"Blade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to her father, watched the girl furtively, took in every point, as one might critically survey a Damascus blade which he was going to carry into battle. There was neither love nor scorn in his look,—a mere fixedness of purpose to make use of her some day. He talked, meanwhile, glancing at her now and then, ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... side shows and traveling circuses, our hero suddenly set out for Toledo, on the lake, where he immediately made a reputation as a writer of sarcastic paragraphs in the columns of the Toledo "Commercial." He waged a vigorous newspaper war with the reporters of the Toledo "Blade," but while the "Blade" indulged in violent vituperation, "Artemus" was good-natured and full of humor. His column soon gained a local fame and everybody read it. His fame even traveled away to Cleveland, where, in 1858, when Mr. Browne was ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... he now gave Malcolm complete instructions as to the hues of the ribbons he was to purchase. As soon as he had started on the important mission, the old man laid aside his instrument, and taking his broadsword from the wall, proceeded with the aid of brick dust and lamp oil, to furbish hilt and blade with the utmost care, searching out spot after spot of rust, to the smallest, with the delicate points of his great bony fingers. Satisfied at length of its brightness, he requested Malcolm, who had returned long before the operation was over, to bring him ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... systematic passes and thrusts all over and through the intervening space with an old sword which had belonged to his father. Not an inch was left unpierced. He seemed to have divided the space into mathematical sections. He brandished the sword with a sort of cold fury and calculation; the blade gave out flashes of light, the shadow remained unmoved. Mrs. Brigham, watching, felt ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... not cut the swelling waves, Nor for desire of foreign store Seen any but his native shore. No stirring drum had scarr'd that age, Nor the shrill trumpet's active rage, No wounds by bitter hatred made With warm blood soil'd the shining blade; For how could hostile madness arm An age of love, to public harm? When common justice none withstood, Nor sought rewards for spilling blood. O that at length our age would raise Into the temper of those days! But—worse than Aetna's fires!—debate ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... distance on Sundays and fete-days. Frequently there is one attached to the establishment. We went to see the celebrated water-tank of Casasano, the largest and most beautiful reservoir in this part of the country; the water so pure, that though upwards of thirty feet deep, every blade of grass at the bottom is visible. Even a pin, dropped upon the stones below, is seen shining quite distinctly. A stone wall, level with the water, thirty feet high, encloses it, on which I ventured to walk all round the tank, which is of an oval form, with the assistance of our host, going ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... temple, or the art of wrestling. He renders "horridus," "in a rude pickle;" "virgo" is generally translated "the young lady;" "vir" is "a gentleman;" "senex" and "senior" are indifferently "the old blade," "the old fellow," or "the old gentleman;" while "summa arx" is "the very tip-top." "Misera" is "poor soul;" "exsilio" means "to bounce forth;" "pellex" is "a miss;" "lumina" are "the peepers;" "turbatum fugere" is "to scower off in ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Plantagenet, I come Plantagenet: And this thy Sonnes blood cleauing to my Blade, Shall rust vpon my Weapon, till thy blood Congeal'd with this, doe make me wipe ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... it straight. It was in a great muddle, of course, but the bed was in place, and the chest of drawers. The walls had been newly papered, the paper had little bunches of field daisies all over it, white and red-tipped, each bunch was tied with a blade of green grass. Mona thought it perfectly exquisite, but it was the window which took her fancy captive. It was a lattice window, cut deep in the wall, and before it was a seat wide enough for Mona to sit in—and beyond the window was ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... struck in the throat by some thin, sharp instrument—a deep wound. The artery was severed, and death must have occurred within a few minutes," he said. "Probably deceased could not speak. He certainly could not have uttered a cry. The blade of the instrument was, I should judge, only about half an inch wide, extremely keen, and tapered to a fine point. Whoever struck the blow was, I am inclined to think, possessed of some surgical knowledge. With Doctor ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... who seeks protection shall be safe. The humbled foe who seeks thine aid, Thou mayst not smite with steely blade. Be ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... d'Artagnan proceeded to draw his sword in earnest, he found himself purely and simply armed with a stump of a sword about eight or ten inches in length, which the host had carefully placed in the scabbard. As to the rest of the blade, the master had slyly put that on one side to make himself a ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... cried the captain sharply. "Fire right at the brute's shoulder, sending the bullet through the shoulder-blade to the heart." ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... Heinwiese in anger, 'thou art nothing but a miserable milk-sop, never at a wrestling-match, never at a dance.' 'But,' put in Niederberg, 'we'll teach thee to dance and sing;' and so saying, he suddenly plunged the blade of his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... the tunic from the chest of his slave. Now, as Brand watched, each drew a keen blade from his belt, and made a shallow gash in the shrinking flesh. There were a few stifled screams—some of the slaves were women—but for the most part the slashing was endured in stoical silence. When red drops began ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... considerable sums of money were brought in. By this expedient the stock was raised at first, and those who contrived it seized the opportunity to realize. But the bankruptcy of goldsmiths and the sword-blade company, from the fall of South-Sea stock, occasioned such a run upon the bank, that the money was paid away faster than it could be received from the subscription. Then the South-Sea stock sunk again; and the directors of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... BAST. A soft sedge or rush (Juncus laevis), of which coarse kinds of rope and matting are made. A Gaelic term for the blade of an oar. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... I lately mentioned, the Grand Chief of the Tonicas, our allies, was wounded with a ball, which went through his cheek, came out under the jaw, again entered his body at the neck, and pierced through to the shoulder-blade, lodging at last between the flesh and the skin: the wound had its direction in this manner; because when he received it, he happened to be in a stooping posture, as were all his men, in order to fire. The French surgeon, under whose care he was, and who dressed him with great precaution, ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... one day's march up the Wady el-'Arabah, and lying near the western wall. This is the place first identified by Robinson, who says nothing about the remains, with Ezion-geber, while Dean Stanley ("Sinai," etc., p. 85) opines that we have no means of fixing the position of the "Giant's shoulder-blade."[EN128] Josephus ("Antiq.," viii. 6, 4) places it near lana; and the present distance from the sea, like that of Heroopolis (Shaykh el-Ajrd?) from Suez, may show the rise of the Wady el-'Arabah within historic times. The Shaykh assured us that "Mar" ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... lay beyond the threshold, sunk in moveless white repose, was of an immense serenity; but when Maria passed from the sheltering walls the cold smote her like the hungry blade of a sword and the forest leaped toward her in menace, its inscrutable face concealing a hundred dreadful secrets which called aloud to her in lamentable voices. With a little moan she drew back, and closing the door sat shivering beside the stove. Numbness ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... jack plane and two snow knives were the only tools to be carried. This knife had a blade about two feet in length and resembled a small, broad-bladed sword. It was to be used in the construction of snow igloos. The jack plane was needed to keep ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... and ire in vain display'd, Each super drew his wooden blade, In fury half, and half afraid ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... above-mentioned continuous and connected relationship has a real foundation." Prof. Osborn alludes to the scientific caution which led Kant, biology being what it was, to refuse to entertain the hope "that a Newton may one day arise even to make the production of a blade of grass comprehensible, according to natural laws ordained by no intention." As Prof. Haeckel finely observes, Darwin ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... counterbalanced by its transitoriness. From being immersed in well-nigh solid media of cloud and hail shot with lightning, I find myself uncovered of the humid investiture and left bare to the mild gaze of the moon, which sparkles now on every wet grass-blade and ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... those who say that trees shade the garden too much, and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may be something in this: but when I go down the potato rows, the rays of the sun glancing upon my shining blade, the sweat pouring from my face, I should be grateful for shade. What is a garden for? The pleasure of man. I should take much more pleasure in a shady garden. Am I to be sacrificed, broiled, roasted, for the sake of the increased vigor of a few vegetables? The thing is perfectly absurd. If ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... battles to fight, we have foes to subdue,— Time waits not for us, and we wait not for you! The mower mows on, though the adder may writhe And the copper-head coil round the blade ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... rose to his haunches, sank down, and charged; and Rowland felt the bones of his left arm crushing under the bite of the big, yellow-fanged jaws. But, falling, he buried the knife-blade in the shaggy hide, and the bear, with an angry snarl, spat out the mangled member and dealt him a sweeping blow which sent him farther along the ice than the child had gone. He arose, with broken ribs, ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... without a word; something shone in his hand; and he struck for my heart with a dagger. At the same moment I knocked him head over heels. Whether it was my quickness, or his own uncertainty, I know not; but the blade only grazed my shoulder, while the hilt and his fist struck ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... order to give you the right one; as in handing you a knife I hold it by the blade. You so thoroughly enjoy getting hold of the right end of a stick, Betty, that I wouldn't for worlds mar your pleasure by seizing it myself; and your delight reaches high-water-mark when, in addition, you see me fatuously clinging ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... streams from the great centres of Russian military power. The fierce Cossack from the Don and the Dneister, the Tartar from the Ukraine, the beetle-browed and predatory Baschkir, with all their variety of wild uniform, and "helm and blade" glancing in the summer's sun, crowded on the great military thoroughfares, while fresh supplies of well-appointed and formidable artillery were carefully transmitted. The foundries of Russia were blazing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... delightful humour, as readers of "Love and Pie" will readily discover for themselves. "The File-cutter's L'ament " (see below), which I have selected from Mr. Downing's volume, Smook thru' a Shevvield Chimla, will show that the Sheffield "blade" is doing his best to carry on the tradition set by Abel Bywater eighty years ago. Airedale still has its poets, among the most ambitious of whom is Mr. Malham-Dembleby, who published in 1912 a volume of verse entitled, Original Tales and Ballads in the Yorkshire ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... Spoonfuls of Sego, boil it in two Waters, straining the Water from it; then put to it half a Pint of Milk, boil it 'till 'tis very tender, and the Milk wasted; then put to it a Pint of Cream, a Blade of Mace, a little Piece of Lemmon-Peel, and two Eggs, (the White of but one) sweeten and boil it 'till ...
— Mrs. Mary Eales's receipts. (1733) • Mary Eales
... Keller wiped the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a possibility, even a probability, very distasteful ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... them singularly impressive. The approach to the site is by a wide flight of many stone steps, black and moss-grown with the rains and dews of centuries, forming a grand example of ancient masonry, the large, uniform granite blocks so laid and bonded that, after resting there for ages, a knife-blade could not be introduced between the joints. On careful examination it appeared that no composition either of cement or mortar had ever been employed in this masonry, the builders confining themselves to proper foundation and perfect matching together of the stones. ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... find the canoe. It was long, and, for a dug-out, fairly wide, but ancient and black, and moist at the bottom, owing to an insufficiently caulked crack. Its paddles had seen much service, and presented but little breadth of blade. ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Tom Marshall—known as "The Oracle"—"I've heerd o' sich cases before: they ain't commin, but—I've heerd o' sich cases before," and he screwed up the left side of his face whilst he reflectively scraped his capacious right ear with the large blade of a pocket-knife. ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... drawn his sword. In the confusion which followed on the discovery of BLUENOSE, I could not rightly tell how each thing fell out; indeed, from where I lay, with the men crowding together in front of me, to see at all was no easy matter. But this I saw clearly. The Captain stood in the corner, his blade raised to strike. BLUENOSE never stirred, but his breath came and went, and his eyelids blinked strangely, like the flutter of a sere leaf against the wall. There came a roar of voices, and, in the tumult, the Captain's sword flashed quickly, and fell. Then, with a broken ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... wisdom I compass To show the grace and wonder Of but the smallest blade of grass On which the ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... one thought that I must have that sovereign. Suddenly a suspicion seized me. I sprang to my feet and cried to my servant, 'You thief, you have found the sovereign and put it back in your pocket.' He answered disrespectfully. I rushed at him. I saw a knife blade glimmer in his pocket and I drew ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... frightened. He showed it plainly. When he saw that Maya wasn't going to let anyone lay down the law to her he backed down. With a surly buzz he swung himself on to a blade that curved above Maya's leaf, and said in a much politer tone, talking down to her out ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... of precious koa wood, with curved outriggers of wiliwili wood, and proper paddles to hand with the io-projection at the point simulating the continuance of the handle, as if, like a skewer, thrust through the flat length of the blade. And their war weapons were laid away by the sides of the lifeless bones that had wielded them—rusty old horse-pistols, derringers, pepper-boxes, five-barrelled fantastiques, Kentucky long riffles, muskets handled in trade by John Company ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... leaves, Flies from its tranquil precincts far, And with his Tartars takes the field, Fierce rushes mid the din of war, And brave the foe that does not yield, For mad despair hath nerved his arm, Though in his heart is grief concealed, With passion's hopeless transports warm. His blade he swings aloft in air And wildly brandishes, then low It falls, whilst he with pallid stare Gazes, and ...
— The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems • Alexander Pushkin and other authors
... soul of all creation, It is her secret ferment fires The cup of life with flame. 'Tis at her beck the grass hath turned Each blade towards the light And solar systems have evolved From chaos and dark night, Filling the realms of boundless space Beyond the sage's sight. At bounteous Nature's kindly breast, All things that breathe drink Joy, And birds and beasts and creeping things All follow where She leads. Her gifts to ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the rest?" Thorvald had a thin steel of rage edging his voice. Almost, Shann thought, as if he could turn that blade of rage against one Shann Lantee for being yet alive when more important men had ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... Frenchman, so he swerved his horse to let the other pass, and hopping off cleverly enough, he gripped hold of it. But the other was too tricky for him, and was on him like a shot. The dragoon thrust up with the lance, but the other turned it, and sliced him through the shoulder-blade. It was all done in an instant, and the Frenchman cantering his horse up the brae, showing his teeth at us over his ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The metal instantly solidifies, forming a slug having on its edge raised characters formed by the matrices. The mould wheel next makes a partial revolution, turning the mould from its original horizontal position to a vertical one in front of an ejector blade, which, advancing from the rear through the mould, pushes the slug from the latter into the receiving galley at the front. A vibrating arm advances the slugs laterally in the galley, assembling them in column or page form ready for use. To insure absolute ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... for an interval she was left alone. The desert stretched before her, limitless, in the glare of the afternoon sun. If the Columbia flowed in that neighborhood, it was hidden by sand dunes and decomposing cliffs of granite. There was no glimpse of water anywhere, not a green blade; even the bunch grass, that grew sparsely between the sage-brush through the draw, was dry and gray. For a while no sound but the click of the telegraph disturbed the great silence, then a hot wind came wailing out ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... a human being, not a tree, not a blade of grass—the only breaks in the monotonous whiteness are gaping cracks which in places show the layer of moist, black ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... a crowd of countrymen, and would not allow the bailiff to put his foot upon the lands; the next day the bailiff came again with police in numbers at his heels, and found the twenty acres which had yesterday been waving with green crops, utterly denuded. Every blade had been cut and carried in the night, and was then stacked on the ground on which no distraint could be levied. In twelve hours, and those mostly hours of darkness, twenty acres had been reaped, bound, carted, carried, uncarted, and stacked, and the bailiff and the policemen had nothing ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... there, a fragment of rhetorical drapery, to give an appearance of life to its marrowless frame. There is, however, one passage so strongly marked with the characteristics of Mr. Sheridan's talent—of his vigorous use of the edge of the blade, with his too frequent display of the glitter of the point—that it may be looked upon as a pretty faithful representation of what he spoke, and claim a place among the authentic specimens of his oratory. Adverting to some of those admirers of Mr. Hastings, who were not so implicit ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... hold out until the Pope dies, or some prince or other gets into a quarrel with him, which is always happening, and then a move may be made for you. My father, I'll promise you, is shrewd enough, and always keeps his eye open to see where there is a joint in the harness, and have a trusty dagger-blade all whetted to stick under. Of course, he means to see you righted; he has the family interest at heart, and feels as indignant as you could at the rascality which has been perpetrated; but I am quite sure he will tell you that the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... at Bridport, to-night," he said, "and I'll leave you here, Sabina; but be quite happy. I dare say Daniel will be all right. He's a pious blade and all that sort of thing and doesn't understand real life. And as some fool broke our bit of real life rather roughly on his ear, it was too much for his weak nerves. I shan't take you very far off anyway. We'll have a look round soon. I'll go to a house agent ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... and the bull and the cows looked at Tom. At length the bull had sufficiently nerved his resolution, and began to advance, tearing up the ground and bellowing as he came on. Tom took aim between the shoulder-blade and the neck, and fired; the enemy staggered, and roared with fury, rushing like a whirlwind upon Tom, who took to his heels, and began dodging round the trees. But the bull was in earnest; and savage with rage as a thousand lions, he tore round the trees more quickly even than Tom, carrying ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... A soft white mist was rising from the thick pasture, wholly obscuring the sea and filling the atmosphere with a damp chill. Seated there in her thin evening dress, she showed no sign of feeling the cold. At times physical pain is almost a pleasure. The glistening damp rested on every blade of grass, on every leaf and twig, while the many webs stood whitely against the shadows, some hanging like festoons from tree to tree, others floating out in mid-air without apparent reason or support. In and among the branches lingered little secret deposits of mist waiting the sun's warmth ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... seen it on previous occasions, and the horrible stench from the putrifying dead seemed to rise with it. As far as the eye could see in every direction the ground had been churned up by the fearful shell-fire. The shell-holes met each other like the holes in a sponge. Not a blade of grass or green stuff existed; the place which once marked a wood was now a space with a twisted, tangled mass of barbed wire and, here and there, short wooden stumps, slashed, split, and torn into shreds—the ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... Colonel was in altogether a better light as he sat near Emily and nearly under the half-lighted chandelier. Emily was indulging in the peculiarly American vice of rolling backward and forward in a rocking-chair; the Colonel had one leg over the other and was drumming with the opened blade of his penknife on the cover of the book he held in his hand; and Aunt Martha was ruining what eyes she had left, by some kind of crochet-work in cotton that may possibly ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... crack. No rabbit could have clambered around the boat quicker than I. Bothwell had doubled back and was charging me. His whistling cutlas hissed down not an inch from my ear and ripped through the tarpaulin to bury the blade in the ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... and eyes imploringly to the despot; but Caracalla had already snatched Macrinus's sword from its sheath, and before Aurelius could defend himself he was struck first on the head with the flat of the blade, and then received a series of sharp cuts ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... is 3 feet 5 inches, and the breadth of the blade at the guard 2 inches. The Doctor considers it to be "the oldest perfect sword in England." The arms are a cross, with a crown in the first and last quarters, and a sword in the second and third. There are also the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... have never handled a blade?" exclaims the other guy, like he couldn't have heard ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... the coloured cook going for Jack, with a carving-knife in his hand. I jumped to get between them, and Jack turned round short, and put out his hand. I was too far to reach them, and the cook jabbed out with his knife. But the blade didn't get anywhere near Benton. The cook seemed to be jabbing it into the air again and again, at least four feet short of the mark. Then he dropped his right hand, and I saw the whites of his eyes in the dusk, and he reeled up against the pin-rail, and caught hold of a belaying-pin with ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... always do; and the blow took him so by surprise, that it curled him up in an instant, and he went bundling out of the open schoolhouse-door with a most pitiable yelp, and his stump of a tail shut down as close as his owner ever shut the short, stubbed blade of his jack-knife. ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... grain of wheat at all now," said the learned one, modestly. "You are a blade of wheat, and there are a great many ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... indicated. About half way from their foot to Genoa, at Campo-Marone, we find again the olive tree. Hence the produce becomes mixed, of all the kinds before mentioned. The method of sowing the Indian corn at Campo-Marone, is as follows. With a hoe shaped like the blade of a trowel, two feet long, and six inches broad at its upper end, pointed below, and a little curved, they make a trench. In that, they drop the grains six inches apart. Then two feet from that, they make another trench, throwing the earth they take out of that on the grain of the last one, with ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the taffrail and the next instant a slim line uncoiled itself over the water. Duff, springing up, caught the end on his oar blade, and by a dexterous twist brought it ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... wonder of the flower with wings lay in the life which gave it power to move about and pay calls upon the other blossoms that must be always stay-at-homes. John chased it gaily, as one brother plays with another. And when it lighted on a rose-bush or a yellow broom-flower, or poised on a swaying blade of grass, he crept up and admired its lovely colors without touching the fragile thing. But at last, as if suddenly remembering an errand which it had forgotten, the butterfly soared quickly up and away over the ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... his eyes bright and his clothes he trimmed most curiously with bits of gaudy lace and bright ribbons and glass toys. He wore a cluster of broken peacock feathers in his hat and girded at his side was the broken hilt of an old sword without a blade. But strangest of all was a little wicker basket he always carried on his back. When he set this down and opened it, there hopped out a tame raven who would cock its head on one side and say hoarsely and ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... creek. They had taken this unusual route in search of grass and game. They gave us a very discouraging picture of the country. The great drought, and the plague of grasshoppers, had swept it so that scarce a blade of grass was to be seen, and there was not a buffalo to be found in the whole region. Their people, they further said, had been nearly starved to death, and we would find their road marked by lodges, which they had thrown away in order ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... white-spotted handkerchief; his grizzled beard was tangled; he wore a black and rusty cloak, ragged at the edges, and his feet were often bare; at his side would lie his wooden right hand. As a rule, the place of his forearm was taken by a long, thin, steel blade, that ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... choosing players, a blade of grass or hay or a slip of paper is provided for each player in the group. These should all be cut of approximately the same length, with the exception of one which should be quite short. One player, the ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... together by Elsinus is extensive. At least eighty are enumerated. It speaks volumes for the credulity of the age when we find in this list such things as the following:—A portion of Aaron's rod that budded; a portion of one of the five loaves that fed the five thousand; a shoulder-blade of one of the Holy Innocents; two pieces of the Virgin Mary's veil; part of the stone paten of the Evangelist S. John. The great relic of the house was the arm of S. Oswald. The date when this was acquired is not certainly known, some thinking ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... creature dropped down and was burnt to ashes. On one occasion a Cutch chieftain, attempting to escape with his wife and child from a village, was overtaken by his enemy when about to leap a precipice; immediately turning he cut off his wife's head with his scimitar and, flourishing his reeking blade in the face of his pursuer, denounced against him the curse of the traga which he had so fearfully performed. [299] In this case it was supposed that the wife's ghost would haunt the enemy who had driven ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... gurgling breath and his weakening grasp. He himself was also well-nigh spent, although he was not quite exhausted. Then, fearing lest the apparent weakness of his opponent was only a ruse by which he might gain advantage, Tom determined on an old football trick. A second later the German's shoulder blade snapped like a match, and Tom, seizing the paper, rushed back towards ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... my companion, "if you will let me look at yours." He took it from his side without hesitation and presented it to him. The Arab admired the workmanship of the English sword, and then examined the blade. We had inspected his, and found it fine Damascus steel. "Will you exchange," said my messmate. He made a most contemptuous grimace at the question. "I tell you what," said he, "English very good for handle, but Arab better for blade." He then put spurs to his horse and galloped away, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... simple manhood, artless womanhood, And childhood fragrant as the limpid morn; And from the homely matter nigh at hand Ascending and dilating, it disclosed Spaces and avenues, calm heights and breadths Of vision, whence I saw each blade of grass With roots that groped about eternity, And in each drop of dew upon each blade The mirror of the inseparable All. The first voice, then the second, in their turns Had sung me captive. This voice sang me free. ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... movement, Gilliatt, by a gigantic effort, plunged the blade of his knife into the flat, slimy substance, and with a movement like the flourish of a whip, described a circle round the eyes and wrenched off the head as a man ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... all might adore the Sun as one man, an Inca of the blood royal came forth from the fortress, as a messenger of the Sun, richly dressed, with his mantle girded round his body, and a lance in his hand. The lance was decked with feathers of many hues, extending from the blade to the socket, and fastened with rings of gold. He ran down the hill from the fortress brandishing his lance, till he reached the centre of the great square, where stood the golden urn, like a fountain, that was used for the sacrifice of the fermented ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... on her bier, I had looked secretly, and had found the brand of the bull on her shoulder blade, just as she had found it on that of her murdered boy. Allah alone knows how this last crime was wrought—how access to the women's quarters had been gained, and how the fatal seal of Siva had been impressed upon her flesh before she had been flung ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... Between the barn and house, and brave The March rain and the winds that rave. ... O, landscape I am one who stands Returned with pale and broken hands Glad for the day that I have known, And finds the deserted doorway strown With shoulder blade and spinal bone. And you who nourished me and bred I find the spirit from you fled. You gave me dreams,'twas at your breast My soul's beginning rose and pressed My steps afar at last and shaped A world elusive, which escaped Whatever love or thought ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... thin blue film of smoke crept up from one of the tall chimneys, telling him that some one was within the gloomy old structure, which, it seemed to him, looked much more like a grim fortress than a peaceful dwelling. Not a blade of grass or anything green flourished about it; all was rock ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... a little foot reaching downward to follow the dwarf's lead, and a little hand extending upward, quickly clasped by that of the fairy, who stood smiling and lovely in her fair green garments, with a tender, tiny grass-blade binding back her golden hair. Oh, what a thrill went through Alba as he felt this new possession,—a hand and a foot! A thousand such, had they not said? What it all meant he could only wonder; but the one real possession was at least certain, ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... God created the heaven and the earth.' God's is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, of all things visible and invisible; all the world round us, with its wonderful secrets, is governed, from the sun over our heads, to the smallest blade of grass beneath our feet, by God, and by God alone, and neither evil spirit nor magician has the smallest power over one atom of it; and our fortunes, in likewise, do not depend on the influences of stars or planets, ghosts or spirits, or anything else: but on ourselves, ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... good man, and a page, Louis de Coutes, and a chaplain. The king gave Joan armour and horses, and offered her a sword. But her Voices told her that, behind the altar of St. Catherine de Fierbois, where she heard mass on her way to Chinon, there was an old sword, with five crosses on the blade, buried in the earth. That sword she was to wear. A man whom Joan did not know, and had never seen, was sent from Tours, and found the sword in the place which she described. The sword was cleaned of rust, and the king gave her two sheaths, one ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... blade! eat a dry blade! From the nest that the kingfisher made! What will the Joblilies do, When ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... nights I didn't come across them, but the night after that I was sitting by myself at the Maison Pierre when somebody tapped me on the shoulder-blade, and I found Rocky standing beside me, with a sort of mixed expression of wistfulness and apoplexy on his face. How the chappie had contrived to wear my evening clothes so many times without disaster was a mystery to me. He confided later that early in the proceedings he had slit ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... grain of wheat is linked with an ear, containing, we will say, a dozen grains, by a series of changes so subtle that we cannot say at what moment the original grain became the blade, nor when each ear of the head became possessed of an individual centre of action. To say that each grain of the head is personally identical with the original grain would perhaps be an abuse of terms; but it can be no abuse to ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... quick and quite steady. And there is nothing more dangerous on earth than a steady Frenchman, who fights with his brain as well as his arm. Deulin was pushing his companion back with his left hand into a shallow doorway that had the air of being little used. The long blade of his sword-stick, no thicker at the hilt than the blade of a sailor's sheath-knife, and narrowing to nothing at the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... so HUGH, carrying a lamp in his right hand, and grasping the blade of his sword in his left, entered the cave of which he had heard so much. Will he ever return? Who ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... a horseman on Altai highlands, Who hath joy of me, riding the Tartar glissade, And one, far faring o'er orient islands Whose blood yet glints with my blade's accolade; North, west, east, I fling you my last hallooing, Last love to the breasts where my own has bled; Through the reach of the desert my soul leaps pursuing My star where it rises a Star of ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... up a ridge of bare red rocks, without a blade of grass to ease the foot, or a projecting angle to afford an inch of shade from the south sun. It was past noon, and the rays beat intensely upon the steep path, while the whole atmosphere was motionless, and penetrated with heat. Intense thirst was soon added to the bodily fatigue with which Hans ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... such a thick mist that they could not move. Three days they lay so, and then Wainamoinen drew his sword, exclaiming: 'We shall all perish here in the fog if no attempt is made to drive it away,' and with these words he struck the waves with his sword. From the blade there flowed a stream of honey, and all at once the fog broke up, and left the way clear before them. But scarcely had the fog disappeared than they heard a mighty roaring sound, and the foam began to shoot up from the water alongside, and to cover the ship. Then Wainamoinen leaned over ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... trudged on at a brisk pace, and by noon the mountain was so close that they could admire its appearance. Its slopes were partly clothed with pretty evergreens, and its foot-hills were tufted with a slender waving bluegrass that had a tassel on the end of every blade. And, for the first time, they perceived, near the foot of the mountain, a charming house, not of great size but neatly painted and with many flowers surrounding it and vines climbing over the ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... I believe," said Tom. "'Maddox,' they call it. We had a fellow working for us once who called it a 'mad-ax.' It has a broad blade and can be used to chop as well ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... before me, and on fell the other twain, And I tossed up the reddened sword-blade in the gathered rush of the rain And the blood and the water blended, and fragrant grew ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... boys,' she said at last, plucking with her fingers at a blade of grass she held between her teeth. 'But I think I like lame boys better, that is if they ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... I will bury the blade in my own body!" she cried. "I know that you have the power to clasp me in your arms, but it will be a ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... Margaillan, as slender as the blade of a knife, had died of tubercular consumption, which was plainly the hereditary disease, the source of the family's degeneracy, for her daughter, Regine, had been coughing ever since her marriage. She was now drinking the waters at Mont-Dore, whither she had not dared to take her children, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... mountaineers attack the bear with a dagger in their hand, and is not steel surer than lead? Here is a strong blade; put it in your belt, and ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... in cutlery is the "musical knife" at the Louvre; the blade is steel, mounted in parcel gilt, and the handle is of ivory. On the blade is engraved a few bars of music (arranged for the bass only), accompanying the words, "What we are about to take may Trinity in Unity ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... crab-apple into a golden-pippin, or wild sea-weed into a luxuriant cabbage; it can raise infinite varieties of roses, tulips, and pansies, but can create no new plant, fruit, or flower. Man can make a steam-engine, or a watch, but he cannot make a fly, a midge, or blade of grass. He is an ingenious compiler, but not a creator; and his powers of manufacture and conversion are restricted within narrow boundaries. He cannot wander far in the indulgence of his fancies without being recalled, and compelled to return to the first ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... of a small sword or a huge knife, made of an elk's horn. Around the end where the blade had been inserted was a ferule of silver, which, though black, was not much injured by time. Though the handle showed the hole where the blade had been inserted, yet no iron was found, but an oxyde remained ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... morning, so as to arrive at the place which he had chosen for our watching-place at about half past four. On that spot a hut had been built of lumps of ice, so as to shelter us somewhat from the trying wind which precedes daybreak, a wind so cold as to tear the flesh like a saw, cut it like the blade of a knife, prick it like a poisoned sting, twist it like a pair of pincers, and ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... bestowed it in that way,—Ober-Pfalz, the country of Amberg, where Maillebois once pleased to make invasion of us;—does not it adjoin on the Bohemian Forest? The RIBS there, Bohemian all, up to the shoulder, are ours: but the shoulder-blade and left arm, whose are they! Austria Proper and Hungary, these may be taken as sitting-part and lower limbs, ample and fleshy; but see, just above the pelvis, on the south side, how Bavaria and its Tyrol sticks itself in upon Austria, who fancied ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... was to be his private rake-off. He succeeded in securing the publication of six dispatches of about two hundred and fifty words, in such well-known newspapers as the St. Paul "Pioneer Press," the Boston "Herald," the Toledo "Blade," the Buffalo "Courier," the Florida "Times-Union," the Atlanta "Constitution," and the Wilmington "News." It is only fair to state, however, that there was nothing in the evidence to show whether the papers went into the arrangement ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... her on the spot. What cared she that her husband's always unsavory name had been linked with this woman's? She had married the roistering blade for his bank account only. Any other male whose wealth ran into seven figures would have ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... all you seek, you shall not need to go far in your quest," returned Ogilvy. "Tarry till this controversy be ended, and if I match not your Spanish blade with a Scottish broad-sword, and approve you as recreant at heart as you are boastful and injurious of speech, may Saint Andrew forever after withhold from me ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... imperfect standard and impede the progress of truth. The best minds of to-day surely understand the vital issues of this hour better than those possibly could who have slumbered in their graves for centuries. Mrs. Nichols, whom the city press spoke of as wielding a trenchant blade, announced herself as having been a member of a Baptist church since the age of eight years, thus sufficiently proving her orthodoxy. Mrs. Rose, expressing the conviction that belief does not depend upon voluntary ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... deep that we feel that the sea must at last be yielding up one of her secrets; but all things happen the same as on a breathless and cloudless day, when languid wavelets roll to and fro in the limpid, fathomless water; from the ocean arises no living thing, not a blade of grass, ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... congratulations of his friends. He presented himself at the time arranged; the guards at the foot of the ladder demanded his arms, which he gave up readily, and ascended the ladder full of hope. Scarcely had the trap-door closed behind him when a pistol ball, fired from a dark corner, broke his shoulder blade, and he fell, but sprang up and attempted to fly. Ali issued from his hiding place and sprang upon him, but notwithstanding his wound the young bey defended himself vigorously, uttering terrible cries. The pacha, eager to finish, and finding his ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... nature wore her most cheerful and delightful aspect, and Flora celebrated her nuptials with Phoebus. The winter corn was half a foot in height, and the barley had just shot out its blade. The birch, the elm, and the aspen-tree began to put ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... jackknife, and a bit of punk, a fungous growth, the best of which for this purpose is obtained from the beech. Gun flints were most generally used. One of these was placed on a bit of dry punk, and held firmly in the left hand, while the back of the closed blade of the knife thus brought into contact with the flint by a quick downward stroke of the right hand produced a shower of sparks, some of which, falling on the punk, would ignite; and thus a fire was produced. In the winter, if the fire went out, there were, ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... again. 'My employer, ma'am—Mr. Heep—once did me the favour to observe to me, that if I were not in the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, I should probably be a mountebank about the country, swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element. For anything that I can perceive to the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be reduced to seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets their unnatural feats ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... her hand was a stiletto with long, slim blade. Sime made a darting grasp for her wrist and wrung the weapon from her. It fell to the metal floor with a ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... hear ye not yon footsteps dread That shook the hall with thundering tread? With eager haste, The fellows past. Each intent on direful work. High lifts the mighty blade and points the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... And, indeed, it was by means of this jewel that the faultless Sita had been able to support her existence. And the daughter of Janaka further told me as a token from her, that by thee, O tiger among men, a blade of grass (inspired with Mantras and thus converted into a fatal weapon) had once been shot at a crow while ye were on the breast of the mighty hill known by the name of Chitrakuta! And this she said as evidence of my having met her and hers being really the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... he spoke, and planted one foot upon my chest. Then catching the pocket-knife thrown to him by one of the men at the door, he opened it with a great deal of show and menace, bending down to stare savagely in my eyes as he whetted the blade upon the ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... without any shame-facedness. These never perform much, but quickly. They are what they are on the sudden; they show presently like grain that, scattered on the top the ground, shoots up, but takes no root; has a yellow blade, but the ear empty. They are wits of good promise at first, but there is an ingenistitium; they stand still at sixteen, they get no higher. You have others that labor only to ostentation; and are ever more busy ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... a beef-boner, and that is a dangerous trade, especially when you are on piecework and trying to earn a bride. Your hands are slippery, and your knife is slippery, and you are toiling like mad, when somebody happens to speak to you, or you strike a bone. Then your hand slips up on the blade, and there is a fearful gash. And that would not be so bad, only for the deadly contagion. The cut may heal, but you never can tell. Twice now; within the last three years, Mikolas has been lying at home with blood poisoning—once ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the Rabbit; skewer the Haunches through the lower Part of the Back, as at A; then put a Skewer through the utmost Joint of the Leg at B, and so through the Body, and through the other Leg, so that the end of the Leg reaches the Shoulder-Blade. Then truss up the Shoulders high, and let the Pinnions be carried back, to take the Legs at B, and lie between them and the Body; and under the height of the Pinnions, put a Skewer, and bend the Neck backwards, and pass the Skewer through all, at C, so that it supports the Blade-Bone, ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... of the gunwale, and as reward for his chivalry had his knuckles rapped sharply by the oar-blade. Then he forgot himself, and Miss Welse also, and ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... the screws was loose, and I picked her out easy enough. The second one I broke the point off of my knife blade on. Like you nearly always do on a screw. When it ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... some note in his day, to judge by the monument she erected to his memory in Milton Church, near Lymington, where his effigy appears, an upright figure cut off at the knees, and in addition to the sword in his hand there is a metal one, with a blade waved like a Malay crease, by the side of the monument. The inscription ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... the sheaths, and again devised each the other's slaying, and there was no truce in the fight. Many a time did Castor smite on broad shield and horse- hair crest, and many a time the keen-sighted Lynceus smote upon his shield, and his blade just shore the scarlet plume. Then, as he aimed the sharp sword at the left knee, Castor drew back with his left foot, and hacked the fingers off the hand of Lynceus. Then he being smitten cast away his sword, and turned swiftly ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... forced backward; Miko's left arm held me. In his gloved right hand as it came slowly up over my throat I saw a knife-blade, its naked, sharpened metal glistening blue-white in the light ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... with an absolute illusion of reality. Here is a road seen between sunset and moonrise: "... all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west: but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by the light of that ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... all," responded Dick, suffering his oar to float on its blade, and running his fingers into his hair, as if he was content with his achievement "no more mistake than there is in taking the sun on a clear day and in smooth water. Guinea is in the boat you hired; but a bad bargain you made of it, as I thought at the time; and so, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... though he did not fail to give it the most careful attention before turning his eyes elsewhere. It was no ordinary weapon. It was a curio from some oriental shop. This in itself seemed to point to suicide, but the direction in which the blade had entered the body and the position of the wound were not such as would be looked for in a ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... the last deluge, but still fresh and green; a rattan, also very old but bearing flowers that never fade; and lastly, a sword containing a Yan or spirit, who guards it constantly and works miracles with it. The spirit is said to be that of a slave, whose blood chanced to fall upon the blade while it was being forged, and who died a voluntary death to expiate his involuntary offence. By means of the two former talismans the Water King can raise a flood that would drown the whole earth. If the Fire King draws the magic sword a few inches from ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... In the course of the second day I unearthed a second Turk who, having chanced the morning before to climb to the baggage shelf for his razor and soap preparatory to welcoming a fellow countryman to the Isthmus, had been mildly startled to step on the shoulder-blade of a negro of given length and proportions lying prone behind the stacked-up impedimenta. The latter explained both his presence in a white labor-camp and his unconventional posture by asserting that he was the "mosquito man," and shortly ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... the Argonaut Jason, must have had quite a different exterior when he sailed on toward Colchis to find the golden fleece. Time, which changes the methods of contest, changes the forms of its knights correspondingly. Jason trusted in the strength of his arm and his sword-blade. Darvid trusted in his brain and his nerves only. Hence, in him, brain and nerves were developed to the prejudice of muscles, creating a special power, which one had to know in order to recognize it in ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... occasion to carry a thing like that," mocked Reade. Thrusting the blade into a cleft of rock close by, Tom snapped the blade, rendering the ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... most formidable was a burly, roaring, roystering blade, of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... singing birds is in my heart, and an odour of blooming flowers expands itself in the delight of my new day. I see the morning sun in a fixed form, yet flooding worlds with the radiations of its light and heat, and shining in its glory on the dew-bespangled blade of grass. Oh Christ!—thou art my Sun—and I, the tiny blade of grass, rejoice in Thy Divine wisdom and love. Look down upon me, oh, Thou holy One! from the "throne of Thy glory, and the habitation ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... of us had ever heard of for making a fire was remembered and talked over; but there was nothing that appeared to suit our case. I found a hard flint, and by striking it on the back of my knife-blade I saw that there was no difficulty in getting any number of sparks, but we had nothing that would catch the sparks when struck; so that we did not seem to be any better off than we were before; and, as I have stated already, we fell asleep again, each ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... not work that kills men," says Beecher; "it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he can bear. But worry is rust upon the blade. It is not movement that destroys the ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... were deserted, and the pair roamed towards the centre, gazing curiously at so much of sodden vegetation as the fog allowed them to see. Their eyes were not jaded; to them a blade of grass was not a ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Speed. The Hack-saw. Hack-saw Frame. The Blade. Files. Grindstones. Emery and Grinding Wheels. Carelessness in Holding Tools. Calipers. Care in Use of Calipers. Machine Bitts. The Proper Angle for Lathe Tools. Setting the Bitt. The Setting Angle. Bad Practice. Proper Lathe Speeds. Boring Tools on Lathe. ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... died on the following day. The matter was hushed up as much as possible for the sake of the Countess's good name, and so successfully that it was presently observed that, among the public, the other gentleman had the credit of having put his blade through M. de Salvi. This gentleman took a fancy not to contradict the impression, and it was allowed to subsist. So long as he consented, it was of course in Camerino's interest not to contradict it, as ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... entered a ravine, the dry bed of a winter torrent, where there were rue, lavender, prickly pear, hypericum, and spurge; but not a blade of grass had survived the summer's drought. We passed a heap of black ashes, which anywhere but at the base of the peak would be called a respectable mountain. It has not been cold long enough to be disguised by vegetation; and ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... avoid seeking to attain by a summary process what thousands strive to attain, and actually do attain, only by a prayerful diligence, which begins with sowing the seed in childhood, and never ceases until there is the blade and the full ear ending in the golden harvest. We feel assured that the faithful minister who has seen many souls born to God under his teaching, will acknowledge that these results were connected not so much, or probably ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... deprived themselves of many opportunities of the highest enjoyment of which they are capable as Quakers. The objects in the country are peculiarly favourable to the improvement of morality in the exercise of the spiritual feelings. The bud and the blossom, the rising and the falling leaf, the blade of corn and the ear, the seed time and the harvest, the sun that warms and ripens, the cloud that cools and emits the fruitful shower; these, and an hundred objects, afford daily food for the religious growth ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... extracted a stubby hunting knife. Sweat and blood in his eyes, hardly able to move on the wildly swinging turret, he felt down the sides to the thin crack between the revolving housing and the stationary portion of the robot. With a quick prayer he jammed in the knife blade—and was whipped headlong into the mud as the turret literally ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... rest borne about by faint breaths of wind, waved to and fro, seeking other attachment elsewhere. Some threads reached from tufts of grass to little hummocks or to the twigs which form the boles of elm trees. Others still, with less ambitious span, went only from one blade of grass to another or united the thorns of whin bushes. The lower air, near the earth, was full of these threads. They formed an indescribably delicate net cast right over the fields and hills. I used to see them glistening, ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... it left in the body—had withdrawn it to probe the wound—and had laid it on the bedside table. It was one of those useful knives which contain a saw, a corkscrew, and other like implements. The big blade fastened back, when open, with a spring. Except where the blood was on it, it was as bright as when it had been purchased. A small metal plate was fastened to the horn handle, containing an inscription, only partly ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... this, and in front of the gate itself, were two sentries armed with a spear, the shaft of which was about six feet in length, hollow, and almost as light as the cane or reed handle of an African assegai. The blade more resembled the triangular bayonet. Beside each, however, was the terrible asphyxiator, fixed on its stand, with a bore about as great as that of a nine-pounder, but incomparably lighter. These two weapons might at one discharge have annihilated a huge mob ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... pale face. "No," he replied; "I always let four digits of the blade go in; that's the right way to measure. But the best sign of all is when the blood runs out and I beat it with my hand when it pours into the pail; it ought to be of a good warmth, and creamy, without being ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... upon them the cruelty and barbarity of the Ashantees. A man with his hands tied behind him, his cheeks pierced with wire, one ear cut off, the other hanging by a bit of skin, his shoulders bleeding from cuts and slashes, and a knife run through the skin above each shoulder-blade, was dragged, by a cord fastened to his nose, through the town to the music of bamboos. He was on his way to be sacrificed in honour of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... under his horse, in whose side was found the point of a lance which had killed him; and the whole body of his steed had covered and crushed one of his limbs. The right hand of the chevalier still grasped the handle of a sword of which the blade was broken. ...
— Theobald, The Iron-Hearted - Love to Enemies • Anonymous
... rejoice in such niceties of literary expression. It widens the horizon of life to him and gives him a deeper and closer sympathy with every form and manifestation of life. Every phase of life makes an appeal to him, from bird on the wing to rushing avalanche; from the blade of grass to the boundless plains; from the prattle of the child to the word miracles of Shakespeare; from the stable of Bethany to ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... man, thou dost. There is a man sows his field with wheat, but as he sows, soon it is covered with great clods; now, that grows as well as the rest, though it runs not upright as yet; it grows, and yet is kept down, so do thy desires; and when one shall remove the clod, the blade will soon ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... rested on black peaks again, Under black skies, under a groping wind; And Life, grown old, hugged me to a numb breast, Pressing numb lips against me. Suddenly A blade of silver severed the black peaks From the black sky, and earth was born again, Breathing and various, under a god's feet. A god! A god! I felt the heart of Life Leap under me, and my cold flanks shook again. He bore no lyre, he rang no challenge out, But Life warmed to him, warming me with ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... press and add one-fourth ounce of green ginger root cut in small pieces. Measure the mushroom liquor; to one pint of liquor add one-half ounce of peppercorn and simmer for forty minutes; then add one-fourth ounce of allspice and of cloves and one blade of mace and boil for fifteen minutes. Take from fire and cool. Strain through a cloth, bottle ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... cover as soon as he saw Chippy begin to struggle. His patrol flag was fastened on a stout ashen staff, hard as iron, an old alpenstock cut down. He swung it up as he ran, and he was within a yard of striking distance, when he saw the spy's hand reappear with something in it glittering like the blade of a dagger. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... deepened; a wisp of cloud turned gold; dim distant mountains showed dark against the red; and low down in a notch a rim of fire appeared. Over the soft ridges and valleys crept a wondrous transfiguration. It was as if every blade of grass, every leaf of sage, every twig of cedar, the flowers, the trees, the rocks came to life at sight of the sun. The red disk rose, and a golden fire burned over the glowing face of ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... frantically for aid. One of the villains, to make him loose his hold, struck on his fingers with the handle of a hatchet found on the roof; not succeeding in breaking his hold by these means, with, an oath he struck with the blade, severing two of the fingers from one hand and deeply mangling ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... him pleasantly of his childhood. Wherever a bit of stone pier ran along by an open space, scores of olive-skinned boys were bathing, and as he passed they yelled at him and splashed him. Many a time he had done the same, long ago, and had sometimes got a sharp knock from the blade of ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... that I was fain to sink down on the grass by a tree against which I leaned, and lost almost all consciousness for a minute or two: then I gathered myself up, and, advancing towards the couple on the walk, loosened the blade of the little silver-hilted hanger I always wore in its scabbard; for I was resolved to pass it through the bodies of the delinquents, and spit them like two pigeons. I don't tell what feelings else besides those of rage were passing through my mind; what bitter blank disappointment, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... animal body, also point irresistibly to the same conclusion. In the sunny uplands they act (writes Captain Burton) like the mosquitoes of the hot, humid Beiramar. "The nuisance is general; it seems to be in the air; every blade of grass has its colony; clusters of hundreds adhere to the twigs; myriads are found in the bush clumps. Lean and flat when growing to the leaves, the tick catches man or beast brushing by, fattens rapidly, and, at the end-of a week's good living, drops off, plena cruoris." When on ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... without a claim to thee. But I swear to God who dwelleth in the high firmament, That till upon my charger I gallop in content Against the Moors, and till I wield both spear and brand again, And till unto my elbow from the blade the blood doth drain Before the Cid illustrious, howe'er so small it be, I will not take the value of a copper groat from thee. When through me some mighty treasure thou hast at thy command. I will take thy gift; till such a time, all else is ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... tell us, that the great Emperor Charlemagne stamped his edicts with the hilt of his sword. The greater Emperor, Death, stamps his with the blade; and they are signed and executed with the same stroke. Flemming received that night a letter from Heidelberg, which told him, that Emma of Ilmenau was dead. The fate of this poor girl affected him deeply; and he ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... obtaining a knife hard enough to sharpen, is to use a razor of good quality. If it has to be ground, it is best to do this on a fine Turkey stone which is conveniently rested on two bits of rubber tubing, to avoid jarring the blade. Many stones are slightly cracked, but on no account must the razor be dragged across a crack, or the ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... manifestation of awe, but only a lively wink. He reserved his defamatory intentions respecting the Common, and endeavored to draw the stranger out, who, in return, shot forth eccentricities as profusely as the emery wheel of the street grinder emits sparks when assailed by a scissors-blade. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... it is," said Fergus, "for, by my word," he said, "since the armies met together to-day, no man of the foreigners or of the men of Ireland took a step backward from one another till they all fell foot to foot, and sole to sole. And there is not so much as a blade of grass or a grain of sand to be seen," he said, "with the bodies of fighting men that are stretched on them; and there is no man of the two armies that is not stretched in that bed of blood, but only the chief man of the household of the King of the World, and your own foster-son, Cael, son of ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... their stern was opposite Harry's oar-blade. I was almost wild with excitement. I called upon the boys, with every entreaty I could think of, to pull harder; urging on Alfred, who was evidently the weakest oar, and ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... swelling throat knives quivered in the frame wall. There was a flash of steel, and the seventh knife sank into the wood so close to the crisp curls that a lock hung by a hair, almost completely severed by the blade. The boy choked back a scream, his big brown eyes ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... Old Eng. adesa, of which the origin is unknown), a tool used for cutting and planing. It is somewhat like an axe reversed, the edge or the blade curving inward and placed at right angles to the handle. This shape is most suitable for planing uneven timber, as inequalities are "hooked off'' by the curved blade. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and alongside of it there is a well of oil. The car brings the cannon to the edge of the ditch, and a steam crane performs the operation of tempering with as much ease as we would temper a knife blade. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various |
