"Crotchet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Another philosophical crotchet did no small mischief. It was alleged that hard labour on the tread-mill would do harm: knowing that the labour tended to no useful purpose but merely the turning of a wheel, prisoners would feel degraded, and this feeling would prevent their reclamation! ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... notion of my life has put a crotchet in my head of sketching it in some future epistle to you. My compliments to Charles and Mr. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Calcutta side of India consider it to be Mesua ferrea. Throughout our travels in India, we were struck with the undue reliance placed on native names of plants, and information of all kinds; and the pertinacity with which each linguist adhered to his own crotchet as to the application of terms to natural objects, and their pronunciation. It is a very prevalent, but erroneous, impression, that savage and half-civilised people have an accurate knowledge of objects of natural history, and ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... live free and easy, Without admiring Pergolesi? Or through the world with comfort go, That never heard of Doctor Blow? So help me heaven, I hardly have; And yet I eat, and drink, and shave, Like other people, if you watch it, And know no more of stave or crotchet, Than did the primitive Peruvians; Or those old ante-queer-diluvians That lived in the unwash'd world with Jubal, Before that dirty blacksmith Tubal By stroke on anvil, or by summ'at, Found out, to his great surprise, the gamut. I care no more for Cimarosa, Than he did for ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... the tongue then speaketh more smoothly, and the ear listeneth more benignantly; but why do I attempt to reason with you? do I not know you for conceited creatures, with one idea—and that a foolish one—a crotchet, for the sake of which ye would sacrifice anything, religion if required—country? There, fling down my book, I do not wish ye to walk any farther in my company, unless you cast your nonsense away, which ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... A crotchet comes into my mind Concerning a proverb of old, Plain dealing's a jewel most rare, And more precious than silver or gold: And therefore with patience give ear, And listen to what here is penned, These verses were written on purpose ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... of England, desiring to play a trick upon the Spanish ambassador, a man of great erudition, but who had a crotchet in his head upon sign language, informed him that there was a distinguished professor of that science in the university at Aberdeen. The ambassador set out for that place, preceded by a letter from the King with instructions to make the best of him. There was in the town one Geordy, a butcher, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... him, as you say in Ireland. But don't you be such a fool as to ruin yourself for a crotchet of Monk's. It isn't too late yet for you to hold back. To tell you the truth, Gresham has said a word to me about it already. He is most anxious that you should stay, but of course you can't ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... crotchet or other," said the Rector. "When a man's views are clear about subscription, and that sort of thing, he generally goes as far wrong the other way. Buller might go out to Central Africa, perhaps, if there was ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... psychasthenia (miscalled neurasthenia); he confesses, moreover,—like other men of strong carnal proclivities—to certain immaterial needs and aspirations after "the beyond." Not one of these earthquake-specialists, in fact, but has his Achilles heel: a mental crotchet or physical imperfection to mar the worldly perspective. Not one of them, at close of life, will sit beside some open window in view of a fair landscape and call up memories of certain moments which no cataclysms have taken from ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... we took a more general survey of the inmates of the hall. Many persons were present whose right of entrance appeared to consist in some crotchet of the brain, which, so long as it might operate, produced a change in their relation to the actual world. It is singular how very few there are who do not occasionally gain admittance on such a score, either in abstracted musings, or momentary thoughts, or bright ...
— The Hall of Fantasy (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ditch—just where he wanted it, digging it himself, and been paid for it by the Government; the third trustee had been made game warden, at a monthly salary and no duties; so naturally they would like not to hear their friends criticized. Mrs. Cowan only read newspapers to see the bargains, crotchet patterns, and murders, and after that, she believed their only use was to be put on pantry shelves. So her account of Pearl's address ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... Criticism kritiko. Croak bleki. Crockery fajenco. Crocodile krokodilo. Crooked hoka, malrekta. Crop (harvest) rikolto. Crosier episkopa bastono. Cross kruco. Cross krucigi. Cross (manner) malafabla. Cross-over transiri. Cross-out streki. Crossing krucigo. Crotchet kvarona noto. Croup krupo. Crow korniko. Crow bleki. Crow-bar levilo. Crowd amaso. Crown krono. Crown kroni. Crown (of head) verto. Crucifix krucifikso. Crucifixion krucumo. Crucify ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... purpose, because, within a few weeks of the time fixed for the wedding, she was guilty of the frivolity, while on a visit from home, of wearing thin sleeves. Yet Mr. Day and my aunt's relations were benevolent people, only strongly imbued with the crotchet that by a system of training might be educed the hardihood and simplicity of the ideal savage, forgetting the terrible isolation of feelings and habits which their pupils would experience in the future life which they must pass among the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... a ladies' school at Williamsburg—and a very charming sum total they were. Having a day's holiday, they had come up by the early steamer to pic-nic on the banks, and were now returning to chronology and crotchet-work, or whatever else their studies might be. Landing at King's Mills, a "'bus" took us all up to Williamsburg, a distance of three or four miles, one half of which was over as dreary a road as need be, and the other through a ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... thee to be scarce a bit, would it, and leave me to go and find out what's up? He has, perhaps, getten some crotchet into his head thou'rt an accomplice, and is ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... eminent skill in his profession." He was requested by Dr. Burney to sing; rather unfortunately, it would appear, for the company, which included Johnson and the Grevilles, was by no means composed of musical enthusiasts, and Mrs. Thrale, in particular, "knew not a flat from a sharp, nor a crotchet from a quaver." However, he complied; and Mrs. Thrale, after sitting awhile in silence, finding ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... quavers, reducing it still further as the pace increases. The pupil must abandon all thought of making the bow jump, also he must avoid pressing it on the string. The whole action must be free and bold and the tempo for this exercise should be not slower than M.M. crotchet 100. At first it will be found impossible to get as far as the semiquavers without some confusion. At the first sign of irregularity the pupil should stop, pause a moment, and then recommence with the semibreves. It should ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... proposes a universal re-distribution of property, with some unintelligible organisation of labour—all on an equality, no rich and no poor, no masters and no servants, everybody sharing his dinner with his neighbour—is a fancy as baseless as any crotchet which even the 'pattern nation' has ever concocted. Yet, it is not the less likely to be carried into execution, perhaps only the more likely from its practical absurdity. Of course, the more educated and wealthy ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... division, and the sum total of the "local" and "British" might be placed correctly with all the rest in the "foreign." Why, then, should valuable space be wasted for three birds, simply to perpetuate an error in working out a crotchet? ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne |
