of the racks, and with them a bottle partly filled with wine—to the neck of which a card was fastened bearing the name, Jose Rubio y Salinas, ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... were shooting-tunnels and merry-go-rounds and try-your-weights and see-how-much-you-lifts. He looked dazedly at wizen-faced lads who gathered round ice-cream stalls, and at hungry folks who ate stewed peas. Everything seemed grimy and frayed and sordid; the flaring torches smelt of oil; those who shot, or ate, or rode, by spending a penny, were the envied of standers-by. Amid all this drumming and hawking and flaring of lights were swarms of boys and growing girls, ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... at night. Late hours in the home is a bad habit and a poor investment. It affects the health and the efficiency. One extra hour means all the difference between frayed-out nerves, exasperated dispositions and home peace and contentment. There is a certain fixed ratio between sleep and good nature that has been formulated into a law by psychology. Keep early hours and the whole ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... curly brim) tilted backward as though in perplexity, his timid and absorbed blue eyes poring over his memorandum-book which was full of pencilled notes. He had a slightly unkempt, brief beard and whiskers, his cheek-bones pinkish, his linen a little frayed. There was something strangely pathetic about him, and I would have given much to have been able to speak to him. I halted at a window farther down the street and studied him; then returned to pass him again, and watched ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... two succeeding it, the meaning of the word was not "seal," but "sinuous curves," as made in writing. It has accordingly been suggested that this epoch marks the first introduction into China of the brush in place of the bamboo or wooden pencil with frayed end which was used with some kind of colouring matter or varnish. There are many arguments both for and against this view; but it is unquestionable, at any rate, that the introduction of a supple implement like the brush at the very time when ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... dressed in a shabby blouse, alpaca cap, and trousers frayed out round the ankles, I—Hector Ratichon, the confidant of kings—was lounging under the porte-cochere of No. 65 Rue des Pyramides. I was watching the movements of a man, similarly attired to myself, as he crossed and recrossed the courtyard to draw water from the well or ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... matter of moments, slipping into duck trousers and blouse, dirty and frayed from long usage. Two fingers of his left hand were doubled into a permanent bend, and, to an expert, would have advertised that he was a leper. Although he belonged to Dag Daughtry just as much as if the steward possessed a chattel bill of sale of him, his owner did not know ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... from the far away!— "Listen and learn," it seems to say, "All the to-morrows shall be as to-day." The cord is frayed and the cruse is dry. The ink must break and the lamp must die. Goodbye, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... on the tall slim panes of glass in the bay window till they shimmered like ice, and brightened the carpet on the floor of the room—a carpet that was faded and frayed; she threw a soft glow upon the three walls beyond the window; where were low, convenient shelves of books; there were books, books, books everywhere—books of all descriptions, neither creed nor caution limited ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... not so easy to undo himself even now. So, with hands bound, making an effort, he got on his feet, and went and worked the cord against the rough edge of an old wall. The rope, being of a kind of plaited grass, soon frayed and broke, and he freed himself. He had various contusions. His arms were hurt and bruised from the bonds. He rubbed them slowly. Then he pulled his clothes straight, stooped, put on his cap, struggled into his overcoat, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... dear. The days of purple and fine linen are vorbei. You'll have to put up with me in a threadbare coat and frayed cuffs and ragged hems to ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... fair, gentle Madonna, with thick, close, chestnut curls beside her well-rounded cheeks, and with large, tender, short-sighted eyes. The flowing lines of her tall figure made the limpest dress look graceful, and her old frayed black silk seemed to repose on her bust and limbs with a placid elegance and sense of distinction, in strong contrast with the uneasy sense of being no fit, that seemed to express itself in the rustling of Mrs. Farquhar's gros de Naples. The caps she wore would have been pronounced, when ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... too, which he had found worked in the corner of Jeanne's handkerchief. In a way, the presence of this book gave him a sort of shock, and he took it in his hands, and opened the cover. Under his fingers were pages yellow and frayed with age, and in an ancient type, once black, the title, The Meaning of God. In a large masculine hand some one had written under this title the accompanying words; "A black skin often contains a white soul; ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... to meet the flapped brim of a laced hat. The features, therefore, were completely hidden. But the British officers deemed that they had seen that military cloak before, and even recognized the frayed embroidery on the collar, as well as the gilded scabbard of a sword which protruded from the folds of the cloak, and glittered in a vivid gleam of light. Apart from these trifling particulars, there were characteristics of gait and bearing which ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... moments, when I took up my pen to write, some evil spirit whispered, Cui bono? and I laid down my pen and hid my manuscript. Once or twice I took up some old Greek poets and essayed to translate them. I have kept the paper still, frayed and yellow with age; but the fatal Cui bono? disheartened me, and I flung it aside. Even my love for the sea had vanished, and I had begun to hate it. During the first few years of my ministry I spent hours by the cliffs and shores, or out on the heaving ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... great presence of mind, laid down his hat over the principal list, while Mr. Ridout, taking the hint, put the Revised Statutes on the other. There was a short silence; and the Speaker-to-be, whose pencil had been knocked out of his hand; recovered himself sufficiently to relight an extremely frayed cigar. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... getting frayed and thin. The Colonel's sneer was like a match to a magazine, and in an instant the Frenchman was dancing in front of him with a broken torrent of angry words. His hand was clutching at Cochrane's throat before Belmont and Stephens ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... soon as Samuel was outside and the door had closed, he resumed immediately his usual expression of foolish good humour. It was impossible, I think, for him to retain an idea in his mind after the object of it had been removed from his sight. While I was still drying my eyes on my frayed coat sleeve, I watched him with resentment begin a series of playful lunges at the neck of the female, which she received with a sulky and forbidding air. Stealing away the next minute, I softly opened the back door ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... a great reader of noble histories. He found them, frayed and tattered, at the bottom of a trunk that had tin corners and two padlocks, and stood in the room looking towards the harbour where his mother's father, the old sailor, had slept. One of them was his special favourite, ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... appearance little was remarkable save the general air of determination which gave character to his undistinguished features. He was something above the medium height, broad-set, and with rather more thick black hair than he knew how to arrange advantageously. He wore a shirt which was somewhat frayed, and an indifferent tie; his boots were heavy and clumsy; he wore also a suit of ready-made clothes with the air of one who knew that they were ready-made and was satisfied with them. People of a nervous or sensitive disposition would, without doubt, have found him irritating but for a certain nameless ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... depositing them with the Essex Historical Society. But the object that most drew my attention to the mysterious package was a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded, There were traces about it of gold embroidery, which, however, was greatly frayed and defaced, so that none, or very little, of the glitter was left. It had been wrought, as was easy to perceive, with wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch (as I am assured by ladies conversant ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... about the bearing of any part on its immediately neighbouring parts, and yet may have no present notion of the whole; or may prescind entirely from the question of its origin or its purpose. Thus our thoughts are always unfinished and frayed round the edges, and we do not know how much they involve and drag along with them. We can think of the mechanism, and the organism, and the design, without thinking of the mechanist, or the organizer, or the designer; and ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Since the war we simply can't get sensation enough for the new taste. Now, if I could have an article headed: "Bombed and Bomber"—sort of double interview, you know, it'd very likely set me on my legs again. [Very earnestly] Look! [He holds out his frayed wristbands.] ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... he could put himself in marching order within a month or so. There was the trunk stored at Geneva; there was that roomful of furniture at Freiburg—Freiburg-im- Breisgau; there was that brace of paintings boxed up in Florence; and there were the frayed and loosely flying ends ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... of the crew frayed out in the heat. By night they slept amid tantalizing dreams of food; by day they sprawled in dreary silences under awnings which held heat like sweat boxes. The high metal walls of the dock caught the sun's rays and threw out a ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... the advent of Christianity they were connected with the Virgin Mary. The shroud in which she was wrapped after her death was believed to have been woven of the very finest thread, which during her ascent to Heaven frayed away from her body.] hither and thither, and are sung in a thousand places at the same time. We discover in these songs our very inmost activities and sufferings: it is as if we all had helped ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... up the last page of his notice of the new play at Palmer's, was confronted by the office-boy ushering to the side of his desk a tall, spare, smooth-faced man with a sober countenance, an ill-concealed manner of being somewhat over-awed by his surroundings, and a coat frayed at the edges. ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... that a steady hand?" he asked then. "Man, you're ill, I tell you. Your face is hot and your hands are cold, and your nerves are worn to shoestrings, frayed shoestrings at that. If you keep on, you'll be down flatter than you like. You ought to have stopped four ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature, when you know as well as I do, that on his account only last quarter I wouldn't buy myself a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy? You know it is, Peggotty. You can't deny it.' Then, turning affectionately to me, with her cheek against mine, 'Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... long evenings were passed reading the Family Herald and Weekly Star and the Ashcroft Journal by candle-light; for those were the only papers he would subscribe for. His bed consisted of, first, boards, then straw, then sacking; and it had remained so long without being frayed out that it had become packed as hard as terra firma. His blankets had not seen the light of day, nor enjoyed the fresh cool breezes for many long years. His one window was opaque with the smoke of many years' accumulation. Although his chickens had a coop ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... bird has hidden remains a puzzle. It moves not, it may not blink. Its crafty parent has so nibbled and frayed the edges of the decaying brown leaves among which it nestles that it has become absorbed in the scene. There is nothing to distinguish between the leaf-like feathers and the feather-like leaves. The instinct of the bird has blotted itself out. It is there, but invisible, and ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... is actually broken it is best to cut it off cleanly above the break. This will induce quick healing over and the sending out of other roots. Where there is only a bruise on one side, all the frayed edges of the wound should be cleanly cut back to sound bark, which will have a tendency to promote healing ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... bezond, be the Tour of Babiloyne the grete: of the whiche I have told zou before, where that alle the langages weren first chaunged. And that is a 4 jorneyes fro Caldee. In that reme, ben faire men, and thei gon fulle nobely arrayed in clothes of gold, or frayed and apparayled with grete perles and precyous stones, fulle nobely: and the wommen ben righte foule and evylle arrayed; and thei gon alle bare fote, and clothed in evylle garnementes, large and wyde, but thei ben schorte to the knees; and longe sleves ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... ninety-nine men out of a hundred would at once, unhesitatingly, have declared to be a doctor in moderate practice—pushed open the swing doors of the restaurant and made his way to the desk. He was of medium height; he wore a frock-coat—a little frayed; gray trousers which had not been recently pressed; ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were clumsy, square-toed, and thick-soled; one was even patched on the side. The trousers were heavy and rough, of the kind advertised as "wear-resisting fabrics, suitable for youths at school," frayed at the ends, and shiny—shamefully ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... the skipper of the second skiff, "do you notice that where we make this turn to the left the bushes along the point are kind of frayed, like something had rubbed against 'em ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... his hand, and examined it with frowning care. He put one finger through the hole in the crown and moved it meditatively. And Paynter realized how fanciful his own fatigue must have made him; for so silly a thing as the black finger waggling through the rent in that frayed white relic unreasonably displeased him. The doctor soon made the same discovery with professional acuteness, and applied it much further. For when Paynter began to tell him of the moving water in the well he ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... suspected so strongly, they had broken away from the anchorage. Doubtless the rope had been frayed by some sharp- edged stone, and when that unusual gust swooped down upon them it gave at the ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... perfect; but, at least, she might be infinitely worse. And Scott would be sure to need a practical wife, to counteract his habitual disregard of concrete things. Catie would see to it that his wristbands were not frayed and that his buttons were in their proper places. She might not enter into his ideals, but she would mend his socks and insist upon his changing them when he had wet his feet. Socks were more important to a man than mere ideals, any day, more important, that is, as concerned his ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... distinctly articulated, and more or less branched. The last ray is divided to the base, and is graduated with the two preceding ones, giving a rounded form to the posterior tip of the fin. The specimen had the anterior part of the fin frayed a little, so that it is probable that the soft rays are higher and less distinctly branched than the artist has represented them to be in copying the example placed before him. The ventrals are in a line with the tip of the gill cover and first ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... discovery of the Garden of Eden, and add to this the almost immediate intrusion of outsiders therein—for everybody else is an "outsider" to the pair in possession—and any woman might be forgiven for suffering from slightly frayed nerves the following day. And in Magda's case she had been already rather keyed up by finding the preceding few days punctuated by ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... with frayed collar and a bosom discoloured with what I took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on me amid a running and apologetic fire of comment. A pair of workman's brogans encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale blue, washed-out ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... frayed The Greeks with noises, crying out, in coming rudely on At all parts, like the cranes that fill with harsh confusion Of brutish ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... scrutinized his guest more narrowly. Quickly he took note of his ill-fitting clothes, cheap tie, frayed linen and shabby shoes. He hardly looked the kind of man likely to be burdened with heavy business responsibilities. Nodding sympathetically, so as to ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... excitement about the ride now that it was not her first. She noticed that the upholstery was frayed in spots. Other cars passed hers. The chauffeur was not so smart as some of the drivers. And he was alone. On a few of the swagger limousines there were two men in livery on the box. She felt rather ashamed ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... in circumstances, frankly familiar in scenery and atmosphere. Once more, as in the Blot in the 'Scutcheon, and in James Lee's Wife, Browning turned for his "incidents in the development of souls" to the passion and sin-frayed lives of his own countrymen. But no halo of seventeenth-century romance here tempers the sordid modernity of the facts; the "James Lee" of this tragedy appears in person and is drawn with remorseless insistence on every mean detail which announces the "rag-and-feather hero-sham." Everything ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... old brown flannel petticoat that Grandma Bascom had given the children to play with, "'Cause it's so et up with moths, 'tain't fit to set a needle into to fix up," as she said. And Ben made a long, flapping tail out of an old, frayed rope, and Polly had sewed a little tuft of hair, that came out of Mamsie's cushion, on top of the monkey's head, pulling it all around the face for some whiskers; so, when Joel was really inside of it, he was perfectly awful. Particularly as he showed all ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... bashfulness. But the face and figure she turned towards him were neither young nor fair: a woman past forty, with gray threads and splashes in her brushed-back hair, which was turned over her ears in two curls like frayed strands of rope. Her forehead was rather high than broad, her nose large but well-shaped, and her eyes full but so singularly light in color as to seem almost sightless. The short upper lip of her large mouth displayed her teeth in an habitual ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... of the book was to discover the only true and allowable and womanly sphere of feminine work, and, though the theme was threadbare, she fearlessly picked up the frayed woof and ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... And the money—the beautiful half-krone—was slipping farther and farther away, and he would be poor once more; and Rud was not even crying! At the forty-sixth stroke he turned his face and put out his tongue, whereat Pelle burst into a roar, threw down the frayed nettle-stalks, and ran away ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... was opened, and another man came in; a striking figure, tall and gaunt, with old and pitifully untidy clothing, and a half month's growth of beard upon his chin. He wore an old black hat, frayed at the edges; but under this hat was a face of such gentleness and sadness that it made you think of Carpenter's own. Withal, it was a Yankee face—of that lean, stringy kind that we know so well. The newcomer's eyes fell upon ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... middle of the swamp, and in these same reeds I found and shot the young ones which, though fledged, were not able to fly. These I sent with one of the eggs to Mr. Hume, who has identified them as belonging to this species. The nests were composed of frayed pieces of reed-grass and fine sedge, the latter being principally towards the inside, thus forming a kind of lining. The nests were loosely put together, were about 3 inches inner diameter, 11/4 inch deep, the outer diameter ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... mother's consent to do as she pleased with the piece of black velvet on the hem of her Sunday skirt, so she passed some time in ripping this off and cleaning it. It would not come as fresh as she desired, and there were some parts of it frayed and rubbed so that the velvet was nearly lost, but other portions were quite good, and by cutting out the worn parts and neatly joining the good pieces she at last evolved a quite passable sash. Having the sash ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... of fishing. We found hooks in a crevice in the Queen of Sheba's bow, and made lines from a frayed rope. But although the shore was lined with traps in which the inhabitants no doubt took fish in proper season, all that we caught was one miserable finny specimen, all head and mouth and tail, that the natives said would poison any one who ate it. The truth was, of course, that they preferred rice ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... schooner lying some thirty yards from the bank. She had been seized for illegal sealing some years earlier, and it was evident that she had been very little used since then. The paint was peeling from her cracked and weathered side, her gear was frayed and bleached with frost and rain, and only very hard-pressed men would have faced the thought of going to sea in her. Wyllard and his companions were, however, very hard-pressed indeed, and they preferred the hazards ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... but I don't think so; that just makes it, you see. I want to feel that I am rich; how am I going to get the idea in my head, boy?—I declare, Satinalia, I think this satin dress is getting frayed already." ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... bent his bow, but, on the present occasion, looked with attention to his weapon, and changed the string, which he thought was no longer truly round, having been a little frayed by the two former shots. He then took his aim with some deliberation, and the multitude awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer vindicated their opinion of his skill: his arrow split the ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... I'm glad to see you!" I said. They were of the Third Battalion, and my exclamation must have startled them, for, of course, I did not know them. "Tell me something in American," I added. My nerves were frayed, I guess, and my voice ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... taciturn black boy, "Clear cut, Paddy!" The words were on my lips when a "waddy," torn from the vindictive tree and flung, high and straight into the inoffensive sky, descended flat on the red stump with a gunlike report. The swish of the waddy down-tilted the frayed brim ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... be two horses belonging to the best waggonette, or you could have a one-horse one, much smaller, with the blue cloth of the cushions rather frayed, and mended here and there, and green in patches from age and exposition ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... a quick turn of the awl which he carried in his belt he snapped the sewing at the join of the leg and the upper leather, bringing the frayed ends of ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... braveries, fresh or frayed? The plumes, the armours—friend and foe? The cloth of gold, the rare brocade, The mantles glittering to and fro? The pomp, the pride, the royal show? The cries of war and festival? The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow? Into the ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... jetty hair. The colorlessness had degenerated, however, into an unhealthy pallor, and the stubbly beard which covered his cheeks and chin did not improve his appearance. Besides he was terribly out at elbows; his coat was green with age, his boots were broken, and his cuffs frayed and soiled. His hat was unnaturally shiny, and dented in two or three places. Altogether he looked as unlike a brother of the immaculate Oliver and the exquisitely-dressed Rosalind as could possibly have been found for either in the world ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... vanquished by mortal wight; Hurl we our missiles, and hold aloof." And the word they spake, they put in proof,— They flung, with all their strength and craft, Javelin, barb, and plumed shaft. Roland's buckler was torn and frayed, His cuirass broken and disarrayed, Yet entrance none to his flesh they made. From thirty wounds Veillantif bled, Beneath his rider they cast him, dead; Then from the field have the heathen flown: ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... knees examining with great attention the knots upon the red cord with which the lady had been secured. Then he carefully scrutinized the broken and frayed end where it had snapped off when the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was frayed and stained by the friction of often-tried armor, and in his richly studded belt glistened a diamond handled poniard. Around his massive settle stood servants to do his bidding, while at his side were two or three shaggy hounds, resting their chins upon ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... the spirit of things, one may reach the gloomy eminence from which it is perceived that all things are wrong, because the present underlying motive of the whole is wrong. He sees one body of men scrubbing one spot on the carpet, another sewing earnestly at a certain frayed selvage, another trying to bring out the dead colour from a patch that wear and weather have irrevocably changed. He blesses them all, but his soul cries out for a new carpet—at least, a wholesome ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... windows. Quite unconscious, too, was she of the notice she excited among the passers-by. People even turned to look after her more than once, as indeed they often did. The scarlet scarf twisted round her throat to hide the frayed jacket collar, and the bit of scarlet mixed with the trimmings of her hat contrasted artistically with her brown eyes, and added brightness to the color on her cheeks. It was no wonder that men and women alike, in spite of their business-like hurry, ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Spain is approached from the Binondo side by almost the only steep grade to be found in Manila. I was leaning as far forward as I could, figuring upon the possible strain to be withstood by the frayed rope end which lay between us and a backward somersault, when my ears were assailed by an uncanny sound, half grunt, half moan. For an instant I thought it was the wretched pony moved to protest by the grade and my oppressive ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... for existence with the current, he could dimly see a floating black object shooting by the shore, at times striking the projections of the bank, until in its recoil it swung half round and drifted broadside on towards him. He was near enough to catch the frayed ends of a trailing rope that fastened the structure, which seemed to be a few logs, together. With a convulsive effort he at last gained a footing upon it, and then fell fainting along its length. It was the raft which the surveyors from ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... that his energy was not exhausted by literary work, and that it preyed upon himself if no means of escape were found. If he was not at the piano, or shaping clay, or at the drawing-board, or walking fast and far, inward disturbances were set up which rent and frayed his mind. The pleasures of society both fatigued and rested Browning; they certainly relieved him from the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... on the edges of the thick hair about the ears; dust around the eyes and the nostrils. He was resting on one knee; over the other his hands were crossed—enormous, powerful, coarsened hands, the skin so frayed and chapped that around the finger-nails and along the cracks here and there a little blood had ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... Apes sat at the foot of a great tree braiding a new grass rope. Beside him lay the frayed remnants of the old one, torn and severed by the fangs and talons of Sheeta, the panther. Only half the original rope was there, the balance having been carried off by the angry cat as he bounded away through the jungle with the ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... emplacements that were behind almost every clump of bushes, every jagged, rough group of bowlders. But those that remained were wiped out by the American method of the rush and the bayonet, and in the days that followed every foot of Belleau Wood was cleared of the enemy and held by the frayed lines ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... surrounded with a superstitious reverence in the eyes of the common people. It was said she had a home in the hills somewhere, to which she disappeared for days and weeks, and came back hung about the girdle with crosses; and it was also said that her red robe never became frayed, shabby, or disordered. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... flavour of a social system the exceptional features of which were too often by both friend and foe made to stand for the system itself. His tall beaver, with its curled brim, and his blue broadcloth dress-coat, faded and frayed, with its brass buttons, bore unmistakable evidence of their age and origin, but they seemed to be a reasonable and ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris |
