"Knotty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... again, and he gazed at Robert in a sort of dazed fashion. The imagination of young Lennox was alive and leaping. He had found what seemed to him a happy solution of a knotty problem, and, as usual in such cases, his ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... shot-gun was but a bar of iron. How could they cope with the bullets in the automatics? Undoubtedly every smuggler carried a revolver, and would use it in a pinch; possibly some might not wait until the pinch came. It was a knotty problem. The drops oozed out on Jim's forehead as ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... 1907, but most of the others are still alive and busy. Union N. Bethell, now in Cutler's place at the head of the New York Company, has been the operating chief for eighteen years. He is a man of shrewdness and sympathy, with a rare sagacity in solving knotty problems, a president of the new type, who regards his work as a sort of obligation he owes to the public. And just as foreigners go to Pittsburg to see the steel business at its best; just as they go to Iowa and Kansas to see ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... feast is well lighted, and the guest has not to third his way through knotty sentences, past perilous punctuation-points, to reach the table, nor to grope in the dark for the dainties when he has found it. We imagine that it is this charm of perfect clearness and accessibility ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... minutes, each one tugging at the knotty problem. Then Cameron rose, reached out for the phial of medicine, drove his slouch-hat down over his forehead, and ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... Fortunately, however, his hands were exceedingly grimy at the time, so that Mr Wakefield sent him back for ablutions before he would communicate with him. And in the interval he fortunately discovered his error, and instead of taking up the imposition with his clean hands, he delighted the master with a knotty inquiry as to one of the active tenses of the Latin verb ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... Bounce, in those deep earnest tones with which men usually attempt to probe the marrow of some desperately knotty question; "now, then, when Mr Bertram's a drawin' of, an' tries to look at the ground over there, you an' me comes before the ground, d'ye see; an' so we're, as ye may say, before-grounds. But men wot studies human ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... tracks on Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of Devonshire scorns compromise or mitigation by detour and zigzag. But here geography is on a scale so far more vast, and the roadway is so far worse metalled than with us in England—knotty masses of talc and nodes of sandstone cropping up at dangerous turnings—that only Dante's words describe ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... in high standing with the chief, but everybody who had laces or linen too fine to trust to the doubtful ministrations of an ordinary laundress knew that the girl was a magician with suds and a flatiron. Josie declared washing and ironing helped her to work out knotty problems and there was nothing like having your arms in suds up to the elbows to give you an insight into who did what ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... the crowds to the churches; and there was the beginning of the long afternoon's lounging and amusement with which the people of that faith reward their morning's devotion. Little stands for the sale of knotty apples and choke-cherries and cakes and cider sprang magically into existence after service, and people were already eating and drinking at them. The carriage-drivers resumed their chase of the tourists, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... shoe, when he saw, at some distance, a beggar approaching him. He had on a loose sort of coat, mended with different-colored rags, among which the blue and russet were predominant. He had a short, knotty stick in his hand, and on the top of it was stuck a ram's horn; he wore no shoes, and his stockings had entirely lost that part of them which would have covered his feet and ankles; in his face, however, was the plump appearance of good humor; he ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... native of the soil; its colour was a yellowish-green; it was armed, or ornamented, at points and joints, with spines, in a row along its back, sides, and legs; these were curved, and almost sharp; on the back of its neck was a thick knotty lump, with a spine at each side, by which I lifted it; its tail was armed with spines to the point, and was of proportional length to its body. The lizard was about eight inches in length. Naturalists have christened ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... the President replied, "I did not concede anything. You have heard how that Illinois farmer got rid of a big log that was too big to haul out, too knotty to split, and too wet ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... I think in Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," of a certain "grievous crab-tree cudgel," and the impression left by this description is that the weapon, gnarled and knotty, was capable ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... included me in the invitation which Miss Irma tendered to my grandmother. Nevertheless I followed, not knowing what else to do. I felt huge, awkward, clumsy of build and knotty of elbow and knee. I was conscious that my knuckles were red. I felt in the way and unhappy. In short, I hulked. Indeed, but that I was able to watch two eyes of darkest grey beneath a wisp of untamed curls on a small and shapely head, and the look of the thing, I would far rather ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... tell you he would have some devilish shrewd scheme?" he said enthusiastically to Alice. "Write her a letter! What could be better? Poetry, by Gad!" His face clouded. "But what would you say in it? That's a pretty knotty point." ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... mouldering wall ran round an enclosure containing tombstones. Everything was of the same colour, chapel, trees, and graves; the whole spot seemed faded and eaten into by the sea-wind; the stones, the knotty branches, and the granite saints, placed in the wall niches, were covered by the same ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... sporting favourite, Col. Hawker, who, when wishing to note down some difficult point, was in the habit of doing with his own hands all things pertaining to the matter at issue, because, as he said, he might not make mistakes when subsequently writing upon knotty subjects intended for ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... to overcome the vis inertiae of the lower-class dweller along the South Atlantic seaboard; but when he is first knocked in the head with so knotty a club as secession, and then is told to be up and doing, he probably does—nothing. Their leaders had not been among them yet, and the "Goobers" were entirely at sea. They knew that something had gone wrong, that something was expected of them; but how, where or what, their conception was of ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... you do it?' they asked. 'It was too big to haul away, too knotty to split, too wet and soggy to burn. Whatever did ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... or ten and a half; but my first impression, or feel of the man, was not of this, but of his strength. And yet, while he was of massive build, with broad shoulders and deep chest, I could not characterize his strength as massive. It was what might be termed a sinewy, knotty strength, of the kind we ascribe to lean and wiry men, but which, in him, because of his heavy build, partook more of the enlarged gorilla order. Not that in appearance he seemed in the least gorilla-like. What I am striving to express is this strength ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... The blacksmith was a knotty short man of Slavic features, a cropped mustache under his stubby nose. His shop was burning in the ruin of that tragic morning; the blame of it was Morgan's. Others whose business places had been erased in the fire were recognized by Morgan in the crowd. The proprietor ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... wild-goose chase. Their tense manner could hardly have been assumed: they were in desperate and deadly earnest; so he thanked the stars which had brought him into active connection with an important crime, and gave his mind strictly to the business in hand. Several knotty points demanded careful if speedy decision. The chased automobile might prove to be an innocent vehicle, driven by a chauffeur above suspicion, and if its owner appeared in the guise of some highly influential person he, the roundsman, might be called to sharp account for exceeding his duty in ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... dried there by inward fires, it nevertheless covers a most powerful structure. He is thin and tall. His long hair, always in disorder, is worn so for effect. This ill-combed, ill-made Byron has heron legs and stiffened knee-joints, an exaggerated stoop, hands with knotty muscles, firm as a crab's claws, and long, thin, wiry fingers. Raoul's eyes are Napoleonic, blue eyes, which pierce to the soul; his nose is crooked and very shrewd; his mouth charming, embellished with the whitest teeth ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... the now barren seashore. To the firs succeeded long stretches of odorous pines interspersed with Mediterranean heath (brayere), which here grows to a height of twelve feet; one thinks of the number of briar pipes that could be cut out of its knotty roots. A British Vice-Consul at Reggio, Mr. Kerrich, started this industry about the year 1899; he collected the roots, which were sawn into blocks and then sent to France and America to be made into pipes. This Calabrian briar ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... on the chimney-piece, where a porcelain figure, the grotesque chef d'oeuvre of some great Chinese artist, leered at him with its everlasting grin. The young man smiled. "Perhaps that is the likeness of a mandarin—bulbous nose, hanging cheeks, moustaches drooping like plumes, a peaked head, knotty hands—a regular deformity. Reflecting on the ugliness of that idiotic race, there is much to be urged by way of excuse for people ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... to put the Redskin on his own horse, or he may be giving us the slip. He shall have mine," said Long Sam, "and old 'Knotty' will stick by us, even if Mr Black Eagle should try and ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... earnestness; and at an early age she had made herself mistress of both Geometry and Astronomy, as far as either science was then understood or taught in any of the schools. As is the case with less profound natures, the mind grew on what it fed upon; reasoning, and the elucidation of knotty mathematical problems, became her delight; and, by general consent, she ranked as one of the first philosophers of her time, if not indeed ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... by mixing the kernel with the liquor lodged within its cavity, and straining it through a cloth, they make a very good milk. The cocoa-nut tree resembles the date palm, except in not being so rugged and knotty. They will continue to thrive for an hundred years, or more, and two of them will maintain a family of ten persons in wine plentifully, if used by turns, each tree being drawn for seven or eight days, and then ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... he said that this was good for the digestion. This man fancied himself the hero of the day. Puffed up with pride, he stood near the engine, called it his foster-child, and stroked the rusty iron walls with his black, knotty hand, that sounded as if two graters were rubbed together. With a great show of foreign words he explained to every one who came near him the inner arrangement of the "lookmanbile," as he called his foster-child, only he had to have some drink; otherwise he was abusive. ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... a brilliant university career, and was a man of such wide attainments that I think there was a general belief amongst Liverpool Irishmen that he knew everything. Accordingly, they used frequently to go to him to settle some knotty point beyond the ordinary conception, and they seldom came ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... wonderful that the eye never becomes tired of admiration. Often have I halted on my journey to ride around and admire the prodigious height and girth of these trees. Their beautiful proportions render them the more striking; there are no gnarled and knotty stems, such as we are accustomed to admire in the ancient oaks and beeches of England, but every trunk rises like a mast from the earth, perfectly free from branches for ninety or a hundred feet, straight as an arrow, each tree forming a dark pillar to support its share ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... have pluck. I find that lies at the bottom of all true dandyism. A little boy dressed up very fine, who puts his finger in his mouth and takes to crying, if other boys make fun of him, looks very silly. But if he turns red in the face and knotty in the fists, and makes an example of the biggest of his assailants, throwing off his fine Leghorn and his thickly-buttoned jacket, if necessary, to consummate the act of justice, his small toggery takes on the splendors of the crested helmet that frightened Astyanax. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... his long rifle, the butt of which rested upon the ground. He held the piece near the muzzle, partially leaning upon it, while he appeared gazing intently into the barrel. This was one of his "ways" when endeavouring to unravel a knotty question; and Garey and I knowing this peculiarity on the part of the old trapper, remained silent—leaving him to the free development ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... of his, who had once belonged to the bar, Mr. K——, a member of a most respectable family, called on O'Connell during the Assizes, to pay him a friendly visit. He found O'Connell engaged with a shrewd-looking farmer, who was consulting him on a knotty case. Heartily glad to see his old friend, O'Connell sprang forward, saying, "My dear K——, I'm delighted to see you." The farmer, seeing the visitor come in, cunningly took the opportunity of sneaking away. He had got what he wanted—the opinion; but O'Connell had not ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... anarchist; since he had no means of imparting his opinions, probably his wild gesticulations and his generally excited and rebellious manner gave rise to this supposition. He must once have been a very strong man, but now his great frame, with big, knotty joints, had a wasted look, and the skin was drawn tight over his high cheek-bones. His breathing was hoarse, and he ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... him at his chambers in George Street, he was buried in the recesses of the Advocates' Library, or poring over some mouldy manuscript at the Philosophical Institution, with his brain more exercised over the code which Menu propounded six hundred years before the birth of Christ than over the knotty problems of Scottish law in the nineteenth century. Hence it can hardly be wondered at that as his learning accumulated his practice dissolved, until at the very moment when he had attained the zenith of his celebrity he had also reached the nadir ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... has been observed, in the Tower for his practices against the present order of things, he being an advocate of extreme democratic principles; and he was there instructed in knotty points of law by Judge Jenkins, to enable him to torment and baffle the party in power. It was Jenkins who said of Lilburne that "If the world were emptied of all but John Lilburne, Lilburne would quarrel with John, and John with Lilburne." - ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... hardy-hearted folk of fields from everywhither throng, 520 With weapons caught in haste: and now the Trojan folk withal Pour from their opened gates, and on to aid Ascanius fall. And there the battle is arrayed; and now no war they wake, Where field-folk strive with knotty club or fire-behardened stake; But with the two-edged sword they strive: the meadows bristle black With harvest of the naked steel: the gleaming brass throws back Unto the clouds that swim aloft the smiting of the sun: As when the whitening of the wind across the flood ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... mothers dressing and nursing their children, the girls working or pretending to work with their needles. Three or four of the men were helping the cooks, some were mending their shoes, others were tailoring, a few of both sexes were reading, a greater number arguing some knotty point, or smoking their pipes, and several were sitting listlessly with their hands between their knees, already wishing that the voyage was over, and that they were once more engaged in the occupations to which they had been accustomed. The crew were all busy in their ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... more waxen, worn a little finer, and now, as he sat quietly watching the slender figure on the opposite side of the hearth, it wore a curious, inscrutable expression, as though he were mentally balancing the pros and cons of some knotty point. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... fringes or possibly of roots. On one buttress a large chain binds these together, on the others a strap and buckle—probably the Order of the Garter given to Dom Manoel by Henry VII. Above this five large knotty tree-trunks or branches of coral grow up the buttresses uniting in rough trefoiled heads at the top, and having statues between ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... the misery of the night, to let them in, and he came, fierce with rage, crying, "Ah, bold and sturdy vagabonds, now I will pay you," and caught them by the hood, and hurled them into the snow, and belaboured them with a knotty cudgel; and if still, in despite of all pain and contumely, they endured with gladness, thinking of the pains of the blessed Lord Christ, which for love of Him they too should be willing to bear—then might it be truly written down that therein ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... unwholesome evenings, murder and robbery.[289] Locke, when he went into voluntary exile in 1684, enjoyed himself with the doctors and men of letters in Amsterdam, attending by special invitation of the principal physician of the city the dissection of a lioness, or discussing knotty problems of theology with the wealthy Quaker merchants.[290] Courtiers were charmed with the sea-shore at Scheveningen, where on the hard sand, admirably contrived by nature for the divertisement ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... anything imaginable. Meanwhile he had grown to be twenty feet high, and his beauty increased in proportion. His hair he had never cut. Apollonius was allowed to ask him five questions, and accordingly asked for information on five of the most knotty points in the history of the Trojan War—whether Helen was really in Troy, why Homer never mentions Palamedes, etc. Achilles answered him fully and correctly in each instance. Then suddenly the cock crew, and, like Hamlet's father, he ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... however, Mr. Charles G. Harper has solved the knotty point in his valuable book The Old Inns of Old England. He comes to the conclusion, by a process of elimination, that the "Waggon and Horses" at Beckhampton, which exists to-day, nearly realises the description of the inn given in the story. "It ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... had long been tossed to and fro by knotty difficulties, while that abandoned profligate persisted with unyielding obstinacy in maintaining the truth of his assertions, while the severest tortures were unable to wring any confession from the prisoners, and when every circumstance proved that ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... Gothic Naturalism; and, indeed, it is almost impossible for the copying of nature to be carried farther than in the fibres of the marble branches, and the careful finishing of the tendrils: note especially the peculiar expression of the knotty joints of the vine in the light branch which rises highest. Yet only half the finish of the work can be seen in the Plate: for, in several cases, the sculptor has shown the under sides of the leaves turned boldly to the light, and has literally carved every rib and vein upon them, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... shade, which was considered objectionable on every ground save one, namely, that the perpetual sprinkling of seeds and water by the caged canary above was not noticed as an eyesore by visitors. The window was set with thickly-leaded diamond glazing, formed, especially in the lower panes, of knotty glass of various shades of green. Nothing was better known to Fancy than the extravagant manner in which these circular knots or eyes distorted everything seen through them from the outside—lifting hats from heads, shoulders ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... verbal comments and Solomon-like opinions, given in expressive pantomime, of this latter garrulous gathering concerning the machine and myself, I can of course but partly understand; but occasionally some wiseacre suddenly becomes inflated with the idea that he has succeeded in unravelling the knotty problem, and forthwith proceeds to explain, for the edification of his fellow-passengers, the modus operandi of riding it, supplementing his words by the most extraordinary gestures. The audience is usually very attentive and highly interested in these explanations, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... you undoubtedly think that I am beside myself. You are a tough, knotty old tree, and I have only one tender shoot. You may sneer, or you may pity,—I care not one baubee for your praise or your blame. I shall take my own course. I feel my responsibility, Sir! I shall not come to you for advice! I shall pursue the path of duty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... our society would be doubled, she would be effectually guarded against falling in love with either of us, by reason of the impossibility of her overlooking the equal merits of what Mrs. Coleman would probably have termed "the survivor ". Having settled this knotty point to his own satisfaction, and perplexed his mother into the belief that our arrival was rather a fortunate circumstance than otherwise, Freddy despatched her to break the glorious tidings, as he called it, to the young lady, cautioning her to do so carefully, and by degrees, for ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... at home, stimulating the new plant and technology that can make our goods more competitive, is also the key to the international balance of payments problem. Laying aside all alarmist talk and panicky solutions, let us put that knotty problem ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... knotty question, Miss Ringgan," said Mr. Carleton, with a smile, as he brought a bergre for her; "I should like to have ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... as bad. "'Sinking, sinking, sinking!' I feel that I am 'sinking'." My medical attendant says that it is irregular gout, with nephritic symptoms. 'Gout', in a young man of twenty-nine!! Swollen knees, and knotty fingers, a loathing stomach, and a dizzy head. Trust me, friend, I am at times an object of moral disgust to my own mind! But that this long illness has impoverished me, I should immediately go to St. Miguels, one of the Azores—the baths and the delicious climate ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... trying to cover the countenance that provoked the discussion with a veil, for her hat strained at its pins and threatened to blow back to Harmouth before the knotty point was settled as to who should ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... who laid the foundations of freedom or those who preserved it in the days of fiery trial. To a famous correspondent, Mr. Herbert Corey, who put the question, "Why do you wish to be President?" The Governor has answered: "It affords an opportunity to take hold of a knotty situation (the League) by the back of the neck and seat of the pants and shake a ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris
... orchard on the side of the hill, the peasants were gathering olives before the coming of the frost. There were scores of pickers wearing great gay-colored aprons in which they placed the olives as they gathered them from the trees. Ladders leaned against knotty tree trunks; baskets filled with the green fruit stood on the ground. Ladder and basket suggested the apple orchards of her native land, but the motley colors of kerchief and apron, yellow, magenta, turquoise, and green, and the gray of the eternal olive trees with the deep blue of the sky ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... building doll-houses—her favourite castles in the air—in imagination. But now and then she wanted another opinion, there were knotty points to decide. As 'all roads,' according to the old proverb, 'lead to Rome,' so all Celestina's meditations ended in the old cry, 'If only ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... It was an old habit with the three chums. Whenever an unusually knotty point arose that needed attention, and their powers seemed baffled, Frank was always depended on to supply ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... of that," said Folsom, his knotty hands deep in the pockets of his loose-fitting trousers. "I saw Burleigh this morning on some business, and he seemed to want to help Dean along. What took him out to the fort, ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... little trees standing in a field near the stream. The stems of these, which, considering the scarcity of trees in Iceland, may be called remarkable phenomena, were crooked and knotty, but yet six or seven feet high, and about four or five inches ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... sawdust brains the last time I fitted his head with new ears," explained the Wizard. "The sawdust was made from hard knots, and now the Sawhorse is able to think out any knotty problem he ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... scarlet bodice, on which the warm rays of the late sun fell with so much amorous tenderness. Poor little Lilla! A penknife would have made as much impression as her valorous blows produced on the inflexible, gnarled, knotty old stump she essayed to split in twain. Flushed and breathless with her efforts, she looked prettier than ever, and at last, baffled, she resigned her ax to Vincenzo, laughing gayly at her incapacity ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... town, the celebrated Cote-Roti wine is chiefly produced. The vineyards are in the highest state of cultivation; and, as in Burgundy also, the nature and position of the soil seem to operate as a forcing-wall upon the vines, which had, at this early season, made immense shoots from their knotty close-pruned stumps. Here I frequently observed the industrious expedient practised in many parts of Valencia and Catalonia. On the steepest parts of the hills, terraces above terraces, of loose stones, are built to ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... a splendid, comprehensive gesture that took in all the points of the compass impartially. "One of us must take a few days off and go and hunt up a nice, inexpensive little Eldorado for us. There!—there, my friends, you have the solution of your knotty little problem in a nutshell. I gladly ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... naturalist of that name, who, the first with a single exception, reached the summit of Mont Blanc. The subject of our lecture was some puzzling proposition in the differential calculus, and De Saussure propounded to the professor a knotty difficulty in connection with it. The professor replied unsatisfactorily. My friend still pressed his point, and the professor rejoined very learnedly and ingeniously, but without really meeting the case; whereupon De Saussure silently assented, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... it?" Their minds immediately flew to knotty points at issue. Was it about the finances of the provinces? Could it be a Censor had denounced some one and ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... antagonist, intending that his next thrust should be still more vigorous. But the young stranger appeared much better disposed to partake of the good cheer, with which he had been so providentially provided, than to take up the cudgels of argument on this, or on any other of the knotty points which are so apt to furnish the lovers of science with the materials of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... accommodation to peculiarities of circumstances; and under every creed, at the opening thus made, self-deception and dishonest casuistry get in. There exists no moral system under which there do not arise unequivocal cases of conflicting obligation. These are the real difficulties, the knotty points both in the theory of ethics, and in the conscientious guidance of personal conduct. They are overcome practically with greater or with less success according to the intellect and virtue of the individual; but it can hardly ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... The pectose, the jelly-producing element, deteriorates with age, so that jelly made from over-ripe fruit is less certain to "form." If the fruit is under-ripe, it will be too acid to give a pleasant flavor. Examine carefully, as for canning, rejecting all wormy, knotty, unripe, or partially decayed fruit. If necessary to ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... undergone a change akin to that which transformed the Pre-Raphaelite painter into the decorative artist. The skeins of vivid romantic colour had run out into large-pattern tapestries. There was nothing eccentric or knotty about "The Life and Death of Jason" and "The Earthly Paradise." On the contrary, nothing so facile, pellucid, pleasant to read had appeared in modern literature—a poetic lubberland, a "clear, unwrinkled song." The reader was carried along with no effort and little ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... dismay to the Countess Helene. The people of the Western world, the women in particular, knew little of the bitter spirit permeating the politics of France. The United States had very knotty problems of her own ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... and rivalry in the section. Much critical inquiry is directed to the propriety of Arthur's jib, or the necessity of "ballasting" or pouring a little molten lead into Edward's keel. The launch of a new vessel is the event of the week. The coast-guardsman is brought in to settle knotty questions of naval architecture and equipment, and the little seamen listen to his verdicts, his yarns, the records of his voyages, with a wondering reverence. They ask knowingly about the wind and the prospects of the weather; they submit to his higher knowledge ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... those noisy intruders; and they were immediately dismissed, though not without some opposition on the part of Tabitha, who thought it but reasonable that he should have more music for his money. Scarce had he settled this knotty point, when a strange kind of thumping and bouncing was heard right over-head, in the second story, so loud and violent, as to shake the whole building. I own I was exceedingly provoked at this new ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... one auburn whisker with knotty fingers. "Haven't been able to get a man that was any good since. It's nothing but worry, worry, worry in business. And where might you have come across him, captain, if it's fair ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... made any advances beyond plain dressing, as boiling, roasting, &c. For though we find indeed, that Rebecca his mother was accomplished with the skill of making savoury meat as well as he, yet whether he learned it from her, or she from him, is a question too knotty for me ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... the woods seemed without the little troop! The wind sighed in the pines, and the moonlight cast fearful shadows from the gnarled and knotty boughs. ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... the packet, with orders to let nothing divert him from his one purpose," observed the scientist; while Bob nudged his chum in the side, unable to restrain his delight over the wonderful outcome of the knotty problem. ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... dilapidated chair in the untidy office he had occupied for nearly thirty years, sat Asa Culkin, popularly known as "Judge" Culkin. Justice of the peace, sheriff, attorney-at-law, and three times Mayor of Laketon, he was still a controlling factor in local politics and government. And many a knotty legal problem was settled in that gloomy little office. Many a dispute in the town council was dependent for arbitration upon the keen mind and understanding wit ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... various causes make Manilius one of the most difficult of authors. Few can wade through the mingled solecisms in language and mistakes in science, the empty verbiage that dilates on a platitude in one place, and the jejune abstract that hurries over a knotty argument in another, without regretting that so unreadable a poet ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... than they do about themselves, he is got into a track where he will find nothing but briars and thorns, vexation and disappointment. I can speak a little to this point. For many years of my life I did nothing but think. I had nothing else to do but solve some knotty point, or dip in some abstruse author, or look at the sky, or ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... man seemed to puzzle over some knotty, mental question. Then he arose, and leaning against the window frame in a favorite attitude, glanced across at Percy and the spinster as he asked, slowly: "Did she say anything ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... village, the bolder grew the wild things that gambolled and bellowed on the grazing-grounds by the Waingunga. They had no time to patch and plaster the rear walls of the empty byres that backed on to the Jungle; the wild pig trampled them down, and the knotty-rooted vines hurried after and threw their elbows over the new-won ground, and the coarse grass bristled behind the vines like the lances of a goblin army following a retreat. The unmarried men ran away first, and carried the news ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... fancied that her friend had discovered some very knotty point in the case with Mr. Marlow, and she rejoiced, for her object was not to emulate but to entangle. Sir Philip, however, went on to put her out of all patience by saying, "How the Romans, so sublimely virtuous ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... the eldest boy, the greater part of all the other hard work of the farm quite naturally fell on me. I had to split rails for long lines of zigzag fences. The trees that were tall enough and straight enough to afford one or two logs ten feet long were used for rails, the others, too knotty or cross-grained, were disposed of in log and cordwood fences. Making rails was hard work and required no little skill. I used to cut and split a hundred a day from our short, knotty oak timber, swinging the axe and ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... church; that is, if he had not to go to town, which was sometimes the case even on the great day of rest, through his diplomatic skill being required in Downing Street. This was what he said, pleading his having to adjust some nice and knotty point of difference between the valiant King of Congo and the neighbouring and pugnacious Ja Ja, or else to remonstrate, in firm and equable language, as Officialdom knows so well how to do, against the repeated unjustifiable homicides of the despot of Dahomey, in sacrifice ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... disquisition. She had too much penetration to look to him for the Christianity of a St. John—it was evident that such was not his nature; but she thought he would surely employ his powerful mind in wrestling with those knotty points of theology which might furnish arguments for a modern ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... anon, a petal would drop from the flower; this was always succeeded by a shuddering tremor throughout Iridion's frame and a more forlorn expression on her pallid countenance: while Pan's jovial features assumed an expression of deeper concern as he pressed his knotty hand more resolutely against his shaggy forehead, and wrung his dexter horn with a more determined grasp, as though he had caught a burrowing idea by ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... minutes with young Padwick concerning the favourite for the Cambridgeshire; then with the words, "Put the gee down to my account," he walked away, a little wide at the knees, and flipping his boots with his knotty little cane. 'I don't feel a bit inclined to go out,' he thought. 'I wonder if mother will stand fizz for my last night!' With 'fizz' and recollection, he could ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... apprehension, and vivacity of understanding, which easily took in and surmounted the most subtile and knotty parts of mathematicks and metaphysicks. His wit was prompt and flowing, yet solid and piercing; his taste delicate, his head clear, and his way of expressing his thoughts perspicuous and engaging. I shall say nothing of his person, which yet was so well turned, that no neglect of ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... officers of exceptional ability, Lieutenant-Colonel W. Nicholson, R.E., for defence, and Lieutenant-Colonel E. Elles, R.A., for mobilisation. It was in a great measure due to Colonel Nicholson's clear-sighted judgment on the many knotty questions which came before us, and to his technical knowledge, that the schemes for the defence of the frontier, and for the ports of Bombay, Karachi, Calcutta, Rangoon and Madras, were carried out so rapidly, ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... as usual in the morning, and my Turkish towel was spread outside the tent to dry. The Tarjum, who showed great interest in all our things, took a particular fancy to its knotty fabric. He sent for his child to see this wonderful material, and when he arrived the towel was placed on the youth's back as if it were a shawl. I at once offered it to him as a present if he would accept it. There were no bounds to his delight, and our relations, somewhat strained a few minutes ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... with a wound in his head, quite senseless, it proved to be, when they had him on board and laid him on the bench for inspection. Meanwhile the docile horse went on of its own accord, and before the knotty question was decided as to whether the man should bring-to, and get him on shore, and try and discover to whom he belonged, the barge was clear of the town, for the current was strong. It had been nearly clear of it when it passed the cathedral wall, and the splash occurred. The man thought it ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... became full of life, and his eyes sparkled. "The witch has just returned," he muttered between his teeth. "See here, Petro: a beauty will stand before you in a moment; do whatever she commands; if not—you are lost for ever." Then he parted the thorn-bush with a knotty stick, and before him stood a tiny izba, on chicken's legs, as they say. Basavriuk smote it with his fist, and the wall trembled. A large black dog ran out to meet them, and with a whine, transforming itself ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... a new subject of admiration presented itself to Tommy's mind. There was a root of a prodigious oak tree, so large and heavy, that half-a-dozen horses would scarcely have been able to draw it along; besides, it was so tough and knotty, that the sharpest axe could hardly make any impression upon it. This a couple of old men were attempting to cleave in pieces, in order to make ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... at a chief's hut where he was known, and decided a very knotty question so wisely and justly that they asked him to tarry with them for a while. He answered them in a dreamy way, for his mind was thinking of the Star and his fruitless quest, forgetting that even thus it had brought good fortune, since it had ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... shamefaced way he fetched from a tool-box a long-forgotten, strong little currycomb, such as is used on shaggy Shetland ponies. With that he proceeded to give Bobby such a grooming as he had never had before. It was a painful operation, for his thatch was a stubborn mat of crisp waves and knotty tangles to his plumy tail and down to his feathered toes. He braced himself and took the punishment without a whimper, and when it was done he stood cascaded with dark-silver ripples ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... I must mention a notable exception. He gave me one technical principle, expressed in a few simple exercises, which I have never heard of from any one else. The use of this principle has helped me amazingly to conquer many knotty passages. I have never given these exercises to any one; I am willing however, to jot ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... the stair, "she sure is keen on knowing how I met Geoff! And if she ever finds out—" Spike cowered down into a chair and clasping his head between his hands sat thus a long while, staring moodily at the floor, striving for a way out of the difficulty. He was yet wrestling with this knotty problem when he heard muffled knocks at the front door, which, being opened, disclosed the object ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... stump of a man, lean and knotty, all of whose joints formed protuberances, proceeded at an easy pace down the ravine, searching at every opening through which a passage could be effected with the cautiousness of a fox. Then, suddenly, ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... The girl was flattered by the deference shown her, and gradually threw herself into the little plot. How to set up a meatless day for the household, minus the Squire, and not be found out; how to restrict the bread and porridge allowance, while apparently outrunning it—knotty problems! into which the twins plunged with much laughter and ingenuity. At the end of the discussion, Elizabeth said with hesitation, 'I don't like not telling Mr. ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... last line, and still held one knotty brown finger raised to mark the important words, when there was a low knock at the door, and immediately afterwards it opened a little way and a head appeared, covered by a rusty-black wideawake. It was the second time that day that Lilac had seen it, for it was Peter Greenways' head. In a moment ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... of road that lay between Madame Le Maitre's house and the house allotted to Caius led, winding down a hill, through a stunted fir-wood. The small firs held out gnarled and knotty branches towards the road; their needles were ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... thing, is the open grate fire. It's a fire. It warms your body, at least in front in extreme weather. But it's more than a fire. It's a stimulus to thought. It refreshes your spirit, and rests your tired nerves, and it is a wonderful thing to help you unravel knotty problems. So he poked the fire and thought, while she, quite unconscious of his embarrassment, went on sipping her tea ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... to solve that problem in my mind, and it is a knotty one. I must have more time to think ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... me for?" Gore bellowed in unreasonable anger. He strode forward, the prisoners scattering before him. His large, knotty hand closed on Quirl's arm, and jerked, with the intention of whirling this reluctant prisoner across the room. But Quirl was heavier, and his arm harder, than Gore had supposed. The hand came away, and with a tearing scream, the beautiful silk garment ripped off, ruined, disclosing Quirl's ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl
... cried Joe. "That's a pretty kind of security. Is that what I've been paying church dues for? Better have known it in my heart in the first place, and saved the money. What's the use of believing all these knotty points, if they don't make a sure thing for ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... white cloth. The cottage was illuminated. I saw an old man seated on a wooden stool in a recess, where an ample serge curtain concealed a bed. He held himself slightly bent, the two hands held forth, one over the other, on the knob of a knotty staff, highly polished. In spite of eighty years, Norine's grandfather—le grand, as they say up there—had not lost a hair: beautiful white locks fell over his shoulders—crisp, thick, outspread. I thought of those ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... be knotty, the Englishman retired to the apartment in which the ladies had assembled; and, seated by the side of Sarah, he found a more pleasing employment in relating the events of fashionable life in the metropolis, and in recalling the thousand little anecdotes of their former associates. Miss ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... puzzle (finding the pair with the highest product) is, however, the real knotty point, for it is not at all easy to discover whether we should let the multiplier consist of one or of two figures, though it is clear that we must keep, so far as we can, the largest figures to the left in both multiplier and multiplicand. It will be seen that by the following arrangement ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... that the day was none of the finest, having elicited a repartee of quite the contrary, the various knotty points of meteorology, which usually form the exordium of an English conversation, were successively discussed and exhausted; and, the ice being thus broken, the colloquy rambled to other topics, in the course of ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... his pain bemoans. Young Silvia beats her breast, and cries aloud For succor from the clownish neighborhood: The churls assemble; for the fiend, who lay In the close woody covert, urg'd their way. One with a brand yet burning from the flame, Arm'd with a knotty club another came: Whate'er they catch or find, without their care, Their fury makes an instrument of war. Tyrrheus, the foster father of the beast, Then clench'd a hatchet in his horny fist, But held his hand from the descending stroke, And left his wedge within the cloven oak, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... happened that her way led through the identical lane in which she had met the fairy. Wonderful to relate, there, on the very same stone and in precisely the same attitude, sat the old lady, peering out from under her poke-bonnet, and resting her knotty old ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... meagre records of three centuries, and some exceptions to the general rule which serve only to show up the general poverty of the land. Henry II, an ardent sportsman, a ruler almost completely immersed in affairs of State, made time for private reading and for working out knotty questions,[1] and very probably he had a library to his hand. King John received from the sacristan of Reading a small collection of books of the Bible and severe theology, perhaps as a diplomatic ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... prejudice should be allowed to stand in way of doing the best thing. Talk just now of pending vacancies on the Bench; such talk recurrent; sometimes more talk than vacancy. "But I pass from that," as ARTHUR BALFOUR says, when gliding over knotty points of question put from Irish Benches. If not vacancy to-morrow, sure to be within week, or month, or year. Why not make JEMMY LOWTHER a Judge? It is true he has no practice at the Bar; but he was "called," ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... than ten minutes Yetta wrinkled her forehead over this knotty ethical point; then she ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... try to go to sleep, and you will feel better in the morning," was all the re- ply he could make to her knotty queries. It was a long time before she fell asleep; and a number of days before James felt in a mood to visit and entertain ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... supper, and helping what they could. There was a very small squirrel on her shoulder, sitting up, as those creatures do, and turning a rocky fragment of prehistoric chestnut-cake over and over in its knotty hands, and hunting for the less indurated places, and giving its elevated bushy tail a flirt and its pointed ears a toss when it found one—signifying thankfulness and surprise—and then it filed that place off with those two slender front teeth which a squirrel carries for that purpose and not for ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the temporal provisions of the reverend fathers—he deputed the functions of the first mass to a coadjutor, and, breviary in hand, sought the orchard of venerable pear trees. Whether there was any occult sympathy in his reflections with the contemplation of their gnarled, twisted, gouty, and knotty limbs, still bearing gracious and goodly fruit, I know not, but it was his private retreat, and under one of the most rheumatic and misshapen trunks there was a rude seat. Here Father Pedro sank, his face toward the mountain wall between him and the invisible ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Winona, to whom they were uttered with the air of owlish, head-snapping wisdom which marked so many of the invalid's best things. She was concerned only with the failure of Wilbur to select a seemly occupation. His working dress was again careless; he reeked with oil, and his hands—hard, knotty hands—seemed to be permanently grimed. Even Lyman Teaford managed his thriving flour and feed business, with a butter and eggs and farm produce department, in the garments of a gentleman. True, he ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... drawing up his twelve sons in double military rank, "I fought under good King Henriot, and can play at sword and pistol as well as the worthy 'ligueurs';" and shaking his head he leaned against a post, his knotty staff between his crossed legs, his hands clasped on its thick butt-end, and his white, bearded chin resting on his hands. Then, half closing his eyes, he appeared lost in recollections ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... words burst involuntarily from his lips as the keen blade buried itself under the knotty scales deep in the monster's throat. The mighty jaws relaxed and dropped the limp ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... smile at the conceit of a fat Hamlet, but I am satisfied that my theory is amply sustained by the text, as well as by the true solution of the alleged knotty points of Shakspeare's mental character, over which the ponderous but inflated brain of Dr. Johnson stultified itself. He accuses the Avon bard of introducing spirits, ghosts, myths, and fairies; of being guilty of exaggerations, absurdities, vulgar expressions, and other ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... fell straight, like the goat's hair, on either side of his face, being parted in the centre like the hair of certain statues of the Middle-Ages which are still to be seen in our cathedrals. In place of the knotty stick which the conscripts carried over their shoulders, this man held against his breast as though it were a musket, a heavy whip, the lash of which was closely braided and seemed to be twice as long as that of an ordinary whip. ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... seest a hostile camp; escape hence is hopeless.' To him Turnus, smiling and cool: 'Begin with all thy valiance, and close hand to hand; here too shalt thou tell that a Priam found his Achilles.' He ended; the other, putting out all his strength, hurls his rough spear, knotty and unpeeled. The breezes caught it; Juno, daughter of Saturn, [746-780]made the wound glance off as it came, and the spear sticks fast in the gate. 'But this weapon that my strong hand whirls, this thou shalt not escape; for not such is he who sends weapon and wound.' So speaks he, and rises ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... to accommodate itself to his means. He was evidently engaged in the consideration of some complicated affair; and the more he thought, the more impatient he grew. He finished his cigar, and lit another; still the knotty point was not conquered. His haggard countenance at one moment was lighted up, as though success had dawned upon his mental contest; but at the next moment it darkened into disappointment, which he vented in ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... McPherson's house, Truedale raised his head and sniffed the clear, winter air with keen enjoyment. A sense of achievement possessed him; the joy of feeling he had solved a knotty problem. He found he could think of Pine Cone—and, yes, of Nella-Rose—without a hurting smart. He was going to do something for her—for her people! He was going to make life easier—happier—for them, so he prayed in his silent, wordless way. He had a new and strange ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock |
