"Thread" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her knife to the little stream that winds like a thread of light down into the Hollow. "I tell you, sir, these hills is pretty to look at, but there ain't much here for a girl like Sammy, and I don't blame her a mite for wantin' to leave. It's a mighty hard place to live, Mr. Howitt, ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... mean that you shall take a vacation until you have deserved it. What right have you to rest before you have labored—before you have earned a thread that clothes you or a mouthful that nourishes you. There are men whose whole lives are a vacation. These words are not for them. From my viewpoint, such men might as well be dead. The men upon whom I am urging the ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... Once, however, the compiler ventures to depart from his plan by inserting the lines by Sir William Jones, "What constitutes a State?" To this poem he appends a note apologizing for "breaking the thread of his discourse," upon the ground that the lines were so "applicable to the subject," that it seemed as if the author "must have been describing North Carolina." When the compiler has done cataloguing the fisheries, the rivers, the mountains, and the towns of North ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... people from their usual channels into the impulses, passions, and superstitions of those who live on chances. They loudly proclaim their opinion, that this their present system of a republic cannot possibly exist without this kind of gaming fund; and that the very thread of its life is spun out of the staple of these speculations. The old gaming in funds was mischievous enough undoubtedly; but it was so only to individuals. Even when it had its greatest extent in the Mississippi and South Sea, it affected but few, comparatively; where it extends ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... girl is singing, and gets away up on a high note, and keeps getting it down finer all the time, until it is not much bigger than a cambric needle, and she draws in a whole lot of air, and just fools with that wee bit of a note, and draws it out fine like a silk thread, and keeps letting go of it a little at a time until it seems as though it was a mile long, and the audience stops talking and eating candy, and just holds its breath, and listens for her to bite it off, and she wiggles with it, and catches another breath when it is keeping right on, and it ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... honor—(Psychic Magnetism). In this scheme nothing is inferior, but all elements are appointed to be subordinate to the last. These vibrations should run through the whole etheric activity a binding thread ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... of a bird! Yet set it in the sun glance, Display it in the shine, Take graver's lens, explore it, Note filament and line, Mark amethyst to sapphire, And sapphire to gold, And gold to emerald changing The archetype unfold! Tone, tint, thread, tissue, texture, Through every atom scan, Conforming still, developing, Obedient to plan. This but to form a pattern On the garment of a bird! What then must be the poem, This but its lightest word! Sit before it; ponder o'er it, 'Twill thy ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... cannot see him—not a ray Of all his glory there appears, And oft we thread our darkened way, Trembling with ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... which Devin was seated apparently agreed. In a rather high pitched voice it pointed out that: "If the Lunar Fort falls, the Earth—" It stopped abruptly, and an electroscope beside Douglass took up the thread in a high, shrill voice, rather slurred, "—will be ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... five fingers, to live—well, this very man, who should be the first to economize his vital principle, outruns his strength, yokes his wife to some machine, wears out his child, and ties him to the wheel. The manufacturer—or I know not what secondary thread which sets in motion all these folk who with their foul hands mould and gild porcelain, sew coats and dresses, beat out iron, turn wood and steel, weave hemp, festoon crystal, imitate flowers, work woolen things, break in horses, dress harness, ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... in a pair of dazzling white trousers with invisible straps that kept them in shape. He wore pumps and thread stockings; the black ribbon of his eyeglass meandered over a white waistcoat, and the fashion and elegance of Paris was strikingly apparent in his black coat. He was indeed just the faded beau who might be expected from his antecedents, though advancing years had already endowed him with a certain ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... day with hardly a motion, and indeed at last without even a moan, like one dead. At first they often thought she was dead, but at last they got used to it, and only consulted the almanac to find the moment when she would begin to revive, which, of course, was with the first appearance of the silver thread of the crescent moon. Then she would move her lips, and they would give her a little nourishment; and she would grow better and better and better, until for a few days she was splendidly well. When well, she was always merriest out in the moonlight; but even when near her worst, ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... The fear which is a beginning of love is servile fear, which is the herald of charity, just as the bristle introduces the thread, as Augustine states (Tract. ix in Ep. i Joan.). Or else, if it be referred to initial fear, this is said to be the beginning of love, not absolutely, but relatively to the state ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... know, and will not betray! Sanctuary! Thou seekest sanctuary, and thou shalt have it if I can aid thee; but no time is to be lost. Rush on as if thy life hung on a single thread. Turn to the right, pass the Stadium, wind quickly around the hill Pion, and thou shalt see the Temple bathed in glorious light, and close to it the sacred grove; but I fear the hour has passed to gain access, and the planet Saturn ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... ceased to peck at her for a few moments as she considered this, and followed up a thread of gold.... Though the Padre would surely be discreet, she hoped that he would "let slip" to dear Evie in the course of the vivid conversation they would be sure to have over lunch, that he had a good ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... arrival of the paper canoe. It was a question whether I could descend Love Creek three miles, cross Rehoboth and Indian River sounds, ascend White's Creek, make a portage to Little Assawaman Bay, thread the thoroughfare west of Fenwick's Island Light, cross the Isle of Wight Bay, ascend and cross St. Martin's River to Turval's Creek, and reach the home of my friend, all in one day. But I determined to attempt the task. Mr. ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... that the evidence is so complete that he is soon to be convicted and seeks a mitigation of the sentence by confession, or he hopes through a more honest narration of the crime to throw a great degree of the guilt on another. In addition there is a thread of vanity in confession—as among young peasants who confess to a greater share in a burglary than they actually had (easily discoverable by the magniloquent manner of describing their actual crime). Then there are confessions made for the sake of care ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... leafless, thin, thread-like, articulated branches, have been compared to the arborescent horse-tails (Equisetaceae), but have a much greater resemblance to the Larch-firs; they have the colonial name of Oaks, which might be changed more appropriately to that of ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... their minds That they would fishing go, For there were fish within the brook, Their brothers told them so. Some pins and thread and withes they took, ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... contemporary with the introduction of Venetian lace, a Pillow lace was being made in Flanders, the origin of which is not as yet discovered. It is possible that the fine flax thread grown and manufactured there may, at the time of weaving, have suggested a looser and more ornamental material, but that remains a matter of conjecture. There must, however, have been an interchange of examples, as ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... first came here," she said, "Susy used to cry a great deal whenever she was hurt or punished. When she was sick she was very hard to please. When she sat down to learn to sew and to read and to write, she would break her thread in anger, or throw her book on the floor, or declare she never could learn. But now she has left off crying when she is hurt, and tries to bear the pain quietly. When she is sick she does not fret or complain, but takes her medicine without a word. When she is sewing she does not twitch ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... brown tresses there gleamed a silvery thread, Life pages, past and present I wonderingly then read. I saw a blithsome maiden, a child serenely fair, A woman heavey laden now lifts her first ...
— Poems - A Message of Hope • Mary Alice Walton
... straight up behind it. And from the windows of such a house, one could look off, not only over the whole valley, but past the hills of its southern wall, clear and straight thirty miles to the sea. In a clear day, the line of the water flashed and shone there like a silver thread. ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... himself," he went on, in answer to my look; "I am only his spirit. Have you ever tested that belief the Hindoos hold: that a man may leave his body, wander at will for a certain period, remembering only to return ere the thread connecting him with flesh and blood be stretched to breaking point? It is quite correct. I often lock the door of my lodging, leave myself behind, wander a ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... A slender thread of light falling upon the soft contour of her features, carved in cameo their pure and delicate outline. When she saw me a faint blush brightened her pallor like a drop of crimson in a cup of milk; she ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... sufficiently, attention was turned to Bud. His fingers were cut off one by one and the corkscrew was bored into his legs and arms. A man with a club struck him over the head, crushing his skull and forcing an eyeball to hang down from the socket by a thread. A rush was made toward Bud and a man who was a little ahead of his competitors snatched the eyeball ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... by way of orniment. these shirts are generally made of deer's Antelope's, Bighorn's, or Elk's skins dressed without the hair. the Elk skin is less used for this purpose than either of the others. their only thread used on this or any other occasion is the sinews taken from the back and loins of the deer Elk buffaloe &c. Their legings are most usually formed of the skins of the Antelope dressed without the hair. in ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... strike Columbus River—pass me two or throe skeins of thread to stand for the river; the sugar bowl will do for Hawkeye, and the rat trap for Stone's Landing-Napoleon, I mean—and you can see how much better Napoleon is located than Hawkeye. Now here you are with your railroad ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... is the East India Company, a commercial venture which obtained from Queen Elizabeth a charter empowering it to trade with the East and which, though connected with Great Britain only by the slender thread of an ocean track of 12,000 miles, maintained itself for two centuries and a half with ever increasing territory and authority until it became a great military Empire. Other examples of lower degree are the Hudson's Bay Company and the Borneo Company. The De Beers Company provided out of its abundance ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... peculiarities. Like Italian—the coquette who grants her smiles to many, her favours to few—one of the easiest to understand and to speak a little, it is very difficult to master. Whilst every native child can thread its way safely through its intricate, elaborate, and apparently arbitrary variations, the people comprehend a stranger who blunders over every sentence. Mr. Wilson thus limits the use of the accent: "Whilst the Mandenga ("A Grammar of the Mandenga Language," by the Rev. R. Maxwell Macbriar, London, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... in a state of semi-consciousness. Her head was swimming with vague memories, and she was unable at first to disentangle the thread of them. At length she remembered all that had ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... prose-devouring and verse-despising, hardy indeed should I be, if I adventured to bore the poor, much-abused, uncomplaining public with hundreds of lines out of a dormant epic; the very phrase is a lullaby; it's as catching as a yawn; well will it be for me if my thread-bare domino conceals me, for whose better fame could brook the scandal of having fathered or fostered so slumbering an embryo?—Let then a few shreds and patches suffice—a brick or two for the house: and verily I know they will, be they never so scanty; for what man of education does ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... especially Leicestershire, Derby, Nottingham, Warwick, and Staffordshire, he dons a blue-slop, called the Newark frock, which is finely gathered in a square piece of puckerment on the back and breast, on the shoulders and at the wrists; is adorned also, in those parts, with flourishes of white thread, and as invariably has a little white heart stitched in at the bottom of the slit at the neck. A man would not think himself a man, if he had not one of those slops, which are the first things that he sees at a market or ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... said Arnold, rubbing it languidly with his handkerchief. His hat had dropped off, and he did not replace it; he did not look at the girl, but let his eyes rest on the thread of falling water that gleamed from the spring. Miss Frances, regarding him with some timidity, thought: How much younger he looks without his hat! He had that sensitive fairness which in itself gives ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... gold, and is attached to the shoulder by a strap or ribbon sliding through a clasp; this cloak is embroidered in red, on a gold ground; the tunic is of reddish brown, and the shoes are light red, worked with gold thread. In the same manuscript there is another painting, representing four women listening to the discourse of a prophet. From this we discover that the female costume of the time consisted of two tunics, the under one being longer but less capacious ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... had a dove and the sweet dove died; And I have thought it died of grieving: O, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied With a silken thread of my own hand's weaving; Sweet little red feet! why should you die— Why should you leave me, sweet bird! why? You lived alone in the forest-tree, Why, pretty thing! would you not live with me? I kiss'd you oft and gave you white peas; Why not ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... hard a law are mortals born! 37 Whom now we envy, we anon must mourn; What Heaven sets highest, and seems most to prize, Is soon removed from our wond'ring eyes! But since the Sisters[3] did so soon untwine So fair a thread, I'll strive to piece the line. Vouchsafe, sad nymph! to let me know the dame, And to the Muses I'll commend her name; Make the wide country echo to your moan, The list'ning trees and savage mountains groan. What rock's not moved when the death is sung Of one so ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... just going out to walk with her pugs. Angel began to—you know, and for the moment she could think of nothing else; when the little beast had finished I had forgotten the thread of my argument. However, I spoke to her about Grace; and she promised that she shouldn't meet the fellow again. I can't think of his name, I get lost in the different names, and they are all so alike I scarcely know one from the other. I have had ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... same time that the Chinese refused their ratification to Chung How's treaty, they expressed their desire for another pacific settlement, which would give them more complete satisfaction. The Marquis Tseng was accordingly instructed to take up the thread of negotiation, and to proceed to the Russian capital as Embassador and Minister Plenipotentiary. Some delay ensued, as it was held to be doubtful whether Russia would consent to the reopening of the question. But owing to the cautious and well-timed approaches of the Marquis ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... to me; indeed, I had almost expected it, and the man had gone just as a figure goes out of a dream, causing no surprise and leaving me as part and parcel of the same dream without breaking of continuity. But, as soon as I had paid my bill and thus resumed in very practical fashion the thread of my normal consciousness, I turned to the girl and asked her if she knew the old man who had been sitting in the window seat, and what he had meant by the Wood of ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the Covenant lay in the clause proclaiming the equality of religions, which Mr. Wilson was bent on having passed at all costs, if not in one form, then in another. This is one example of the occasional visibility of the religious thread which ran through a good deal of his personal work at the Conference. For it is a fact—not yet realized even by the delegates themselves—that distinctly religious motives inspired much that was done by the Conference on what seemed political or social ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... garden, sitting with her work in Miss Jane's arbour. There was so much work to be done, and poor old Penny cried so bitterly over the black stuff that her damp needle and thread didn't get on very fast, and Angel took it quietly away from her and carried it out of doors. Penny had a sort of idea that there was something wrong in sewing at mourning dresses in the garden, but Angel thought it didn't matter. Betty ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... let us say at the least—but assuredly a soul of tape. And he that has fetched and carried will explain how it has fared with him in his dealings, and if he has brought the wrong sort of sugar or thread he will wheedle away the displeasure from that leaden face as a pastrycook girl will drive bluebottles off a stale bun. And that man has known what it was to coax the fret of a thoroughbred, to soothe its toss and sweat as it danced beneath him ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... been erased! How many fancies have been shed! How many failures might be traced To this—this average-reader dread! I've seen an average single bed; I've seen an average garden-weeder; I've seen an average cotton thread— I've never ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... as plain as sunlight," said Rube. "But look at that sharp point of glass. Thar's a thread of wool ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... order to make him execute this movement every time that he heard the words, "Wie gross?" ("How tall?") or "ooss," nay, even merely "oo." It was easy, too, to induce him to take an ivory ring, lying before him attached to a thread, into his hand, and reach it to me prettily when I held out my hand and said, "Where is the ring?" and, after it had been grasped, said, "Give." In the same way, the child holds the biscuit, which he is carrying to his mouth, to the lips of the person who says pleasantly to him, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... is a test of visual memory. When played in a parlor, all the players are seated except one, who passes around a tray or a plate, on which are from six to twenty objects, all different. These may include such things as a key, spool of thread, pencil, cracker, piece of cake, ink bottle, napkin ring, small vase, etc. The more uniform the size and color of the objects the more difficult will be the test. The player who carries the tray will pass at the pace of an ordinary walk around the ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... than a novelist. Indeed the fact is made sufficiently obvious to the reader of Red Screes (SMITH, ELDER). Its sub-title is A Romance of Lakeland, and so strongly developed is the place-spirit in its author that he is constantly breaking the rather tenuous thread of his story to introduce long descriptions of Cumberland scenery and people, and as this is most easily done by sending his chief characters for walks in the districts that Mr. HEADLAM wishes to talk about the result is that I seldom read a novel in which the protagonists were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... scenes, his fantastic coils of "tales within tales" sadly perplex the reader of "Melmoth" in the first version. It is hoped, however, that the present selection, by its directness and the clearness of the story thread, may please the modern reader better than the involved original, and bring before a wider public some of the most gripping descriptions ever ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... him in power of expression, but not in prophetic power of vision, he saw the eternal realities of heaven and hell and the world between, and he told as well as he could what he saw, but his practical message which runs like a thread through all his writings is always simple—almost childlike in its simplicity—"Thou must thyself be the way. The spiritual understanding must be born in thee."[59] "A Christian is a new creature in the ground of the heart."[60] "The Kingdom of God is not from without, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... again. Then the Shifty Lad entered the room and picked up a big handful of nuts, and returned to the loft, where the Black Rogue was still sleeping. At first the Shifty Lad shut his eyes too, but very soon he sat up, and, taking a big needle and thread from his pocket, he sewed the hem of the Black Gallows Bird's coat to a heavy piece of bullock's hide that was hanging ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... off the slave-power drive belts. In the tool holder of the lathe was clamped a chip of some hard mineral that did a good enough job of cutting the forged iron and low-carbon steel. Even more cheering was the screw-thread advance on the cutting head that was used to produce the massive nuts and bolts that secured the caroj wheels to their shafts. It could have been worse. Jason sorted out the smallest and handiest tools and put them aside for his own use in the morning. The light was almost gone and there would ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... his beat and had come in a bar too late; he went on for a few minutes, and then stopped quietly to clean his instrument. Certain passages for the oboe had absolutely disappeared. It was impossible for the most skilled ear to pick up the thread of the musical idea, or even to imagine that there was one. Fantastic instrumentations, humoristic sallies became grotesque through the coarseness of the execution. It was lamentably stupid, the work of an idiot, of a joker who knew nothing of music. Christophe tore his ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... a strange thing for Alice to speak in such an exalted strain, and she trembled as she tried to resume her sewing. The thread slipped and knotted; the needle broke and pricked her finger; and then, feeling her cheeks begin to glow, she laid down her work and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... the possession of a gem of marvelous beauty and great value has upon several sharply differentiated characters is the thread with which this dramatic tale of events is woven. The combination of the mystical, the imaginative and the realistic makes very unusual reading. The diamond has the power of making its owner love it not for what it means in money, but for itself; it also has in it a lurking devil ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... is delightfully commemorated in the old custom of Queen's College, by which, at the Gaudy dinner on Jan. 1st, each guest receives a needle with a silk thread of the colour of his faculty—Theologians black, Lawyers blue, Arts students red—and is bidden 'Take this and be thrifty'. The mending of the hood was a duty which must have often devolved on the poor mediaeval student. The custom dates from the time of the Founder ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... broad-brimmed hats, short coats, large waistcoats, smallclothes open at the knees, and a kind of boot or leather wrapper bound round the leg, and gartered at the knee. The spurs of the gentlemen are clumsy: they are ornamented with raised work; and the straps are embroidered with gold and silver thread. The Spanish Americans are always ready to mount their horses; and the inhabitants of the interior provinces pass nearly half their day on horseback. In the towns, and among the higher ranks, the men dress ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... septs, as Chauhan, Rathor, Panwar and Solanki; other names are of villages, as Khairagarhi from Khairagarh, Pandariha from Pandaria, Bhadaria, and Harkotia from Harkoti; others are titular, as Sondeha, gold-bodied, Sonkharchi, spender of gold, Bimba Lohir, stick-carrier, Banhpagar, one wearing a thread on the arm, Bhandari, a store-keeper, Kumaria, a potter, and Shikaria, a hunter; and a large number are totemistic, named after plants, animals or natural objects, as Sadaphal, a fruit; Kathail from kath or catechu; Dhorha, from dhor, cattle; ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... difficulties, as the slightest interruption in my work made me lose the thread of my rough draft, and I had to start from the beginning before I could recall it to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... the comedies of John Lyly, Love's Labour's Lost is a light, pleasant court comedy, with but a slight thread of plot. The king of Navarre and three of his nobles forswear for three years the society of ladies in order to pursue study. This plan is interrupted by the Princess of France, who with three ladies comes on an embassy to Navarre. The inevitable happens; ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... "this surely isn't the stream by which we lay down last night? Do you mean to tell me that thread of water struck terror into my heart only a few hours ago? I never slept out of doors before in all my life, and could not have imagined it would produce such an effect. I see what you mean now. You have found the bag which Roland threw into the ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... gods, but in the manouvres of the exercising-ground; in the valorous onslaught of real battle when occasion calls; and in the ease with which whole regiments will prosecute their march, or cross a river, or thread a defile without the slightest symptom of confusion. What this formation is—essential, at least in my opinion, to the noblest execution of their several duties—I will now, without delay, endeavour to ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... Caledonian Canal near Dochgarroch Lochs. It occurred in the middle of the towing-path, and could be traced at intervals for a distance of 200 yards to the east of the Lochs, and 400 yards to the west, being often a mere thread, and in no place more than half-an-inch wide. Soon after its formation, however, the fissure was obliterated ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... ever told By wild romancers, young or old, Into a thread were drawn, And from its cable coil unrolled, 'Twould span those misty hills of gold ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... what Rodriguez saw. He might have thought that hearing more rats all at once was merely a fancy, and that everything was all right. Rodriguez saw a rope coming slowly down from the ceiling, he quickly determined whether it was a rope or only the shadow of some huge spider's thread, and then he watched it and saw it come down right over his bed and stop within a few feet of it. Rodriguez looked up cautiously to see who had sent him that strange addition to the portents that troubled the chamber, but the ceiling ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... mounds of snow, it rests upon the summit of our continent like a crown of sapphire set with pearls. So evenly is it balanced, that when it overflows, one part of it descends to the Atlantic, another part to the Pacific. This little streamlet, therefore, is a silver thread connecting two great oceans three thousand miles apart. Accordingly, one might easily fancy that every drop in this pure mountain reservoir possessed a separate individuality, and that a passing breeze or falling leaf might decide its destiny, ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... the composition of a History of England, or History of Britain, from the earliest times to the Norman Conquest:—nay, though that was the form it ultimately took, the original project was nothing less than Hume anticipated, or a complete History of England, brought down in a continuous thread from the remotest origins of the nation to Milton's own time. The third was the long-meditated Body of Divinity, or Methodical Digest of Christian Doctrine. Here, surely, were three huge enough tasks of sheer hackwork hung round the neck ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... success in conquering a passage up these gorges? Who can question the vitality of the Chinese, that has watched the trackers at work pulling a huge junk against a current like the rapids of Niagara, clambering over wet, rough boulders, creeping like cats along a thread of a trail overhanging the gulf, clinging to the face of rocks that do not seem to offer a foothold to a mountain goat, and all the time straining with every muscle at a thousand-foot rope. An inhuman task where men take great risks for a pittance, where ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... by the fire. Rosamund was sitting on a low chair doing some embroidery. Gold thread gleamed against a rough cream-colored ground in her ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... consulting a back number of the little country sheet, may learn that Mrs L. Witcom (nee Carry, the ex-lady help) gave the bride one of many pairs of shadow-work pillow shams, and that Miss Grosvenor contributed one of the equally numerous drawn-thread table centres. Mrs Bray presented a ribbon-work cushion; Dr Smalley, some of the jam-spoons; Andrew, a bread-fork; and Mr J. Sorrel, great-uncle of the bride, a silver cream-jug; while Mr Claude (alias "Dora") Eweword kept himself in mind by an afternoon tea-set. The complete ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... robbery took place, Saronia had stepped from the old faith into the new. Had she not, her blood would have crimsoned the great altar of Diana—she would have laid down her life for her goddess! Now this precious life is in the hands of Lucius. Wilt thou loose the silver thread and let ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... is, those who have been invested with the sacred thread, which is a sign of having been initiated into the paternal caste. This ceremony takes place at the age of seven or nine years, but is only observed by the three higher castes. It is to be compared with the Christian rites of baptism and confirmation. Hindu boys, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... climber, from whence hung creeping plants, wonderful to us for their size and beauty. In the right side of the bay, the cliffs seemed suddenly rent asunder, and through the opening gleamed a silvery thread, which, advancing to the edge, fell in a rich stream of water from rock to rock, dispersing into a thousand sparkling dancing rills, sometimes lost, then again bursting forth, now shadowed by a huge old tree, then deepening into a quiet smiling pool, until ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... surface of this thirty-foot globe, a group of masters were seated, in little, cup-like seats upon resilient stems. They swayed and nodded with movement. There seemed to be glowing wires and grids and thread-like beams of light carrying current. Light-threads shot from the mechanisms to the heads of the seated brains. All the devices were evidently in operation; and upon this poised central globe the attention ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... doing one less each time till there are only two stitches left. Then down as far as the instep do an edging of treble crochet, then work another edging (button-hole stitch) all round the edging of flourishing thread. Then join the foot loosely down the middle, and sew up the leg so that the part increased flaps over. For the sole of foot make a chain of fourteen stitches, work it up and down till there are thirteen ribs; in the last two rows a stitch must be left out ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... appearance, miss. Perhaps you would do as one of the young ladies in the drapery department, beginning with the tapes and thread and ribbon counter, you know, and working your way ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... becoming a husband ere he'd die. As soon as Jemmy and his train arrived, a door was taken off the hinges, and laid on the floor, for himself to sit upon, and a new drugget quilt was spread beside it, for his journeymen and apprentices. With nimble fingers they plied the needle and thread, and when night came, a turf was got, into which was stuck a piece of rod, pointed at one end and split at the other; the "the white candle," slipped into a shaving of the fringe that was placed in the cleft end of the stick, was then lit, whilst many a pleasant ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... "Liberty," said Lord Chatham, "is pledged to liberty; they are indissolubly allied in this great cause, it is the alliance between God and nature, immutable, eternal, as the light in the firmament of heaven! Have a care; foreign war is suspended over your heads by a thin and fragile thread; Spain and France are watching over your conduct, waiting for the fruit of your blunders; they keep their eyes fixed on America, and are more concerned with the dispositions of your colonies than with ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... are never found in quartz lodes; but, as will be shown later, a true nugget having all the characteristics of so-called water-worn alluvial may be artificially formed on a small piece of galena, or pyrites, by simply suspending the base metal by a thread in a vessel containing a weak solution of chloride of gold in which a few ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... undoubtedly insistent claim to certitude advanced by the materialistic apostles of modern non-humanitarianism. When questioned about the ultimates all human knowledge must admit that it hangs upon the slender thread of a theory or postulate. The student of philosophy is more honest than others; he has the candour to confess the assumptions he makes before he tries ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... congregation: for although your Theological attainments are but slender after all, yet, you know your Bible well; and even if an absurdly wrong answer is given you, you know how to single out from the hank the golden thread of Truth, and to display it before the eyes of men and Angels. And let me tell you, by way of ending the subject, we should hear less about dull sermons, and inattentive congregations, and badly filled churches,—as well as ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... forbidding those, who followed any noisy handicraft, from living near literary men. Should not then musical composers, poor, and hard beset, and who, moreover, are forced to coin their inspiration into gold, to spin out the thread of life withal, be allowed to apply this law to themselves, and banish out of the neighbourhood all ballad-singers and bagpipers? What would a painter say, while transferring to his canvass a form of ideal beauty, if you should hold up before ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... that's the point that pierceth to the quick. Would Atropos would cut my vital thread, And so make lavish of my loathed life: Or gentle heav'ns would smile with fair aspect, And so give better fortunes to my love! Why, is't not a plague to be a prisoner ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... you reminded me that what I object to in you, with her, I myself am doing with him—or something very like it! Except that—" Harriet floundered a little, but regained her thread—"except that he does care for me," she repeated; "he loves beauty—I can say that to you without your misunderstanding!—and then, he knows me, we have been intimate for years, ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... the fish that begat the amphibian. The amphibian remains, but some impulse went out from the amphibian that begat the reptile. The reptile remains, but some impulse went out from the reptile that begat the mammal; and so on up to man. Man must have had a specific line of descent. One golden thread must connect him with the lowest forms of life. And the wonder is that this golden thread was never snapped or lost through all the terrible vicissitudes of the geologic ages. But I suppose it is just as great a wonder that the line of descent of ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... crawled over the yielding sands like silhouettes drawn by a thread. In the sky not a cloud appeared; below, the yellow monotony extended as flat as a dish. Above them a lazy buzzard, wheeling in languid circles, followed with ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... would like to take an old shipmate by the hand for the last time, and you will nat'rally look for me at the water-side. Good-night! Before we part, however, I may as well thank you for the supply of clothes I see you have put in my hut. It was scarcely wanted, as I have enough needles and thread to supply a slop-shop; and the old duck left by the French will keep me in jackets and trowsers for the remainder of my days. Good-night, my dear boy! God bless ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... enclosure, and thread-like paths, grassy and ungraveled, wound among crowded graves. There was a very high outside wall: and the place insured such privacy as could not be had in St. Bat's church. Some crusted stones lay broad as gray doors on ancient graves; but ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... apprehend of obstruction to your march is from ambuscades of Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them; and the slender line, near four miles long, which your army must make, may expose it to be attack'd by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a thread into several pieces, which, from their distance, cannot come up in ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... startling, are concealed in every chapter of this completely engrossing detective story. The horrible fascination of the tragedy holds one in rapt attention to the end. And through it runs the thread ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... into the leathery, pulpy body of the monster, but with no other effect than the sudden snapping of the inch line like thread. It was subsequent to this that, as the diver stayed his steps in the unsteady current, his staff was seized below. The water was murky with the river-silt above the salt brine, and he could see ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... all of us will fight with thy foolish brothers. O Yuyutsu, both Vasudeva and we all say to thee—"I accept thee, O thou of mighty arms, fight for my cause. On thee rests, it seems, the thread of Dhritarashtra's line as also his funeral cake. O prince, O thou of great splendour, accept us that accept thee. The wrathful Duryodhana of wicked understanding ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... at the portrait there: Coiling his neck a blood line, like a hair Of finest fire. The portrait, like a fiend,— Looking exalted visitation,—leaned From its black panel; in its eyes a hate Satanic; hair—a glowing auburn; late A dull, enduring golden. "Just one thread Of the fierce hair around his throat," they said, "Twisting ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... break the bruised reed.' Here is the picture—a slender bulrush, growing by the margin of some tarn or pond; its sides crushed and dented in by some outward power, a gust of wind, a sudden blow, the foot of a passing animal. The head is hanging by a thread, but it is not yet snapped or broken ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... evening, Ginevra heard the accustomed signal. Luigi scratched with a pin on the woodwork in a manner that produced no more noise than a spider might make as he fastened his thread. The signal meant that he wished to come ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... trying to pick up the lost thread of her confidence, "that I didn't expect you. I couldn't have dreamed of your coming. How did you come ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... with country children is to watch the gradual growth of the acorn into the oak tree. They will suspend the acorn in a glass of water and watch the slow progress during long months. First one tiny white thread is put forth, then another, until at length the glass is almost filled with a tangle of white fibers, a sturdy little stem raises itself up, and the baby tree, if it is to live, must be at once transplanted into good soil. The process may be botanically interesting, but there is something a ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... one day, while he was very down-hearted, he saw a spider trying to spin a web between two beams of his hut. The little creature tried to throw a thread from one beam to another, but failed. Not discouraged, it tried four ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... great curiosity and as great a sense of relief, while Mr. Richmond took out of a cupboard a plate of apples, chose a fine one with a good bit of stem, tied a long pack-thread to this, and then hung the apple by a loop at the other end of the string, to a hook in the woodwork over the fireplace. The apple, suspended in front of the blazing fire, began a succession of swift revolutions; first in one direction and then in the ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... my companions paced over it. I struck it obliquely with my foot, where the surface lay dry and incoherent in the sun, and the sound elicited was a shrill, sonorous note, somewhat resembling that produced by a waxed thread, when tightened between the teeth and the hand, and tipped by the nail of the forefinger. I walked over it, striking it obliquely at each step, and with every blow the shrill note was repeated. My companions joined me; and we performed a concert, in which, if we could ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... paper with a red ribbon band; the cats of black paper showing a back view may have a red or yellow ribbon necktie; the pumpkins of yellow paper with the sections traced in ink or notched a trifle and black thread ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... now in the hammock between the apple-trees he gradually became conscious and his mind resumed the thread of thought sleep had broken off. He thought, with his eyes shut, about clerical work. Mentally he took a deposit from a customer, entered it in his "blotter," wrote it in the supplementary, and posted it in a ledger; it was included in the cash-book ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... cable using a thread of optical glass fibers as a transmission medium in which the signal (voice, video, etc.) is in the form of ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... that, as everything has happened to me which is likely to happen (Heaven knows I want no more excursions and alarums in my life's drama), I may as well bring the narrative up to date. I therefore take up the thread, so far as I can, from where ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... leaf covering a surface of fifty-six square inches, and it is so ductile that the same quantity may be drawn into a wire 500 feet in length. Silver is found embedded in various rocks, where it occurs in veins, assuming arborescent or thread-like forms, and occasionally appearing in large masses. The largest mass found in Europe was brought from Kongsberg, in Norway, weighing upwards of 560 pounds, but another, won from the mines of Peru, was said to weigh 800 pounds. The celebrated mines of Potosi, 10,000 feet above ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... fine, that 30,000 pieces, placed side by side in contact, would not cover more than an inch. It would take 150 pieces of this wire bound together to form a thread as thick as a filament of raw silk. Although platinum is the heaviest of the known bodies, a mile of this wire would not weigh more than a grain. Seven ounces of this wire would extend from London to New York. Fine as is the filament produced by the silkworm, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... by the band in the death throes of the overture to Zampa, the two women sat silent; one frantically trying to solve financial problems, the other with her head a little on one side as though trying to catch the thread ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... productions. If the reason should afterwards be sought, why the greatest geniuses who have been incorporated into that body have sometimes made the worst speeches, I answer, that it is wholly owing to a strong propension, the gentlemen in question had to shine, and to display a thread-bare, worn-out subject in a new and uncommon light. The necessity of saying something, the perplexity of having nothing to say, and a desire of being witty, are three circumstances which alone are capable ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... one; And every wife she vowed that her man Should be trained on the same super-excellent plan. * * * * * Behold these lusty miners all Fettered fast in domestic thrall, Scrubbing, rubbing, baking bread, Busy with scissors and needle and thread, Spreading the brats their bread and jam, Trundling them out in the morning pram, Washing their pinafores clean and white And tucking them up in their cots at night. * * * * * Ask me not—for I cannot tell, I can ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... of it, and less strongly hammered that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. Then going through some small strange motions with it—whether indispensable to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment the awe of the crew, is uncertain—he called for linen thread; and moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass-cards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering and vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its place, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... thread of light contracted into a point, and the watching guide knew that the courageous boy had finally reached the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... of gold, and bears a cape of heavier gold thread, sewn with gems. His chest and sleeves are covered with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls. His horse has the fleurs de lys embroidered on saddle and harness. Before him march the Swiss guard under Fleurange, ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... dies; but his amiable consort survives, who shows the Doctor the same respect and friendship as before, and most happily for him and great numbers besides; for, as her riches were great her generosity and munificence were in full proportion; her thread of life was drawn out to a great age, even beyond that of the Doctor's; and thus this excellent man, through her kindness, and that of her daughter, the present Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, who in a like degree esteemed and honoured him, enjoyed all the benefits and ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... by the single-hearted man's intimate relations with the Detroit household, Arthur Ferris had taken up every thread as it slipped through ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... being situated on a sandy eminence, the reflection from the dry sand, when there is little or no agitation in the air, greatly increases the heat; for by walking an hundred yards from his house upon the sand, under his umbrella, with the thermometer suspended by a thread to the height of his nostrils, the mercury rose to 105. The same thermometer he had with him in the equatorial parts of Africa, in Jamaica, and in the Leeward Islands; yet by his journals he found that it had never in any of these places risen so high. Its general station ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... year: the total being 613, which was also the number of letters in the decalog. They arrived at the same result from the fact that the Jews were commanded (Numb. 15:38) to wear fringes (tsitsith) on the corners of their tallith, bound with a thread of blue; and as each fringe had eight threads and five knots, and the letters of the word tsitsith make 600, the total number of commandments was, as before 613. Now surely, out of such a large number of precepts and prohibitions, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... thread? Hold it fast; that happens often, and not only threads but sometimes even ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... flannel, though the effect is different when we apply first the one and then the other to the same body. Thus, e.g., if we apply the excited sealing-wax to a paper ring, or a pith-ball, hung by a silk thread from a horizontal glass rod, it will, after contact, repel it; and if, thereafter, we apply to it the excited glass rod, it will attract it; or if we first apply the excited glass rod to the paper ring, or pith-ball, it will, after contact, repel it; and if thereafter we apply to ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness |
