"Handful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... due to sexual congress with women, is held to be freed from attachments. That man is certainly emancipated who knows truly the nature of the birth, the destruction, and the exertion (or acts) of living creatures. That man becomes certainly freed who regards (as worthy of his acceptance) only a handful of corn, for the support of life, from amidst millions upon millions of carts loaded with grain, and who disregards the difference between a shed of bamboo and reeds and a palatial mansion.[1485] That man becomes certainly freed who beholds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... when the weather is clear, When the work is all over, and even is near, They walk in the garden and gaze down below On the Valley of Gosh, where the young rivers go; Where the houses of Gosh seem so paltry and vain, Like a handful of pebbles strewn over the plain; Where tiny black forms crawl about in the vale, And stare at the mountain they fear them ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... forward to her companion's assistance. She stumbled over something that moved and tried to push her aside. Harriet thrust out both hands and grappled with the object. She grasped a handful of hair. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... toward the dresser, upon which was a handful of bills. "Help yourself. Better make it twenty-five. Then wait outside, please. We will join you in a ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... in search of kingdoms, found it worth their while to enlist in the service of the Church, and to endure the restrictions which such a service inevitably entailed. The true strength of the Church lay in her moral influence. It was a handful, even among the clergy, who devoted themselves heart and soul to the ideal of society which she set up. Still her ideal was in possession of the field; it might be subjected to a negative and sceptical criticism by an isolated philosopher, ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... this wise conclusion, Phil proceeded to the big top, where he and Teddy Tucker were to take their afternoon practice on the flying rings, pausing on the way to pass a handful of peanuts to Emperor, who was again in his place, and give the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... pass some hours in watching." "Ay," said he in a muse, "but it seems to me the moon-army keeps infamous bad watch. I see not one sentinel. Those wings travel sure as a homing bird; and to be driven back upon their centre would be defeat for the—lunatics. Give me but a handful of such cavalry, I would capture the Southern Cross. Magnificent! magnificent! I remember, when I was in it—" For, while he was yet deriding, from points a little distant apart, single, winged horsemen dropped from the far sky, whither, I suppose, they had soared to keep more efficient ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the ward, reflecting. And suddenly she saw that these ideals were imposed from without—that they were compulsory. That left to themselves, Felix, and Hippolyte, and Alexandre, and Alphonse would have had no ideals. Somewhere, higher up, a handful of men had been able to impose upon Alphonse, and Hippolyte, and Felix, and Alexandre, and thousands like them, a state of mind which was not in them, of themselves. Base metal, gilded. And they were all harnessed to a great car, a Juggernaut, ponderous and ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... dead dusky-blue, something darted in smooth, even flight, like a white handkerchief or a handful of snow. It was a white dove flying from ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... tolerably dry spot. Scapin, with his large clasp-knife, cut a straight, strong stick, stripped off the bark for a spit, and found two stout forked branches, which he stuck firmly into the ground on each side of the fire so that they would meet over it. A handful of dry straw from the chariot served as kindling, and they quickly had a bright blaze, over which the goose was suspended, and being duly turned and tended by Scapin, in a surprisingly short space of time began to assume a beautiful ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... "Get a handful of sand," replied the ring, "and mix with it an equal quantity of red pepper. Take the mixture with you into the arena, and when the tiger comes near you, fling the sand into ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... bearing, cost one Spanish dollar at the lowest. The young tree requires manure, such as putrid fish and stimulating compounds, containing a portion of salt. On the Coromandel coast, the natives put a handful of salt below each ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... 1901 nearly 400,000 persons returned themselves as adherents of the Satnami sect, of whom all but 2000 were Chamars. The Satnami sect of the Central Provinces, which is here described, is practically confined to the Chhattisgarh plain, and the handful of persons who returned themselves as Satnamis from the northern Districts are believed to be adherents of the older persuasion of the same name in Northern India. The Satnami movement in Chhattisgarh was originated ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... China—they have hardly been heard of in the next street. We are hand and glove with the universe, and think the obligation is mutual. This is an evident fallacy. If this, however, does not trouble us now, it will not hereafter. A handful of dust can have no quarrel to pick with its neighbours, or complaint to make against Providence, and might well exclaim, if it had but an understanding and a tongue, 'Go thy ways, old world, swing round in blue ether, voluble to every ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... lay the shaggy continent from Florida to the Pole, outstretched in savage slumber. On the bank of the James River was a nest of woebegone Englishmen, a handful of fur-traders at the mouth of the Hudson, and a few shivering Frenchmen among the snowdrifts of Acadia; while amid still wilder desolation Champlain upheld the banner of France over the icy rock of Quebec. These were the advance guard of civilization, the messengers of promise to a desert ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... the lady we have lost in the essays and stories; but these fragments, though suggestive, are too slight to be consolatory: besides, Miss Coleridge was no coiner of aphorisms and epigrams who could give her meaning in a handful of sentences. Here is the first ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... curious things of which this foreigner speaks; she has produced in this time statesmen, poets, philosophers, soldiers; her people appear to have had their share of affliction, but not more than those of Europe; why should we now turn round at the bidding of a handful of strangers who know little of us or our country, and make violent changes in our life and habits? A railway in a province will throw thousands of coolies and boatmen out of employment and bring on them misery and starvation. This ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... gold upon this foolish, babyish household drudge, who was all emotion and animal devotion, without the intellectual outlook of a Hottentot, and leaving men of genius to starve, or sell their souls for a handful of it! How was the wisdom of the ages justified! Verily did fortune favour fools. And Tom—the wicked—he had flourished as the wicked always do, like the green bay tree, as the Psalmist discovered ever so ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... themselves accordingly. Cyrus Frost and Graham Parker had come to California as young men, in the seventies; had cast in their lot with little Monroe, and had grown rich with the town. It was a credit to the state now; they had found it a mere handful of settlers' cabins, with one stately, absurd mansion standing out among them, in a plantation of young pepper and willow and locust ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... taken from the drier, vegetables should be rather brittle and fruits rather leathery and pliable. One method of determining whether fruit is dry enough is to squeeze a handful; if the fruit separates when the hand is opened, it is dry enough. Another way is to press a single piece; if no moisture comes to the surface the piece is sufficiently dry. Berries are dry enough if they stick to the hand but do not crush ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... handful of budding lilac-leaves, and crushing them slightly between his hoofs, so as to bring out their peculiar fragrance, fastened them to the end of a long pole and held them towards the creature. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... principal army, reduced at that time to four or five thousand half-clothed men. General Mac-Dougal had the direction of a station at Peekskill. Lafayette commanded what was called the northern army, that is to say, a handful of men; his head-quarters were at Albany. The enemy made a few incursions, but of slight importance; and by the exercise of great vigilance, and a judicious choice of stations, the winter passed away tranquilly. Lafayette had under ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... forgot Carcassonne. The terrible denizens of the gloom never molested them, venison was plentiful, and all manner of water-fowl: they loved the chase by day, and by night their favourite songs. Thus day after day went by, thus week after week. Time flung over this encampment a handful of moons, the gold and silver moons that waste the year away; Autumn and Winter passed, and Spring appeared; and still the warriors hunted ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... 2 Poor querulous handful! was't for this I taught thee all that is? Unbowelled nature, showed thee her recruits, And change of suits, And how of death we make A mere mistake; For no thing can-to nothing fall, but still Incorporates ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the Catholic Church at a time when the world was ripe for the first crusade; and though the Empire had fallen low since the days of Charles the Great, it was fast climbing again to the supremacy of power in which it culminated under Barbarossa and whence it fell with Frederick the Second. A handful of high-born murderers and marauders might work havoc in Rome for a time, but they could neither destroy that deep-rooted belief nor check the growth of that imperial law by which Europe emerged from the confusion of the dark age—to lose both law and belief again amid ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... that matters is adaptation. The germ of malaria renders whole tracts of the earth uninhabitable to those whom we consider representative of the higher culture. In other parts an alteration of the rainfall may crush out a civilisation, and leave a handful of nomadic tribes as the sole denizens of lands where once a lofty civilisation flourished. Throughout the whole of nature there is never the slightest indication that forces operate with the slightest reference ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... experiment occurred about that time, due to his being greatly impressed by the story of the "Fox and the Pitcher" in AEsop's Fables. Finding a jar standing in the yard outside their house, he promptly proceeded to pour a small quantity of water into it, and then added a handful of small stones. The water not rising to the surface, as it did in the fable, he found a spade and scraped up a mixture of earth and pebbles which he added to the stones already in the jar. The result, however, proving quite unsatisfactory, he gave up the experiment in disgust and refused ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... but his mission was apparently an unconscious one, and strikingly illustrates the accidental character of the sources of the intellectual currents which sometimes change the face of the world. "If I had a handful of truths, I should take good care not to open it," said this sybarite, who would do nothing that was likely to cause him trouble. But the truths escaped in spite of him, and these first words of the new philosophy were perhaps the more dangerous because veiled and insidious. "You have written ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... moment later he had kissed his mother good-bye, helped himself to a handful of sugar cookies from her blue crockery jar, and was whistling down the dusty road, feeling strangely anxious for some adventures; adventures as heroic as his father often related before the fire on winter evenings. His mother might have thrown up her hands in despair had she ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... answered this in the negative, treating with scorn a passionate appeal for the Cevennois entitled "Europe enslaved if the Camisars are not relieved." "What nonsense is this," he cried, "about a poor despicable handful of men who have only made a little diversion in the great war!" "The haste these men are in to have that done which they cannot show us the way to do!" he cried; and proceeded to prove in a minute ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... the world did you guess?' cried Kostiei in a fury. 'There is some jugglery about it! But you are not going to escape me so easily. In three hours you shall come here and give me another proof of your cleverness. I shall set alight a handful of straw, and before it is burnt up you will have turned it into a pair of boots. If ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... William Kieft to the command of his whole disposable forces, he gave importance to his station by the grandiloquence of his bulletins, always styling himself Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the New Netherlands; though in sober truth these Armies were nothing more than a handful of hen-stealing, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... King must stand up tall, If he would be head over all; Mainmast of Battle! when the plain Is miry-red with bloody rain! And grip his weapon for the fight, Until his knuckles grin tooth-white, The banner-staff he bears is best If double handful for the rest: When ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... you got the thought—it must have jumped up and smacked you—" Lola's hot blush was visible even through her heavy tan, "how many times I've felt like running my fingers up and down your ribs and grabbing a handful of those terrific muscles of yours, just to see if they're as ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... to a handful of the elect, amateurs, the only ones who do not despise the Hebrew poet, but understand ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... luxurious delay, the excellent fish which the Colonel himself must have caught in his unexplained absence, and Tom's own partridge, which was carved as if it had been the first wild turkey of the season, were followed by a few peaches touched with splendid color as they lay on a handful of leaves in a bent and dented pewter plate. There seemed to be no use for the stray glasses, until old Milton produced a single small bottle of beer, and uncorked and poured it for his master and his master's guest with a grand air. The Colonel lifted his eyebrows slightly, ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the god of light created a wife, the goddess of earth, the source of evil." On the other hand, the sun-god is a good god. Tari, the earth-divinity, tried to prevent Bella[12] Pennu (sun-god) from creating man. But he cast behind him a handful of earth, which became man. The first creation was free of evil; earth gave fruit without labor (the Golden Age); but the dark goddess sowed in man the seed of sin. A few were sinless still, and these became gods, but the corrupt no longer found ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... good snail-water for a consumption. Take half a peck of Shell-snails, wipe them and bruise them Shells and all in a Mortar; put to them a gallon of New Milk; as also Balm, Mint, Carduus, unset Hyssop, and Burrage, of each one handful; Raisons of the Sun stoned, Figs, and Dates, of each a quarter of a pound; two large Nutmegs: Slice all these, and put them to the Milk, and distil it with a quick fire in a cold Still; this will yield near four Wine-quarts of Water very good; you must put two ounces of ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... the Parliament to follow the king, "and by battle or other way rescue him from his perfidious councillors and restore him to Parliament," was mustering his army at Northampton. Charles had but a handful of men, and the dash of a few regiments of horse would have ended the war; but Essex shrank from a decisive stroke, and trusted to reduce the king peacefully to submission by a show of force. But while Essex lingered Charles fell back at the close of September ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... been found not less necessary to repress the licentiousness of the one, than to curb the tyranny of the other. Besides, it at all times provides a remedy for the inexperience or ignorance of governors; and is a sort of nucleus, round which all new bodies may easily agglomerate. Like a handful of veterans in a newly raised regiment, it will be capable of setting in motion the whole machinery of the government, and establishing with the greatest celerity that organization and discipline which are as requisite in administration ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... be seen—a desert. And Shahpesh cried, 'This is indeed of admirable design, O Khipil! Feelest thou not the coolness of the fountains?—their refreshingness? Truly I am grateful to thee! And these flowers, pluck me now a handful, and tell ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more noise than a mouse. He stayed a great deal in the stable with the cows. The cows and he were good friends. One of them, the oldest of all, had given milk for him when he was a baby, and he never forgot to carry her a handful of ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... it with exclamations of joy, and before she could rise from her stooping posture discovered some cowslips to be scrambled for. Wild columbine, the delicate corydalis, and more uvularias, which she called yellow bells, were added to her handful, till it grew a very elegant bunch indeed. Mr. Van Brunt looked complacently on, much as Ellen would at a kitten ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... be interrupted by a sudden crash, proclaiming the tearing of something, and each would instinctively look round for their handkerchiefs; or she would collect little animals, like ants, spiders, or flies, and, having got a handful, would empty them over one of the three; in fact, she would do anything to put an end to the discussion, that they might finish their allotted task and get it over. Then in wrath Schillie would turn round and exclaim, "You idle young monkey, why ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... a handful of tobacco from his mouth, and with a swing of his arm plastered it over the mirror behind the bar. "That for the Mounted Police," he said. "Now there's goin' t' be some drinkin' or some shootin', an' maybe a little o' both." He ploughed the floor with another bullet, and the crowd again ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... phantom. When I think of life, I resolve to keep a strict look-out in the course of economy, for the sake of worldly convenience and independence of mind; to cultivate intimacy with a few of the companions of youth, that they may be the friends of age; never to refuse my liquorish humour a handful of the sweetmeats of life, when they come not ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Edinburgh: but we know not if it be true or no. If so, he will surely push on straight for London, since the rebellious troops must have been driven quite away, before he could do that. So my Uncle Charles says; and he saith too, that they are a mere handful of raw German mercenaries, who would never stand a moment against the courage, the discipline, and the sense of right, which must animate the ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... rendered himself master. The army was scarcely in motion before Mouy, commanding the rear, was attacked by a heavy detachment of the Duke of Anjou's vanguard, under the Duke of Montpensier. Mouy's handful of men stood their ground well, now facing the enemy and driving him off, now slowly retreating, and gave the rest of the Huguenot army the opportunity of gaining the opposite side of a marshy tract, through which there flowed a small ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... possibilities, and seemed not unlikely to spread to other States. Till this storm should blow over, the important business of Congress was to raise money and troops; in reality, to go to the help of Massachusetts, if need should be, though the object ostensibly was to protect a handful of people on the frontier against the Indians. It was a striking instance of the imbecility of the government under the Articles of Confederation, that it could only undertake to suppress rebellion in a State under the pretense of doing something else which came ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... short by slamming the door. Mr. Boult, oblivious of the fact that Bessie might also have liked to show herself, filled up the window. Emily, determined that no item of the ritual proper to such ceremonies should be omitted, promptly threw a handful of rice in his face. It stung, half blinded him, but had the effect of driving him from his position, so that Bessie for one minute could appear. The poor face in the white tulle and forget-me-nots looked anxious, frightened, appealing; and as the train, rushing ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... housekeepers should remember that hard rubbing is the worst wear which it can receive. If soaked over night, a gentle squeezing will usually be quite sufficient to remove all soil, or if a little borax (a handful to ten gallons of water) or household ammonia in the proportion of two tablespoonfuls to a pail of water be added, two or three hours' soaking will suffice. Care should also be taken in hanging and fastening ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... waiting Olive's reply, he pulled a handful of red-brown leaves from a tree that overhung the path, and ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... storm broke and a shower of hail rattled like a handful of pebbles against our little window, I choked back a sob and edged my small green-painted stool a trifle nearer the hearth. On the opposite side of the wire fender, my father kicked off his wet boots, stretched his feet, in grey yarn stockings, out on the rag ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... a handful of gravel, but not having got the range, he shied it all against old Tom Drought's ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and serious, came to him in the garden; it was a kind of appointment. Gertrude seemed to like appointments. She plucked a handful of heliotrope and stuck it into the front of her dress, but she said nothing. They walked together along one of the paths, and Felix looked at the great, square, hospitable house, massing itself vaguely in the starlight, with all ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... we can cram in a handful of nails, or brass buttons, or hammer up a few halfpence—anything of that sort will do to settle ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... down on the Arethusa. The famed Belle Poule straight ahead did lie, The Arethusa seemed to fly, Not a sheet, or a tack, Or a brace, did she slack; Though the Frenchman laughed and thought it stuff, But they knew not the handful of men, how tough, On ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... Parliament, the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits concluded to overthrow the government. Finally the plotters were arrested, and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and the other prisoners with royal vigor. A very intense love story runs through the entire ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... be a real day, but I never hoped for such a big handful of luck as seeing you again and ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... four stumbled about, roaring with the smart of the meal in their eyeballs, and while they rubbed their eyes till the tears made great channels on their faces through the meal, the Miller seized another handful of flour and another and another, throwing it in their faces, so that even had they had a glimmering of light before they were now as blind as ever a beggar in Nottinghamshire, while their hair and beards and clothes were ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... the mistress of mortals, and the mistress of the universe, reflect then on the brevity of life. "I have been, and that is all," said Saladin the Great, who was conqueror of the East. The longest liver had but a handful of days, and life itself is but a circle, always beginning ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... and I trow has carried off no game. The landless men of the forest can hold their own against a handful of Norman knights and ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... readily to surprises and ambuscades; and should they reach the foot of the Lebanon range, they would find themselves entrapped in a region of slippery defiles, with steep paths at intervals cut into the rock, and almost inaccessible to chariots or horses, and so narrow in places that a handful of resolute men could have held them for a long time against whole battalions. The enemy preferred to make for the two natural breaches at the respective extremities of the line of defence, and for the two insular cities which flanked the approaches to them—Tyre in the case of those coming from ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... party gathered round the table; the kittens, revived by milk, played happily together on the grass. Nibbler sulked in his basket and took sly bites at a handful of dandelion leaves when he thought that no one was noticing him; but everyone else was happy, hungry, and content. The fresh air gave them all such appetites that everything they had to eat and drink seemed to be doubly good; the same beautiful air and the sunshine sent their spirits soaring, ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... adjournments are calculated, but all whether the court, or the monopolizers of the country party, or those that profane the title of old cavaliers, do equally, though upon differing reasons, like death apprehend a dissolution. But notwithstanding these, there is an handful of salt, a sparkle of soul, that hath hitherto preserved this gross body from putrefaction, some gentlemen that are constant, invariable, indeed Englishmen; such as are above hopes, or fears, or dissimulation, that can neither flatter, nor ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... good work and earnest devotion of Pirie, and are delighted these are to be recognised, even in this small way. We were talking about the huge bungle of the landing at Suvla. It seems agreed had it not been that two Territorial Battalions turned tail when faced by a handful of Turks things here would have been totally different, and the ridges which are not yet ours should have been taken and held the first day. A distinguished General is said to have remarked: "Had there been more sweat on the part of the men there would have ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... miraculous ingenuity and hair-splitting on deciding what was labour and what was not. The foundations of that astonishing structure now found in the Talmud were, no doubt, laid before Christ. This expansion of the prohibition, so as to take in such trifles as plucking and rubbing a handful of heads of corn, has many ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... signal example was made by a handful of your Majesty's troops opposed to a riotous multitude which had burnt houses and spread devastation, and Sir James Graham encloses a letter from Captain Powys giving a description of the occurrence. The effect of this example has been that yesterday ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... Scotchman was one of the innocent, chartered libertines of the place, with an unlimited stock of good jokes and stories, but seldom of any practical use. On one occasion, however, when everything possible and impossible under the sun was being carbonized for lamp filaments, he allowed a handful of his bushy red beard to be taken for the purpose; and his laugh was the loudest when the Edison-Mackenzie hair lamps were brought up to incandescence—their richness in red rays being slyly attributed to the nature of the filamentary material! Oddly enough, a few years ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... river stretching many hundred leagues, with its shores of impenetrable forests, it was difficult to resist an oppressive sense of loneliness. Though here and there an Indian settlement or a Brazilian village appears, yet the population is a mere handful in ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... overheated, a forlorn hope, sent forward to take the battery! These men, stealthily assembling there among the trees and bushes, are ready. Not one of them carries a pound of superfluous weight. Their rifles with fixed bayonets, a handful of cartridges, a canteen of water, are enough. They wear flannel shirts and blue trowsers; numbers are bareheaded, some have cut off the sleeves of their shirts: they know there is work before them. Many kneel in prayer; comrades exchange messages ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... said the queen, now comprehending all. "Then if you will promise to-night to keep the opium cup out of his way, these pearls and diamonds," and she took a handful of them from her ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... a handful of gold from his pocket. "For the poor of your parish, mon pere, if you will be good enough to accept it for them," said he, with great charm and simplicity of manner. The old priest flushed with pleasure, saying that he had many poor, and was constantly ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... festival of Christmas, which throughout all Christendom lights up the fireside of home with mirth and jollity, followed hard upon the wedding just described. Though far from kindred and friends, Captain Bonneville and his handful of free trappers were not disposed to suffer the festival to pass unenjoyed; they were in a region of good cheer, and were disposed to be joyous; so it was determined to "light up the yule clog," and celebrate a merry Christmas in ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... is meant the ordinary wheat flour. It should not be too moist, should have a fine white appearance, remain lumpy, or hold its form, on pressure, not show any particles which cannot be crushed, and when a handful is thrown against the wall, part of it should adhere. The odor and taste should be fresh and clean ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... of the passage swung open; and into sight, amid loud boo-hoos, pressed a squirming trio. There were two torn and dirty boys, their faces streaked with tears, their hands vainly trying to grapple. And between the two, holding to each by a handful of cassock, and by turns scolding and beseeching the quarreling pair, came ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... place. It is a young city on the rise. A handful of years ago it was a French mission, beginning to turn its eyes languidly towards lumber. It is on the neck that joins the waters of Superior and Huron, but the only through traffic was that of the voyageurs, who made the portage round the stiff ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... Then Yudhishthira, the son of Kunti, addressing Drona, said, 'O Brahmana (thou askest for a trifle)! Do thou, with Kripa's permission, obtain of us that which would last thee for life!' Thus addressed, Drona with smiles replied unto the Bharata princes, saying, 'This handful of long grass I would invest, by my mantras, with the virtue of weapons. Behold these blades possess virtues that other weapons, have not! I will, with one of these blades, pierce the ball, and then pierce that blade with another, and that another with a third, and thus shall I, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... could not reward my kind physician with my hand, which, by-the-by, I should not have offered had I not been certain of refusal, I was obliged to force upon her as splendid a trinket as I could purchase, for a keepsake, and gave my sable nurses a handful of bits each. Bits of what? say ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... had a few bags of nuts like these, I could make my fortune. They do not grow in our village, and I have told the boys about them until they are all wild to have some. But I suppose you cannot give me any, for although you never get out of them, you seem only to have a handful at a time." ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... to my roses—they are not of my making, to be sure. Never, by the way, did Miss Martineau work such a miracle as I now witness in the garden—I gathered at Rome, close to the fountain of Egeria, a handful of fennel-seeds from the most indisputable plant of fennel I ever chanced upon—and, lo, they are come up ... hemlock, or something akin! In two places, moreover. Wherein does hemlock resemble fennel? How could I mistake? No ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... restored to its former glory was not realized. Instead of driving their enemies before them sword in hand, as in the days of Joshua, or reigning triumphantly over them in peace, as in the days of Solomon, they found themselves a handful of weak colonists under the dominion of foreigners, and returning to the land of their fathers solely by their permission. All this was extremely humiliating to their worldly pride, and a bitter disappointment of their worldly hopes. Hence they had fallen into a desponding ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... Then came a handful of long, hot, feverishly busy days. Strayed steers carrying the Number Ten brand were hazed back to the big fenced-in meadows from the mountain slopes, were counted and held, in an ever-swelling herd. There was little ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... the Intercollegiate Menorah Association as one of the very earliest Menorah Societies. It was really originated in 1903, when a handful of students in the University found it desirable to satisfy certain longings by taking up the study of Jewish history and literature. Some of us had found that it was of little avail to cry over the ashes of the past, and we thought that it would ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... thy storehouse Or thy handful still renew; Scanty fare for one will often Make a royal ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... saw that it was not a doll; for out of one end of the box—an end that was open—extended a handful of long, slender, green stems. The gift was flowers, tied, not with common string, but with a flat, green tape which looked fully as expensive as ribbon, and nearly as handsome. "Oh, gee!"—this as he ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... whole days he subsisted on his shilling; when that was spent, he parted with some of the clothes from his back, until, reduced almost to nakedness, he was four-and-twenty hours without food, insomuch that he declared a handful of gray peas, given to him by a girl at a wake, was one of the most delicious repasts he had ever tasted. Hunger, fatigue, and destitution brought down his spirit and calmed his anger. Fain would he have retraced his steps, could he have done so with any salvo ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... before the Great West was more than a name to any but a handful in older Canada, hardy French voyageurs and Scottish adventurers had pushed their canoes or driven their Red River carts to the foot of the Rockies and beyond. They had mated with Indian women, and when in 1870 the Dominion ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... people with. I should think we threw away, yesterday, a thousand of the latter. We had the carriage filled with flowers three or four times. I wish you could have seen me catch a swell brigand on the nose with a handful of very large confetti every time we met him. It was the best thing I have ever done. "The Chimes" are nothing ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Gerald had just said, playing with a plainly shown handful of money, so as to leave no doubt of his honourable intentions. Then at the next table he heard the words, "Ah, yes, curious old family heirloom," the ring was drawn off the finger of That, and Mr. U. ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... world," thought Therese, "but his tools, a handful of nails, the tub wherein he dips his leather, and a pot of basilick, yet ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... to him every season from Aldgate-pump. He could prophesy all the politics of the Court of Aldermen from a phial filled at Fleet-ditch; and could at any time—no trifling task—tell the amount of corruption in the House of Commons, by taking up a handful of water at Westminster-bridge. On his stolen visit to England—for the honour he has done our country has never been generally known—he calculated to a nicety how many puppies and kittens were annually drowned in the Thames, and how many ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... Jack softly plucked a handful of grass, and, stepping out from the cover of the woods began moving gently toward the colt. The latter turned his head and uttered a sniff of inquiry, at the same time showing an inclination to whirl about and gallop off. The boy stood still and, holding out ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... the well-shaped head in his arms, fondled the soft, dainty nose that nuzzled in his pocket for sugar, fed Chiquito a half-handful of the delicacy in his open palm, and put the pony through the repertoire of tricks he had ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... "A whole handful!" he said, in yet greater wonder, when the clerk handed them out. "Who could have known I ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... behalf of his firm. He was aware, too, that he had felt a certain amount of contempt for its poverty, its quixotic devotion to lost causes and vanished ideals, and a certain disgusted impatience with a people who persistently lagged behind in the march of progress, and permitted a handful of upstart, blatant, self-seeking demagogues to misrepresent them, in Congress and before the country, by intemperate language and persistent hostility to a humble but large and important part of their own constituency. But he was glad to find that this was the mere froth ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... fellow as Barry Lynch can do or say—and he with all the Kellys to back him; as shure they would, and why not, from the lord down? Not that I recommend the match; I think Martin a dale betther off as he is, for he's wanting nothing, and he's his own industhry—and, maybe, a handful of money besides. But, as for being afeard—I niver heard yet that a Kelly need be afeard of ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... old moving[235] amongst them: methinks a handful of nuts would turn them all out ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... make use of the knowledge he had gained of Hinkle's character, and employ him to negotiate between the two parties. I do not believe that Joseph had the least idea that he, with his little handful of men, could stand off the army that had come up against him. I know that now, but at the time I was full of religious zeal and felt that the Mormon Hosts of Israel were invincible. Joseph wished to use Hinkle to learn the designs of the Gentiles, so that he could prepare for ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... a pocket-book with a flourish, and took from it a handful of notes that made Durfy's eyes, as he sat at the distant table, gleam. The half-tipsy spendthrift was almost too muddled to count them correctly, but finally he succeeded in extracting five ten-pound notes from the bundle, which he tossed ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Kingdom of God is contained in a handful of parables and picturesque sayings. It attempts no detailed account of a Utopia; it lays down no laws; it offers the world a spirit, which in every age must find a body of its own. But this indefiniteness does not fit it the less, but the better, ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... Moultrie, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, the expedition of Clark and his handful of followers in Illinois, the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... stream, and laying them on the live coals until one side was done, turned them on the other by the aid of a long stick he had sharpened for the purpose, and when done he took them up on its point, and laid them steaming on a handful of leaves he had collected, and ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... these two forces the murids were but a handful in comparison. But their leader determined to make a stand, and to hold Tiletli, of which he had got possession, to the last. The Russians having the advantage not only of superior numbers but also of ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... this afternoon,—a whole handful for Eugenia, written on handsome linen paper and sealed with pretty monogram seals. I had a letter, too. The first one since I have been here. It was from Davy, and printed in big tipsy letters that straggled all over the page. There were only a few lines, ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... state of retribution and the necessity and sufficiency of good morals, how are we to explain his forbidding these truths to be taught to any but Jews till after his resurrection? Did the Jews reject those doctrines? Except perhaps a handful of rich men, called Sadducees, they all believed them, and would have died a thousand deaths rather than have renounced their faith. Besides, what is there in doctrines common to the creed of all religions, and enforced by all the schools of philosophy, except ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... now only a history of Indians since he began to know the "Six Nations" in Western New York, about forty years ago. Since then, these have dwindled down to a handful, and do not now exist in their separate tribal relations, but mixed in with others, far away from the beautiful ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... received her orders, tied the strings of her bonnet, caught up a handful of the victuals which were at the fire, and bidding the others a laughing good-bye, with her mouth full, and one hand also occupied, descended the ladder, previously to mounting ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a frequent absence of mind. Having missed money at different times, without being able to discover who took it, he determined to put the honesty of his servant to a trial, and left a handful of gold on the table. "Of course you counted it?" said one of his friends. "Count it!" said Leasing, rather embarrassed; "no, I ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... she had wanted help from God more than she had ever in her life wanted it; and these evident signs of faith, of an established relation between earth and heaven, fell most gratefully upon her aching heart. The village of St. Mary's is a mere handful of houses, on a narrow stretch of sandy plain, lying between two forests of firs. Many years ago, hunters, finding in the depths of these forests springs of great medicinal value, made a little clearing about them, and built there a few rough shanties to which they ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... gained their friendship that the haughty Antigonus, though he did not refuse their pledges of peace, secretly made up his mind to conquer them. Petra, the city of the Nabataeans, is in a narrow valley between steep overhanging rocks, so difficult of approach that a handful of men could guard it against the largest army. Not more than two horsemen can ride abreast through the chasm in the rock by which it is entered from the east, while the other entrance from the west is down a hillside too steep for a ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... and laid down her load; and breaking a handful of branches, she hurried over the ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... And, as you say, they know quite well that the British Government is behind this handful of English people, and knowing that reprisals would be certain to follow any lawlessness, I should say they are too wise to put themselves in the wrong. After all, too, these people are not doing them any harm by ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes |
