"Quill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fight Always against blind mobs and tyrants deaf, I, the pride of the chosen few, the stay Of the great best, returning from exile, A billow-tossed world-wanderer, did stir The selfsame lyre with a new quill and breathed Upon its ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a woollen muffler and a quill toothpick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle's window and thought it was a windmill at first. He was game, though, and bought it anyhow. He ordered another—an oil sketch of the Lackawanna freight depot—to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh, I guess ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... listening again, and as her master was preparing to take his seat at the table and sharpen his goose-quill, she glanced around to see that they were entirely alone; then approached, saying ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... grease and dirt that covered them, they were of fairer complexion than the generality of Indians. The women have two double lines of black or blue colour upon each cheek, from the ear to the nose; and the gristle of the nose is perforated, so as to admit a goose-quill, or a small piece of wood to be passed through it. The clothing of these Indians is made of the dressed skins of the rein or moose-deer. Some of them, says Mr. Mackenzie, were decorated with a neat embroidery of porcupine-quills and hair, coloured red, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... cannot bear a pride which shocks your own. As for wheedling you into a liking of a work, I must confess it seems the safest way; but though flattery pleases you well when it is particular, you hate it, as little concerning you, when it is general. Then we knights of the quill are a stiff-necked generation, who as seldom care to seem to doubt the worth of our writings, and their being liked, as we love to flatter more than one at a time; and had rather draw our pens, and stand up for the beauty of our works (as some arrant fools use to do for that of their ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... to last, as Sir Condy, or more willing to pay every man his own as far as he was able, which is as much as any one can do. "Well," says he, joking like with Jason, "I wish we could settle it all with a stroke of my grey goose quill. What signifies making me wade through all this ocean of papers here; can't you now, who understand drawing out an account, debtor and creditor, just sit down here at the corner of the table and get it done out for me, that I may have a clear view of the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... flying as far south as Africa, and returns in spring to Iceland, Norway, Lapland, and Siberia. This bird is hunted eagerly by the Icelanders for its soft white down. The season chosen is the moulting time, when the poor birds, having lost their quill feathers, are unable to fly away; and with trained dogs which catch them by the neck, and little ponies which ride them down, the swans are ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... loom pounding away hour after hour in the chamber of an outbuilding where she was weaving a carpet, or cloth. I used to help do some of the quilling—running the yarn or linen thread upon spools to be used in the shuttles. The distaff, the quill-wheel, the spinning-wheel, the reel, were very familiar to me as a boy; so was the crackle, the swingle, the hetchel, for Father grew flax which Mother spun into thread and wove into cloth for our ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... himself down and takes his pen in hand, all his sprightliness of imagination vanished at sight of an ink-bottle. With a brush his feelings were fluid, and in a company grace dwelt upon his lips; but when asked to write it out he gripped the pen as though it were a crowbar instead of a crow's-quill. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... dust, and a couple of candlesticks with tallow dips thrust into their sockets. A few antique newspapers lay on the table beside an inkstand containing some black lacquer-like substance, and a collection of quill pens twisted into stars. Sundry dirty scraps of paper, covered with almost undecipherable hieroglyphs, proved to be manuscript articles torn across the top by the compositor to check off the sheets as they were set up. He admired ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... afternoon with him at Mr. Tucker's, quill merchant, Middleton-street, Clerkenwell; when I was delighted with the spontaneous flow of his Latin, his quotations from the ancient and modern poets, and indeed his masterly and eloquent developement ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... if you were in America with that fine face and your ready quill, you would have no need to be ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... is also pitched into the Balaam box, and a third drawn—a delightful little cocked-hat of a letter, written on delicately-perfumed paper, probably with a dove's quill. She—of course it is a she!—is going to a garden-party on Tuesday week; would he, the Clerk of the Weather, kindly see that not a drop of rain falls on that day? Only bright sunshine, and occasional cloudlets to act as awnings and ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... a ludicrous effect. His appearance as he passed along attracted little notice, such vagaries being common in America. My attention was also arrested by a person who was arrayed in a hunting suit of buck-skin, curiously wrought with strips of dyed porcupine-quill, and who wore an otter-skin cap and Indian moccasins. There, is, however, little novelty in this costume, which I frequently saw afterwards. Caps of the description I have mentioned are commonly worn in the interior. I subsequently donned one myself, and found it an admirable ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... smoked his pipe before the cabin fire of blazing logs, while she cleared the wooden dishes. He watched her get the paper, goose-quill pen and ink as a prisoner sees the ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... not pretend to possess what is termed literary style, he would ask the indulgence of the reader in any little slip of the pen which may occur in these pages, as it is not every Crusoe who can command the facile quill, the pure style, or the lively imagination of a Daniel ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... was only through the assistance of the chemist that he finally hit upon the method of staining the sheets with a thin broth of untanned leather, of which the analysis would give a result closely approaching that of the parchment itself. Moreover, he made all sorts of trials of quill pens, until he had found a method of cutting which produced the exact thickness of stroke required, and during the whole time he exercised himself in copying and recopying many pages of the manuscript upon common ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... are not going to play the prodigal son!—a fellow like you who with his sword has scratched more hieroglyhics on other men's faces than three quill-drivers could inscribe in their daybooks in a leap-year! Shall I tell you the story of the great dog funeral? Ha! I must just bring back your own picture to your mind; that will kindle fire in your veins, if nothing else has power to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... wedding of the two, and the wisest on earth:-eh? like some one we know, and Nataly has made the comparison. Fresh forellen for lunch: rhyming to Fenellan, he had said to her; and that recollection struck the day to blaze; for his friend was a ruined military captain living on a literary quill at the time; and Nataly's tender pleading, 'Could you not help to give him another chance, dear Victor?'—signifying her absolute trust in his ability to do that or more or anything, had actually ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hopes thereby to get me some relief, I heard, methought, his voice say, "Cease to mourn: I live; and though the veil of flesh once worn Be now stript off, dissolved, and laid aside, My spirit's with thee, and shall so abide." This satisfied me; down I shrew my quill, Willing to be ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... pen-points to work with; but though one occasionally meets with a good steel pen, I have found it too often fails one just when it is sufficiently worn to the right degree of flexibility. One returns to the quill, which can be cut to suit the particular requirements of one's work. For large bold drawing the reed-pen has advantages, and a pleasant rich quality ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... produced, jointly with a Mr Dickie, the "Philosophy of Witchcraft," a work which, published by Messrs Oliver and Boyd, was well received. His next publication appeared in 1845, with the title, "One Hundred Original Songs." His last work, "My Gray Goose Quill, and other Poems and Songs," ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... pathos; there were meanings composite and contrasted—reproach melting into remorse. At the moment probably, he would have been glad to see something emotional in me. I could not show it. In another minute, however, I should have betrayed confusion, had I not bethought myself to take some quill-pens from my desk, and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... embroidery in America, from the quill and beadwork of the American Indians and the samplers of Colonial days, to the achievement of the present. Thirty-two pages of illustrations—some in full color—correlate perfectly with the text and furnish examples for the student ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... fellow That came with this device. 'Twas queintly carried: The stalke pluckt cleanly out, and in the quill This scroll conveyd. What ere it be the Prince Shall instantly ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... deal of free masonry and companionable relations existing between these old handlers of musical instruments, and as we hear them in imagination, rattling away round the old spirited fugues which had been carefully "picked out" with quill pen and ink into their old cheque-book shaped "tune books"; or, as we see the picturesque group, now with countenances beaming with delight over some well turned corner which brought up the rear, now mopping their {129} brows ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... darkened. He made no comment, however, but celebrated the end of dinner in his usual manner by pushing back his chair a little, crossing his legs comfortably, and beginning a series of excavating operations with a quill toothpick which he drew from his vest pocket. Miss Ocky winced. This was the postprandial habit of his ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... the table, drew a sheet of paper toward him, and picked up a quill pen, which he examined critically before dipping it into the ink. Again he ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... arms for their country, the delegates smugly linked the ballot and the bullet together, and Horace Greeley gleefully asked the two women, "If you vote, are you ready to fight?" Instantly, Susan replied, "Yes, Mr. Greeley, just as you fought in the late war—at the point of a goose quill." Then turning to the other delegates, she reminded them that several hundred women, disguised as men, had fought in the Civil War, and instead of being honored for their services and paid, they had ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... hill So oft hath cald on Alexanders name, As hath poore Rowland with an Angels quill Erected trophies of Ideas fame: Yet that false shepheard, Oenon, fled from thee; I follow her that ever ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... inches long, and from one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch in diameter; the end used in writing was bruised and not cut. In late times a very much thicker reed was used, and then the end was cut like a quill or steel pen. Writing reeds of this kind were carried in boxes of wood and metal specially made for the purpose. Many specimens of all kinds of Egyptian writing materials are to be seen in the Egyptian ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... eyes, and think you are in Perseverance.—There, do you see that man in a blue swallow-tail coat? This is the master. His head runs up to a peak, like an old-fashioned sugar loaf, and blazes like a maple tree in the fall of the year. He stands by his desk making a quill pen, and looking about him with sharp glances, that seem to cut right and left. Patty almost thinks his head is made of eyes, like the head of a fly; and she is sure he has a pair in the ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... have plucked the old baronet as never baronet was plucked before; I have scarce left him the stump of a quill; I have got promissory notes in his hand to the amount of—if you like round numbers, say, thirty thousand pounds, safely deposited in my portable strong-box, alias double-clasped pocket-book. I leave this ruinous old ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... found, a specimen of that somewhat rare and very wonderful bell-bird (Casmarhynchos carunculata), called campanero by the Spaniards. From the upper part of the bill grows a fleshy tubercle about the thickness of a quill, sparingly covered with minute feathers. It was now hanging down on one side, quite lax. It was evident, therefore, that the bird, when alive, elevated it when excited by singing or some other cause; indeed afterwards, on examining ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... physical hunger. He could have eaten that stuff that was wealth itself. He could have devoured those tusks. He was Gargantua as far as his appetite was concerned, and for the rest he was only Van Laer driving a quill in the ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... years ago, it served as a hen roost under the shed, and the savage old hetchel was doing duty behind the old churner when he sulked and pulled back so as to stop the churning machine. It was hetcheling wool then instead of flax. The flax was spun on a quill which ran by the foot and the quills or spools holding the thread were used in a shuttle when the cloth was woven. The old loom stood in the hog-pen chamber, and there Mother wove her linen, her rag carpets, and her woollen goods. I have "quilled" for her many ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... the scratching of the quill pen as it flies over the paper, and the chirping of a bullfinch in a cage ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... repartee of the Duchesse de Polignac is a droll imitation of a line in the "Mercure Galant." In the quarrel scene one of the lawyers says to his brother quill: 'Ton pere etait ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... and the proud Pathan who attains a commission, and deports himself like an officer, never thinks himself, or is thought by others, deficient in anything that constitutes the gentleman, because he happens not to be at the same time a clerk. He has from his childhood been taught to consider the quill and the sword as two distinct professions, both useful and honourable when honourably pursued; and having chosen the sword, he thinks he does quite enough in learning how to use and support it through all grades, and ought not to be expected to encroach on the profession ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... of chemists and quill-drivers,' he said contemptuously; 'but as Renan remarked to me, there is one thing to be said for a government of that sort, "Ils ne font pas la guerre." And so long as they don't run France into adventures, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... feel a pair of fiery wings displai'd Hither, from hence; you shall not tarry there, Up, and be gone, if thou beest Love be gone: Or I will tear thee from my wounded breast, Pull thy lov'd Down away, and with thy Quill By this right arm drawn from thy wonted wing, Write to thy laughing Mother i'thy bloud, That you are powers bely'd, and all your darts Are to be blown away, by men resolv'd, Like dust; I know thou ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... after she went to an old chest that stood in one corner of the room, to get a piece of woolen goods she had carefully prepared for the market, which would bring her several dollars. She had placed an old band box, quill wheel and some other rubbish upon the chest, to conceal it from view as much as possible. Upon opening it, she discovered her treasure was gone, and she knew too well, for what purpose. The son, too, drank with his father, and got so much the start of him in brutality, ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... size of a small pigeon. Their back, and upper side of their wings, their feet and bills, are of a blue-grey colour. Their bellies, and under side of their wings are white, a little tinged with blue. The upper side of their quill feathers is a dark-blue tinged with black. A streak is formed by feathers nearly of this colour, along the upper parts of the wings, and crossing the back a little above the tail. The end of the ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... generally took five small cages, each containing thirty-six pigeons. These pigeons were of various colors, and all named. They were expected to return soon to their homes, unless cold, fog, a hawk, or a Prnssian bullet should stop them on the way. Each would bring back a small quill fastened by threads to one of its tail-feathers and containing a minute square of flexible, waterproof paper, on which had been photographed messages in characters so small as to be deciphered only by a microscope. Some of these would be official despatches, ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... bag, took out two other bags, one of which was just double its companion's size. They also were tied with silken cord and sealed with the two seals on red wax. There was something printed roughly with a quill pen upon each bag, but Master Shakspere kept that side turned toward himself so that ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... made from either bamboo or rattan, and usually nothing is placed under the head, but sometimes small wooden blocks are used. In the morning when they arise they roll the mats, and the chamber-work is done. A young girl whom I measured had her hair fastened up with the quill of a porcupine; when asked to undo her hair, she put the quill under the top of her skirt. The Bukits possess one musical instrument, sarunai, a kind of clarinet, which does not sound badly. There are many blians, nearly all men. Several prominent members of the tribe asserted that head-hunting ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... been afraid. With the next night Hepburn came; and Kinraid did not. After a few words to her mother, Philip produced the candles he had promised, and some books and a quill or two. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the giant brain within. But the man was dumb. The thoughts that came to him he could communicate roughly to his friends, but the pen failed him. The horny hand which results from manual labour is too stiff to wield the swiftly-gliding quill. But there is another species of handwriting which is called Work—a handwriting which will endure when the scribblings of the hour are utterly forgotten. This writing he laboured at earnestly and eagerly, not for his own good either, for it absorbed his own fortune, ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... office, and Jadwin was admitted at once. He sat down in a chair by the broker's desk, and for the moment the two talked of trivialities. Gretry was a large, placid, smooth-faced man, stolid as an ox; inevitably dressed in blue serge, a quill tooth-pick behind his ear, a Grand Army button in his lapel. He and Jadwin were intimates. The two had come to Chicago almost simultaneously, and had risen together to become the wealthy men they ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... Dr Hooker during his journey, and which he has figured and described in his beautiful work, The Rhododendron of Sikkim-Himalaya. It is called R. nivale, or snow-rhododendron. 'The hard, woody branches of this curious little species, as thick as a goose-quill, struggle along the ground for a foot or two, presenting brown tufts of vegetation where not half-a-dozen other plants can exist. The branches are densely interwoven, very harsh and woody, wholly depressed; whence the shrub, spreading ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... to others, two or three dandies in Paris, clerks, quill-drivers, or what not, who had pestered her with their attentions, for the sake of her money. He seemed to be the best, as well as the most handsome, ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... a cage in the school-room and the pupils observe: its size as compared with that of other birds; outline of body, including shape of head; the feathers, noting quill feathers, and covering or contour feathers; manner of feeding and drinking; movements, as ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... bores a hole through the nose cartilage of her child with a porcupine quill and then takes care that the wound heals quickly, without closing. Afterwards she passes through a ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... words, for I heard the quill scratching on the paper, and as he wrote, Guatemoc turned his head and saw me. His face was grey with pain, still he spoke as a hundred times I had heard him speak at council, slowly and clearly. 'Alas! are you also here, my friend Teule?' he said; 'I hoped that they had spared you. See how these ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... diameter, placed upon a larger piece about twelve inches in diameter. The precipitate is removed from the filter as completely as possible by rubbing the sides gently together, or by scraping them cautiously with a feather which has been cut close to the quill and is slightly stiff (Note 1). In either case, care must be taken not to rub off any considerable quantity of the paper, nor to lose silver chloride in the form of dust. Cover the precipitate on the glazed paper with a watch-glass to prevent loss of fine particles ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... before him a narrow strip of paper on which, in preparation, he has jotted down a few words with his inspired quill-pen. Occasionally he looks at his notes, while he is speaking, rocking himself very slowly to and fro, and twisting his thumbs. He often hesitates, almost stutters, and sometimes even makes a slip of the tongue. He seems to be wrestling with his thoughts, while his words seem ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... everywhere for Li Hung Chang with a loaded pistol in his hand. He was convinced of the complicity of the Governor, who, on his side, denied that he was responsible for what had happened. 'I asked him why I should plot, and go around a mountain, when a mere order, written with five strokes of the quill, would have accomplished the same thing. He did not answer, but he insulted me, and said he would report my treachery, as he called it, to Shanghai and England. Let him do so; he cannot bring the crazy ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... cords which, when pulled, are made to act upon distant objects to which one end is fastened. Sometimes the tendon runs down the middle of a muscle, and the fibers run obliquely into it, the tendon resembling the quill in a feather. Again, tendons are spread out in a flat layer on the surface of muscles, in which case they are called aponeuroses. Sometimes a tendon is found in the middle of a muscle as well as at each end ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... and our friends there should you be arrested. I will give you a list of the gentlemen on whom you have to call, which you had best learn by heart and destroy before you cross the frontier. You shall have one paper only, and that written so small that it can be carried in a quill. This you can show to one after the other. If you find you are in danger of arrest you can destroy or swallow it. I will give them to you at the prince's levee this afternoon, and will send to your tent a purse of gold for ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... covert opportunity to reach out his little muckrake after the gold of the gentile, to the neglect of the things that appertain unto salvation. Therefore did the conscientious driver of the piety-quill betake himself ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... Comte Montcornet, one of Napoleon's most famous officers, had, on the strength of a marriage portion of twenty thousand francs, found a husband in an inferior official at the War Office. Through the interest of the famous lieutenant-general—made marshal of France six months before his death—this quill-driver had risen to unhoped-for dignity as head-clerk of his office; but just as he was to be promoted to be deputy-chief, the marshal's death had cut off Marneffe's ambitions and his wife's at the root. The very small salary enjoyed by Sieur Marneffe had compelled the couple to economize in ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... coarse edition of Maurice Quill; when he had examined my knee, and dressed it—not unskillfully—(the conical point of "the Sharp's" bullet had just reached the bone), he took great interest in the search of my saddle-bags; desiring ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Paul, he was immeasurably shocked at the bad taste of his adored one; but he stayed on, and within a few days, as he had fondly hoped, the fickle creature returned—and, as before, returned alone. It was then that he resolved on writing to her. With a crow-quill almost as fine as the long silky eyelashes of Isabella, on a sheet of paper whose border of Cupids, grapes, vases, and roses left little—too little—space for writing, he indited his letter, which, when completed, he sealed with a seal of azure blue wax, bearing the device ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... unfortunate. Here the sons of adversity meet the children of calamity, and here the children of calamity meet the offspring of sin. Bankrupt brokers, boot-blacks, blacklegs, and blacksmiths here assemble together; and cast-away tinkers, watch-makers, quill-drivers, cobblers, doctors, farmers, and lawyers compare past experiences and talk of old times. Wrecked on a desert shore, a man-of-war's crew could quickly found an Alexandria by themselves, and fill it with all the things which go to make ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... with the sword, after the fashion of greater men, and requiring no secretary. I now take up the quill to set forth, correctly, certain incidents which, having been noised about, stand in danger of being inaccurately reported by some imitator of Brantome and De l'Estoile. If all the world is to know of this matter, ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... told of him; for he was fond of joking, and was often absent-minded. It is said that his wife was skilled in embroidery, and would decorate his moccasins with fine porcupine quill work; and it disturbed her to see him put them on to go out of a morning when the dew was on the grass. So she took him to task for ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... the sea. I am always ducking breakers, descending companion ladders, and I roll across the street as if it were the deck of a liner. Every building I enter seems to be rocking up and down, up and down, and as on the occasion I refer to I sat before the knights of the quill to be cross-examined, I felt as if I were in the cabin of a ship rather than in my own room at the hotel, and that the books on the table were in reality fiddles to keep the glasses and other ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... what he could to cheer me up, but by bed time I had reasoned myself out of the whole thing. However, in the morning I determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of ink, and with a quill pen and seven sheets of foolscap paper I ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... lived, in a lonely house by the side of a deep, dark forest, a lonely man, to whom the fairies had once given a magic feather, plucked from the wing of a fairy goose; and whenever he touched paper with this quill, lo, the paper was turned into gold! So he amassed great wealth; but no one loved him when he went abroad, because, though he had gold, he had no titles and he was sharp of speech. Only he had one beautiful daughter, more fair than ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... acquaintance, and so in three days' time a clergyman said, "Wilt thou take this woman here present to be thy lawful wife?" knowing full well what the answer must be. Short of other materials, the marriage contract was written with a goose quill on the parchment head of a drum. Sir William found that Meg made him a very good wife in spite of her wide mouth, and they lived happily together, the moral being, we supposed, that it is not always the prettiest girl that makes the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... his health permits, he is at his editorial work again, laboriously issuing his proclamations to the German people; he writes with a quill pen, and for a blotter prefers the old-time ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... were the Visitors' Book of "Watts' Charity," at Rochester, containing the signatures of "C. D." and Mark Lemon; the quill pen belonging to Charles Dickens, and used by him just previous to his death; a paper-knife formerly belonging to "C. D.," and the writing-desk used by "C. D." on his last American tour; silver wassail-bowl ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... Don't leave us! It's a wet day, and so dull—do stay with us till tea-time. You might! You might!" urged the suppliant voices, and so Tom sat down to her desk in the house-parlour which was the property of the elder Blues, and indited letters on blue-lined, manly paper, with a manly quill pen. ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... had gone too near to Chiss for safety, so she sprang in front of Ojo and shielded him from the darts, which stuck their points into her own body until she resembled one of those targets they shoot arrows at in archery games. The Shaggy Man dropped flat on his face to avoid the shower, but one quill struck him in the leg and went far in. As for the Glass Cat, the quills rattled off her body without making even a scratch, and the skin of the Woozy was so thick and tough that he ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... enough to eat all the Year long. [The Leaves.] The leaves of it are somewhat like those of a Coker-Nut Tree, they are five or six foot long, and have other lesser leaves growing out of the sides of them, like the feathers on each side of a quill. The Chingulays call the large leaves the boughs, and the leaves on the sides, the leaves. They fall off every Year, and the skin upon which they grow, with them. [The Skins, and their use.] These skins grow upon the body of the Tree, and the leaves grow out ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... comes, is protected by a little case, and the end of the feather, which sticks out of the tip of the case, does look very much like the soft hairs at the end of a paint-brush, the kind that has a hollow quill stem, you know. After they were once started, dear me, how those feathers grew! It seemed no time at all before they covered up the ear-holes in the side of his head, and no time at all before a little bristle fringe grew down over the nose-holes in his ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... thankful for the black veil that shielded her. Winnebago was scandalized to see that she wore no other black. Mrs. Brandeis had never wanted Fanny to wear it; she hadn't enough color, she said. So now she was dressed in her winter suit of blue, and her hat with the pert blue quill. And the little rabbi's voice went on and on, and Fanny knew that it could not be true. What had all this dust-to-dust talk to do with any one as vital, and electric, and constructive as Molly Brandeis. In the midst of the service there was a sharp cry, and a little stir, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... the sun, moon, and wind; the grass, the corn, Brownie the cow, and her own faithful subject, Dowie. Still, it was a great mortification to her to be put into the spelling-book, which excluded her from the Bible-class. She was also condemned to follow with an uncut quill, over and over again, a single straight stroke, set her by the master. Dreadfully dreary she found it, and over it she fell fast asleep. Her head dropped on her outstretched arm, and the quill dropped from her sleeping fingers—for when Annie slept she all slept. But she was soon roused by ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... looking. Let him turn his eyes to the left. He will see two wild flowers broken off at the stem, a feather which has not fallen from the plumage of a bird, because the quill is painted, and two traces of footsteps in ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... and high-backed Chippendale chair of mahogany used by the presidents of the Continental Congress and occupied by John Hancock at the signing still remain, and on the table is to be seen the silver ink-stand with its quill box and sand shaker, in which the delegates dipped their pens in autographing the famous document. There are also fourteen of the original chairs used by delegates. On the walls hang portraits of forty-five of the ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... covering the head, and even reaching beyond the point of the beak: the individual feathers then stand out something like the down-bearing seeds of the dandelion. Besides this, there is another ornamental appendage on the breast, formed by a fleshy tubercle, as thick as a quill and an inch and a half long, which hangs down from the neck, and is thickly covered with glossy feathers, forming a large pendant plume or tassel. This also the bird can either press to its breast, so as to be scarcely visible, or can swell out, so as almost to conceal the forepart of ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... quantity of mucus. Patient faint; pain slight; pulse 102, and irregular; some hiccup. A silk ligature was placed round the small puncture in the stomach, and the displaced viscera returned, after enlarging the external wound. This last was closed by the quill suture. Warm fomentations and abstinence from food and drink enjoined. 2nd day, some re-action; had been sick in the night from some drink given; is free from pain; pulse 120; pain on pressure; an enema ordered. Evening, a dose of castor oil, and ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... modern, and that is the journey to Amack on the night of the New Year. All indifferent poets and poetesses, musicians, newspaper writers and artistic notabilities, I mean those who are no good, ride in the New Year's-night through the air to Amack. They sit backwards on their painting brushes or quill pens, for steel pens won't bear them, they're too stiff. As I told you, I see that every New Year's night, and could mention the majority of the riders by name, but I should not like to draw their enmity upon myself, for they don't like people to ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... admired enemy, Washington, against a certain defamer, one morning in Hyde Park, after I had come to London. But it has occurred to me that I can better serve Winwood's reputation by the spilling of ink with a quill than of blood with a sword or pistol. This consideration, which is far from a desire to compete with the young gentlemen who strive for farthings and fame, in Grub Street, is my apology for profaning with my unskilled hand the implement ennobled by the use of a Johnson and a Goldsmith, a ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... limitations force into perfection, in, and out of season. The violet eyes and crocus fingers of Spring smiled and quivered, at sight of the crimson rose heart, and flaming paeony cheeks of royal Summer; and creamy and purple chrysanthemums that quill their laces over the russet robes of Autumn, here stared in indignant amazement, at the premature presumption of snowy regal camellias, audaciously advancing to crown the icy brows of Winter. All latitudes, all seasons have become bound vassals to the great ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... were represented not only by jellyfish but also by the GRAPTOLITE, which takes its name from a fancied resemblance of some of its forms to a quill pen. It was a composite animal with a horny framework, the individuals of the colony living in cells strung on one or both sides along a hollow stem, and communicating by means of a common flesh in this central tube. Some graptolites were straight, and some curved or spiral; some were ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... recited my daily tasks, was that small sunny room on the water side of the east wing; and I well recall him as he sat behind his desk of a morning after prayers, his horn spectacles perched on his high nose and his quill over his ear, and his ink-powder and pewter stand beside him. His face would grow more serious as I scanned my Virgil in a faltering voice, and as he descanted on a passage my eye would wander out over the green trees and fields to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... upon my brother first. And I lied. I told him he had made a mistake, and killed you, that his life was not worth the quill from a porcupine's back if he remained in the country. I made him believe it was another who fought him in the forest. He fled. I am glad of that. He will never come back. Then I followed over the trail he had made to Adare House, and far back in the swamp I came upon them, waiting ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... a small anteroom, divided from the inner apartment by a wainscoted archway two or three yards wide. Across this archway hung a pair of dark-green curtains, making a mystery of all within the arch except the spasmodic scratching of a quill pen. Here was grouped a chaotic assemblage of articles—mainly old framed prints and paintings—leaning edgewise against the wall, like roofing slates in a builder's yard. All the books visible here were folios too big to be stolen—some lying on a heavy oak ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... him. The newcomer seated himself, hitched his sword-belt round so that he could lean both hands upon the hilt, and sat, stiff and immovable, awaiting the Lord Seneschal's pleasure. From his desk across the room the secretary, idly chewing the feathered end of his goose-quill, took silent stock of the man from ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... banging of drawers—the drawers in the bureau and the bookcases were opened and shut sharply—writing-paper was flung on the table, and he sat down to write a letter with a scratchy quill pen. The letter written was ordered to post immediately, and the poking, and stirring, and grunting recommenced. Thus there was tribulation in the house of ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... time, I touched the goose quill to the treaty not knowing, however, that, by the act I consented to give away my village. Had that been explained to me I should have opposed it and never would have signed their treaty, as my ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... Thoreau had held on a few years, until the pilgrims began to arrive at Concord, he could have gotten rich selling souvenir pencils. But he just dozed and dreamed and tramped and philosophized; and when he wrote he used an eagle's quill, with ink he himself distilled from elderberries, and at first, birch-bark sufficed for paper. "Wild men and wild things are the only ones that have life in abundance," ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end. There was another old woman watching by the bed; the parish apothecary's apprentice was standing by the fire, making a toothpick out of a quill. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... Move on, my quill! wait not for my guidance. Reanimated with thy master's spirit, all airy light! A heyday rapture! A mounting impulse sways him: lifts ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... the slightest attention to him, even though a succession of audible sighs escaped his lips. At length he went over to the counter and took a sheet or two of the paper,—which was kept there for the few who desired to write home,—a quill-pen and ink; and picking up a small wooden box he seated himself upon it before a desk—which had been built from a rude packing-case—and began wearily ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... And such a one is his, for whom, to-night, These walls are crowded with this cheering sight Ye love the poet—oft have conned him o'er, Knew ye the man, ye'd love him ten times more. Ye critics, spare him from your tongue and quill, Ye gods, applaud him; and ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... It is my fault, not she that merits blame. My feature is not to content her sight; My wordes are rude and worke her no delight; The lines I send her are but harsh and ill, Such as doe drop from Pan and Marsias quill; My presents are not of sufficient cost; And, being worthles, all my labours lost. Yet might she loue me for my valiancie. I; but thats slandred by captiuitie. Yet might she loue me to content her sire. I; but her ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... not the better for it," said Mr Auberly; "but I hope she will be quite well soon. Indeed, the doctor assures me of this, if care is taken of her. I wish that was the only thing on my mind just now; but I am perplexed about another matter, Mr Quill. Are you alone?" ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... Gentles in a horn, We have Paste and worms too, We can watch both night and morn. Suffer rain and storms too: None do here use to swear, oathes do fray fish away. we sit still, watch our quill, Fishers must ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... by pad and pencil is indeed an art worthy of admiration. The pen of an indictment clerk is oft mightier than the sword of a Lionheart, the brain behind the subtle quill far defter than said swordsman's skill. Moreover, the ingenuity necessary to draft one of these documents is not confined to its mere successful composition, for having achieved the miraculous feat of alleging in fourteen ways without punctuation that the ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... makes an ideal substitute for a quill in the stopper of the draftsman's ink bottle. The advantage of this substitute is that there is always one handy to replace a broken or lost pen, while it is not so with the quill. —Contributed by George ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... the "literary historian," the moralising and quill-driving "historians," as conceived by Daunou and his school, that we have had in view; we are here only concerned with those scholars and historians who intend to deal with documents in order to facilitate or actually perform the scientific ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... thought made little impression at the time; the mind was too full of terror and woe. The doctor now asked for brandy in a whisper. Mrs. Dodd left the room with stealthy foot, and brought it. He asked for a quill. Julia went with swift, stealthy foot, and brought it. With adroit and tender hands they aided the doctor, and trickled stimulants down her throat. Then sat like statues of grief about the bed; only every now and then eye sought eye, and endeavoured ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... although it barely served its purpose, like most of the inexpensive objects about him, was a charming. Italian bronze ink-stand, over whose cover wrestled the infant Hercules in the act of strangling a goose—in friendly aid of "drivers of the quill." My father wrote with a gold pen, and I can hear now, as it seems, the rapid rolling of his chirography over the broad page, as he formed his small, rounded, but irregular letters, when filling his journals, in Italy. He leaned very much on, his left arm while writing, often holding ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... unused quill, and a vellum scroll on which the names of all the members of the Society were written in ominous red. He handed these ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... doors of Hulker, Bullock & Co. closed upon Mr. Sedley, Mr. Quill, the cashier (whose benevolent occupation it is to hand out crisp bank-notes from a drawer and dispense sovereigns out of a copper shovel), winked at Mr. Driver, the clerk at the desk on his ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Returns to life, and in this magic court The dames in sables come to grace the scene, And while her matrons all in seemly sort My lady robes in baize and bombazine, Her beauty and her sorrows will I sing With defter quill ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... spec. I'll take five cents for my share. Who'll buy? Don't all speak at once. What, no one? Well, you are a poor lot! Only five cents. Well, never mind; if you won't make yourselves rich it's no fault of mine. I'll keep my share myself in a goose-quill stopped up at the end ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... from his pile of gilt-edged note-paper, laid it down, selected a quill and tried it, then wrote de Bailleul a ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... 'It was an unlucky goose-quill that lay so handy,' exclaimed Ulick; 'but you may credit me, no eye but my own ever saw the scrawl, nor ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of a brick-red, about the thickness of a large quill, and five or six inches long, half protrudes its flat head from one of those enormous, perfumed calyces, in which ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Papers," who tells us the trill of the Hair-Bird (Fringilla socialis) is produced by the bird fluttering its wings upon its sides! The Hermit-Thrush may be easily identified by his color; his back being a clear olive-brown, becoming rufous on his rump and tail. A quill from his wing placed beside one from his tail, on a dark ground, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... me to get rid of those newspaper editors and scribblers; they are arrogant, insolent fellows who imagine they know every thing and are able to criticise every thing, and who feel called upon to give their opinion about all things and on all occasions because they know how to wield a goose-quill. The best thing we could do would be to suppress all newspapers and periodicals. Shaping the course of politics ourselves, we do not need any newspapers, which after all are nothing but ruminating oxen of what ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... fashion of savages—on the back; and kept to the rear of the procession; and at evening consorted only with old Lightfoot. As soon as opportunity offered, he built himself a marvellous iridescent ball of marabout feathers. Each of these he split along the quill, so that they curled and writhed in the wind. This picturesque charm he suspended from a short pole in front of his tent. Also, he belonged to the Kikuyu tribe; he ate no game meat, but confined his diet to cornmeal porridge. We were much interested in watching ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... mole, and said my eyes would be opened some day. But very soon he came to be interested in something else, and I never gave Edie another thought until one day she just took my life in her hands and twisted it as I could twist this quill. ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a style without hurry, indeed, in a peaceable rambling world, and one can imagine Westcote, with his pointed beard and his tall hat of the fashion of James I., taking a little walk in the afternoon sun after having spent the morning with his quill-pen and his calf-bound, close-printed classics—Suetonius, and Gesnerus, and Diodorus Siculus. His book is interspersed with little rhymes, couplets or longer verses, in the style of the "Arabian Nights" stories, and which George Meredith in the "Shaving of Shagpat" has ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... to about the slope of her straight white nose in order to look through them. Her mouth was pursed up to almost a youthful shape as she formed the letters with her pen, and a slight move of the lip accompanied every downstroke. There were two large antique rings on her forefinger, against which the quill rubbed in moving backwards and forwards, thereby causing a secondary noise rivalling the primary one of the nib upon ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... into a cool, lofty room, where there were a lot of mahogany desks, and a single old clerk, who resembled a last year's dried lemon, with some few drops of acid juice for blood, perched up on a hard stem of a high stool, with four or five quill pens, like so many thorns, sticking out ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... how, as he wrote, I stood by his chair and examined the glazed brown buttons on his coat and bit one of them to see how hard it was, while Sally was feeling his gray hair and necktie. He scratched along with his quill pen as if wholly unaware ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... which plagued the secluded Valley of Llanwddyn long before it was converted into a vast reservoir to supply Liverpool with water was that of Cynon. Of this Spirit Mr. Evans writes thus:—"Yspryd Cynon was a mischievous goblin, which was put down by Dic Spot and put in a quill, and placed under a large stone in the river below Cynon Isaf. The stone is called 'Careg yr Yspryd,' the Ghost Stone. This one received the following instructions, that he was to remain under the stone until the water should work its way between the stone and ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... importunate Congressmen; and you may rest assured that this criminal multiplication fills nobody with half so much righteous indignation and virtuous sorrow as the clerks themselves. Emerging from the palace of quill-drivers, a new surprise awaits you. The palace is surmounted by what appear to be gigantic masts and booms, economically, but strongly rigged, and without any sails. In the distance, you see other palaces rigged in the same manner. The effect of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... which he pushes about with him wherever he goes, and in which, as in a Claude-Lorraine mirror, he contemplates everything that he can both on earth and above. He is constantly employed in fishing in it with a quill for ideas; and as often as he catches one, even if it is half drowned, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... people and I were spending an afternoon upon a mountaintop, our dogs treed a porcupine. At my suggestion the young man climbed the tree—not a large one—to shake the animal down. I wished to see what the dogs would do with him, and what the "quill-pig" would do with the dogs. As the climber advanced the rodent went higher, till the limb he clung to was no larger than one's wrist. This the young man seized and shook vigorously. I expected to see the slow, stupid porcupine drop, but he did not. He only tightened his hold. The climber ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... William Field was no ways concern'd in Mr. Kneebone's Robbery; but that being a Brother of the Quill; Blewskin and himself told him the particulars, and manner of the Facts, and that all he Swore against him at his Tryal was False, and that he had other Authority for it, than what came out of their (Sheppard and Blewskin) Mouths, ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe
... upon his hands and knees and then stood up. He started away, wholly cowed, whining like a quill-pig, ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... dipped the quill in the ink, and, with her head on one side, and her lips set very firmly together, carefully wrote: "My dear ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis |
