"Spun" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the head, but trim it semicircularly behind. The women tattoo their mouths, arms, and sometimes their foreheads, using for colour the smut deposited on a pot hung over a fire of birch bark. Their original dress is a robe spun from the bark of the elm tree. It has long sleeves, reaches nearly to the feet, is folded round the body and tied with a girdle of the same material. Females wear also an undergarment of Japanese cloth. In winter the skins of animals are worn, with leggings ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... found on record a murderer, whose cruel act might compare with his? What fiend more wanton in his mischief, what damned soul more worthy of perdition! But he was not reserved for this agony of self-reproach. He sent for medical assistance; the hours passed, spun by suspense into ages; the darkness of the long autumnal night yielded to day, before her life was secure. He had her then removed to a more commodious dwelling, and hovered about her, again and again to assure himself that she ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... time know exactly why I did this, but it seemed as if some one had taken me by the hand and was leading me into the depths. But the water splashing above my ankles and a scream from Euphemia made me drop the line, which immediately spun out to its full length, making the stake creak ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... the photograph of this object as any person of common sense would look at any great and strange natural phenomenon. What is the first thing that strikes the mind? It is certainly the appearance of violent whirling motion. One would say that the whole glowing mass had been spun about with tremendous velocity, or that it had been set rotating so rapidly that it had become the victim of "centrifugal force,'' one huge fragment having broken loose and started to gyrate off into space. Closer inspection shows that in addition to the principal focus there are ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... his shoulder and spun him around, propelling him toward the escalators. Dunnan struggled, screaming inarticulately like a wounded ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... it extended to the bridge, where Captain Boynton frequently consigned his duties to the first officer in order to devote his energies to holding Mrs. Weston's worsted. When he was not holding the skein, he was holding the ball, and during the endless process of winding and unwinding he spun his own yarns, recalling tales of wild adventure that alternately shocked and ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... its factories, its hospitals, its seminaries and colleges, its progressive business spirit, and the beauty of its suburbs. We visited one of the silk factories where hundreds of Syrian girls were engaged in unwinding the cocoons of delicate gossamer that had been tediously spun and wound by the silk worms among the leaves of the mulberry trees in the great ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... number, then," Dan Fowler snarled into the speaker. He gnawed his cigar and fumed as long minutes spun off the wall clock. His fingers drummed the wall. "How's that? Dammit, I want to speak to Dwight McKenzie, his aide will not do—well, of course he's in town. I just ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... with an expression of horror. As, however, he recollected he had no other, a smile came to his face, and he drew it on once more. Again his face changed into deep despair, his limbs shook more and more. "This is not from exertion," thought he, "it is fear." His head spun round and round ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... they kept a wary eye on me all the time. In the end they decided to settle the ownership of the coin by the arbitrament of chance. Job first spun it; Bill called "heads" and lost. At the second spin Topper called "tails," and was about to pocket the crown ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... landing gear and got an awful jar. Nothing serious though. It was two hours before a local blacksmith and I repaired chassis and cleaned plugs. I started off after coaching three scared darkies to hold the tail, while the blacksmith spun the propeller. He would give it a couple of bats, then dodge out of the way too soon, while I sat there and tried not to look mad, which by gum I was plenty mad. Landed in this bum town, called ——, fourth in the race, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the depths of the Bois as far as Mont Valerien, the meadows of Longchamps and the Plaine de Boulogne. In all parts of the field the wildest enthusiasm declared itself. "Vive Nana! Vive la France! Down with England!" The women waved their sunshades; men leaped and spun round, vociferating as they did so, while others with shouts of nervous laughter threw their hats in the air. And from the other side of the course the enclosure made answer; the people on the stands were stirred, though nothing was distinctly visible save a tremulous motion ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... Carthage ran the incomprehensible floods of old Mississippi himself, Father of Waters, deep and vast and swift. They had lately swung a weir across it to make it work—a concrete wall a mile wide and more, and its tumbling cascades spun no little mill wheels, but swirled thundering turbines that lighted cities and ran street cars ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... faults, they might have given them food which it was 'lawful' to eat, and so obviated this frightful iniquity. But that is not the way of Pharisees. Moses had not forbidden such gleaning, but the casuistry which had spun its multitudinous webs over the law, hiding the gold beneath their dirty films, had decided that plucking the ears was of the nature of reaping, and reaping was work, and work was forbidden, which being settled, of course the inferential prohibition became more important than the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... she has experienced it. So Hazel was dependent on intuition. Intuition told her that if the peaceful life at the parsonage was to continue, she must keep away from Hunter's Spinney. But she could not keep away. It was as if someone had spun invisible threads between her and Reddin, and ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... Ohio. "This is where Blennerhasset's island should be." The finger went on down the Mississippi. "What a river! When it is in flood, it is a sea. And the rich black fields on either side! Cotton! Our Fortunatus purse shall be spun of that. They call the creeks bayous. All these little towns—French and Spanish. To speak to them of Washington is to speak of the moon—so distant and so cold. Here are Indians. Here are settlers from the East, and the burden of their song is, 'We are so ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... then; the goodman ploughed His ample acres under sun or cloud; The goodwife at her doorstep sat and spun, And gossiped with her neighbors in the sun; The only men of dignity and state Were then the Minister and the Magistrate, Who ruled their little realm with iron rod, Less in the love than in the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... abject appeal, Staines tore the door open with his left hand, and spun the broker out into the passage with his right. Two movements of this angry Hercules, and the man was literally whirled out of sight with a rapidity and swiftness almost ludicrous; it was like a trick in a pantomime. A clatter ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... ribs stretching under the vaults are the legs? The image is so accurate as to be irresistible. And then what a marvel is the gigantic Arachne, wrought like a jewel and heightened with gold, which might have spun the web of those three ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... made by the village carpenter. More finished ones can be bought in the native bazaar for a farthing. But often a hopelessly disreputable-looking top, with an old nail for its spike, has a better record for deeds done than a more showy one bought in a shop. Those that are spun with the view of splitting their opponent often have, instead of a spike, a flattened bit of iron like a little chisel, which the boys sharpen on a stone, and with these they do great execution. Sometimes somebody's foot is seriously wounded in case ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... unfolded before; being the one to pay for the news in his house, he preferred to be the first one to read it. The creases proved perfectly satisfactory; so he lighted his cigar, crossed his feet, and settled himself—content in his own comfort. The smoke spun into spirals about his head; and after he had skimmed the cream of the day's events he read more leisurely, stopping to watch the spirals with a certain lazy enjoyment. They seemed to grow increasingly larger. They spun ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... at least no coward: here the events he had suffered well sufficed to whip his blood to action. He sprang to his feet, was upon them as George, sideways to him, came round the arm of the seat; lunged furiously and landed a crack upon the cheekbone that spun ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... Underhill spun the combination lock on the Lady May's cage. He woke her gently and took her into his arms. She humped her back luxuriously, stretched her claws, started to purr, thought better of it, and licked him on the wrist instead. He did not have the pin-set ...
— The Game of Rat and Dragon • Cordwainer Smith
... snow that melts on the rock, or the green scum that floats on the water of the swamp. But when I have spun well, they give me water from the iron spring. When I sleep, the cold lizards crawl over my face; but when I have well cleaned a mule, they throw me hay. The hay is warm; the hay is good and warm. I put ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... scattered wooden tenements of the exterior limits of the frontier town—the tall white staff, tipped by its patch of color flapping in the mountain breeze, and the dingy wooden buildings on the distant bluff whirling into view as he spun around the corner where the village lost itself in the prairie; and there, long reaches ahead of him, just winding up the ascent to the post was a stylish team and trap. John Folsom and the girls had taken an early start and ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... little they spun along the road. Each boy was occupied with his own thoughts, and consequently did not notice an automobile rapidly approaching down ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... slanted at an ever-changing angle; the swiveled lamps were still. Overhead the dark and bulky cylinders cut against the reflected glimmer on the skylights; below, valve-gear and connecting-rod flashed across the gloom, and the twinkling cranks spun in their shallow pit. One saw the big columns shake and strain as the crosshead shot up and down; the thrust-blocks groaned with the back push ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... pity, let me go: I have spun the flaxen thread, until my aching fingers drop; And my weary feet will falter, though the whizzing wheel should stop. I can see the sunny meadow where the gayest flowers grow; And I long to weave a garland;—dearest ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... spun past with a nod and a flourish, but a moment later wheeled about and came skimming up to where they were standing, ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... industrial art produces are manufactured here. The roof has not yet been put on many a factory in which busy workers are already making beautiful things. Here the weaver's shuttle flies, yonder gold is spun around slender threads of sheep guts, elsewhere costly materials are embroidered by women's nimble fingers with the prepared gold thread. There glass is blown, or weapons and iron utensils are forged. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Gerard, the French master, at the moment. He had evidently been telling him of Bradshaw's non-appearance, for at the sound of his voice they both spun round, and stood looking at the staircase like ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... is now rare in England, though there are specimens of him still to be seen in remote parts of the country. He is untravelled always, not apt to be found straying, or stirring from home. His covering is home-spun, his drink home-brewed, his meat home-fed, and himself home-bred. In general, he is a wonderfully silent animal. But there are talking ones; and their talk is of bullocks. Talking or silent, the indigenous ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... yourself if you know you don't know?" The Colonel sat back at his own ease, with an ankle resting on the other knee and his eyes attentive to the good appearance of an extremely slender foot which he kept jerking in its neat integument of fine-spun black silk and patent leather. It seemed to confess, this member, to consciousness of military discipline, everything about it being as polished and perfect, as straight and tight and trim, as a soldier on parade. It went so far as to imply that someone or other would have "got" something or ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... hat, stopped in front of him, spun around, and rushed back towards the carriage he had just left. He was too late. A porter caught him by the coat; the train was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... with the dreadful force When Earth recoiling stagger'd from her course; 85 When, as her Line in slower circles spun, And her shock'd axis nodded from the sun, With dreadful march the accumulated main Swept her vast wrecks of mountain, vale, and plain; And, while new tides their shouting floods unite, 90 And hail their Queen, fair Regent of the night; Chain'd to one centre whirl'd the kindred spheres, And ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... skyscrapers the wires of the Associated Press were closing down. The telegraph operators wearily raised their celluloid eye-shades after a night of talking with Paris and Peking. Through the building crawled the scrubwomen, yawning, their old shoes slapping. The dawn mist spun away. Cues of men with lunch-boxes clumped toward the immensity of new factories, sheets of glass and hollow tile, glittering shops where five thousand men worked beneath one roof, pouring out the ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... be but two of us to stay in here to-night!" Tim made a bound, and took with him the sash and every light, And then he jumped a nine-rail fence, and down the road he spun, And said, "Perhaps he thinks there's two, but ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... touching distance; as it vanished Cleggett heard the sharp, whistling intake of the fellow's breath—and then a click that told him the other's last cartridge was gone. Cleggett clubbed his pistol and leaped forward, striking at the place where the gleaming teeth had been. His blow missed; he spun around with the force of it. As he steadied himself to shoot again he heard a rush behind him and knew that his men had ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... seasons have they lain there, Have not seen them since my childhood. Deck thy brow with silken ribbon, Trim with gold thy throbbing temples, And thy neck with pearly necklace, Hang the gold-cross on thy bosom, Robe thyself in pure, white linen Spun from flax of finest fiber; Wear withal the richest short-frock, Fasten it with golden girdle; On thy feet, put silken stockings, With the shoes of finest leather; Deck thy hair with golden braidlets, Bind it well with threads of silver; Trim with rings thy fairy fingers, And ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... for action, and Wallie himself felt relief when the windlass spun and he heard the splash of the bucket in ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... he died the parish would have to bury him. I set it down that no such disgrace would ever fall on our family if I could help it, and when he got better I set to put-by every penny that could be spared, and many a hank I have spun and stocking knitted to get the pennies. After thinking over Archie's letter, I counted what I put by and I have one pound, seven shillings, and tenpence. Your passage, you ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... my readers will concur with me in liking Washington's own and though home-spun, excellent cloth, much better than the 'Cobweb schemes and gauze coverings' which have, it seems, been manufactured in ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... went on, now creeping through a low arch, now ascending a flight of steps, now in one crooked passage and now in another, with here a door opening before him, and there one banging behind, until it really seemed as if the walls spun round, and whirled him round along with them. And all the while, through these hollow avenues, now nearer, now farther off again, resounded the cry of the Minotaur; and the sound was so fierce, so cruel, so ugly, so like a bull's roar, and withal so like ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... needs of his own sorrow. But in the light of this new fact, those pages, seemingly so cold, are seen to be alive with feeling. What appeared to be a lack of interest in the philosopher turns out to have been a touching insincerity of the man to his own heart; and that fine-spun airy theory of friendship, so devoid, as I complained, of any quality of flesh and blood, a mere anodyne to lull his pains. The most temperate of living critics once marked a passage of my own with a cross and the words, "This seems nonsense." It not only seemed; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which the fish run. On lakes the boat drifts slowly along a "beat," while the angler casts diagonally over the spots where salmon are wont to lie. Salmon may also be caught by "mid-water fishing," with a natural bait either spun or trolled and with artificial spinning-baits of different kinds, and by "bottom-fishing" with prawns, shrimps and worms. Spinning is usually practised when the water is too high or too coloured for the fly; trolling is seldom employed, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... of Mrs. Pouncefort's latest?" grinned Noel, as they spun along the high-road. "I never met such a facetious brute in my life. How ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... element of personal power and property in a general sense, and so distributed as to be a bulwark of liberty. The speech is, on this account, an interesting one, for Mr. Webster was rarely ingenious, and hardly ever got over difficulties by fine-spun distinctions. In this instance adroitness was very necessary, and he did not hesitate to employ it. By his skilful treatment, by his illustrations drawn from England and France, which show the accuracy and range ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... all, as it seemed to me watching the garden paths, were spiders' webs that had been spun across them, so grey and stout and strong, fastened from weed to weed, with the spiders in their midst sitting in obvious ownership. You knew then as you looked at those webs across all the paths in the garden that any that you might fancy walking ...
— Unhappy Far-Off Things • Lord Dunsany
... him and followed. Then suddenly came a narrow abyss across which the gutter leapt to the snowy darkness of the further side. Graham peeped over the side once and the gulf was black. For a moment he regretted his flight. He dared not look again, and his brain spun as he waded ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... necessarily only planting States. None are excluded from achieving that diversification of pursuits among the people which brings wealth and contentment. The cotton plantation will not be less valuable when the product is spun in the country town by operatives whose necessities call for diversified crops and create a home demand for garden and agricultural products. Every new mine, furnace, and factory is an extension of the productive capacity of the State more real ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... and fixes several threads parallel to each other, which, so to speak serve as the warp to the intended web. To form the woof, it spins in the same manner its thread, transversely fixing one end to the first thread that was spun, and which is always the strongest of the whole web, and the other to the wall. All these threads being newly spun, are glutinous and therefore stick to each other wherever they happen to touch; and in those parts of the web most exposed to be torn, our natural artist strengthens them, by doubling ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... Scratch off twelve-seventeen-six!" Old Wright spun round on his stool. But William sat gazing out of the window. He had picked up his knife again, but did ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... The wind-lashed water beat him as he lay on the timber. Fear and the cold drove him to rave at life and death alike. Finally, over the roar of the wind, he caught the tumbling of breakers. His plank was spun round, the swell lifted him from his position, and the next breaker ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... her toes, or rather all the ballet-dancers in the world rolled into one and then multiplied a million times in size. No, it was like a mushroom with two stalks, one above and one below, or a huge top with a point on which it spun, a swelling belly and another point above. But what a top! It must have been two thousand feet high, if it was an inch, and its circumference ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... in downright lying we cover the falsehood with the finely-spun cloak of the word prevarication. Shakespeare says, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," and by a similar sequence, a lie, no matter by what name you may call it, is always a lie and should ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... natural fingers that worked as in a sleep, the thumb having a long grey nail; and from moment to moment there was a quick, downward rub, between thumb and forefinger, of the thread that hung in front of her apron, the heavy bobbin spun more briskly, and she felt again at the fleece as she drew it down, and she gave a twist to the thread that issued, and the bobbin ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... investigation he removed his family to the country, and went to New York, in quest of some one who had still a little faith in India-rubber. His credit was then at so low an ebb that he was obliged to deposit with the landlord a quantity of linen, spun by his excellent wife. It was never redeemed. It was sold at auction to pay the first quarter's rent; and his furniture also would have been seized, but that he had taken the precaution to sell it himself in Philadelphia, and had placed in his cottage ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the sitting-room, we made paper pin-wheels to see whether his breath would stir them. This trick having come to his notice by a sudden awakening, he sometimes thereafter played to be asleep and snored in such a mighty gust that the wheels spun. He was like a Dutch ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... the chatter of a wretched spot, a narrow life. Down there, nothing is not ridiculed that is not some phase of a provinciality. The dances in certain houses, the faces of some conceited club, long-spun names, business or gossip, or to drive a double carriage, are the gaslight boundaries of existence! Pah! it is a courtyard, bounded by four square walls, a path or two to walk in, and the eyes of busybodies to order ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... saw the reason for Greenleaf's conduct towards her sister-in-law, Marcia. She remembered his early fascination, his long, vacillating resistance, his brief engagement, and the stormy scene when it was broken. She had seen the thread of Fate spun for each, without knowing that invisible strands connected them. She had begun to read a tale of sorrow, but the page was torn, and now she had finished it upon the chance-found fragment; the irregular and jagged edges ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... in her clean Sunday clothes, in the fashion of the country, and she wore a full striped petticoat which Monique had spun of lamb's-wool, a white jacket with short sleeves like the body of a frock, and a flowered chintz apron. Her pretty hair was left to curl naturally, and no child could have had ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... Yeou, in Bornou, is a very considerable source of commerce to the inhabitants of its banks; and the manner of fishing (as represented in the above engraving) is ingenious though simple. The Bornouese make very good nets of a twine spun from a perennial plant called kalimboa: the implements for fishing are two large gourds nicely balanced, and fixed on a large stem of bamboo, at the extreme ends; the fisherman launches this on the river, and places himself astride between the two gourds, and thus he floats with the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... ceased, and, before we could pull up to lance him, he went down, taking the line out at such a rate that the boat spun round, and sparks of fire flew from the logger-head, from the chafing ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... the family, who did not often appear in the front one, though they were not shut up like Eastern women. Most Greeks had farms, which they worked by the help of their slaves, and whence came the meat, corn, wine, and milk that maintained the family. The women spun the wool of the sheep, wove and embroidered it, making for the men short tunics reaching to the knee, with a longer mantle for dignity or for need; and for themselves long robes [Picture: Greek robe] reaching to the feet—a modest and graceful covering—but ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shortly after the rumpus. I would have been in time enough to have had a hand in the wind-up, if it hadn't been that I got into a little circus of my own. Me and a couple of Apaches tried the game of cracking each other's heads, that was spun out longer than we meant, and so, as I was obsarving, when I rode into town, the fun was all over. I found Misther Simpson just gettin' ready to take your trail, and he axed me to do the same, and I was mighty glad to do it. I was desirous of ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... up the grooves and makes the rope smooth and ready for serving or parcelling. Parcelling consists in covering the rope already wormed with a strip of canvas wound spirally around it with the edges overlapping, B, Fig. 138. Serving is merely wrapping the rope with spun yarn, marline, or other small stuff, C, Fig. 138. Although this may all be done by hand, yet it can be accomplished far better by using a "Serving Mallet," shown in D, Fig. 138. This instrument enables you to work tighter and more evenly than by hand, but in either case ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... declared he was one of the most remarkable men he had ever met with. Ward, through all his vicissitudes, has preserved an honest pride in his native country. He does not conceal his humble origin. The portraits of his parents, in their home-spun clothes, appear in his splendid saloon of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... morning as they spun along beside the river, up and down the strange streets with the queer foreign signs over the shop doors. Once, as they drove along the quay, they met the Major and the dog, and in response to a courtly bow, the Little Colonel waved her hand and smiled. The empty sleeve recalled ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... rotating chair behind a broad table, which was covered with books, maps, and diagrams. As I entered, his seat spun round to face me. His appearance made me gasp. I was prepared for something strange, but not for so overpowering a personality as this. It was his size which took one's breath away—his size and his imposing presence. His head was enormous, the largest I have ever seen upon a human being. ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the whirl where sank the ship, The boat spun round and round; And all was still, save that the hill Was telling ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... she kept repeating to herself—the very same and she was one of them. And always she kept thinking of her first trip to Lonesome Cove after her awakening and of what her next would be. That first time Hale had made her go back as she had left, in home-spun, sun-bonnet and brogans. There was the same reason why she should go back that way now as then—would Hale insist that she should now? She almost laughed aloud at the thought. She knew that she would refuse and she knew that ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... the distance of a hundred yards, and the glowing glass thread spins itself off from both balls, until it is exhausted, or until the cold air hardens it. The imprisoned air has likewise, however, been spun out, and thus a hollow pipe, instead of a solid rod, has been formed, and so prepared the hole for ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... in the first part of the book are few and simple, the design of the author being to illustrate rather than to define; to lead the child to see, rather than to burden his mind with fine-spun statements that serve only to confuse. In an elaborate work for advanced students the method of treatment would, of ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... thee, and of thyself thou hadst thought well; and all this hast thou lost for lack of a word here and there to some great man, and a little winking of the eyes amidst murder and wrong and unruth; and now thou art nought and helpless, and the hemp for thee is sown and grown and heckled and spun, and lo there, the rope for thy gallows-tree!—all for ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... hasty generalizations is to peruse letters written at the time, before ingenious theories could be spun. Now, the definite proposal of a Union very rarely occurs before the month of June 1798. One of the first references is in a letter of the Lord Chancellor, Loughborough, to Pitt, dated 13th June 1798. After approving the appointment of Cornwallis ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... in store for him. Towards the close of the afternoon Bob's fun took the form of paper balls, which, at every turn of Mr. Burrows's back, spun through the room in all directions; two or three of the smaller scholars joined him, and a regular fire of balls was kept up. The ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... Gradually a haze spun itself over the landscape, and Ralph Peden's head slowly fell back till it rested somewhat sharply upon a spikelet of prickly whin. His whole body sat up instantly, with an exclamation which was quite in Luther's manner. He had not ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... easy task. Seldom have I breasted such angry, boiling surge as beat against us—there was no fronting it for those of us beyond our depths, while even De Noyan, making a manful struggle, was forced slowly back into deeper water, where he floundered helpless as the rest. It spun us about like so many tops, until I heard a great crunching of timbers, accompanied by a peculiar rasping which caused my heart to stop its pulsation. All at once the heavy bow swung around. Caught by it, I was hurled flat against the face of a black rock, and squeezed so tightly between stone ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... lifted. Bombing on the right Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left; And stumbling figures looming out in front. "O Christ, they're coming at us!" Bullets spat, And he remembered his rifle ... rapid fire ... And started blazing wildly ... then a bang Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom, Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans.... Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, Bleeding to death. ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... the blows would cow Vane, and make him an easy victim for the thrashing they had evidently set themselves to administer, they were sadly mistaken. For uttering a cry of rage as the second blow sent a pang through him, Vane dashed down his basket and trowel, spun round and rushed at his second assailant, but only to receive a severe blow across one wrist while another came again ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... opportunity and fired the "Baby," with an explosive shell, aimed far back in the flank, trusting that it would penetrate beneath the opposite shoulder. The recoil of the "Baby," loaded with ten drams of the strongest powder and a half-pound shell, spun me round like a top. It was difficult to say which was staggered the more severely, the elephant or myself. However, we both recovered, and I seized one of my double rifles, a Reilly No. 10, that was quickly pushed into my hand by my ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... turned up Fifth Avenue, and had reached Twelfth or Thirteenth Street when I thought I heard the patter of the Eskimo dog's feet behind me. I spun, around, startled, but there was only the long stretch of pavement, wet from a slight recent shower, and the reflection of ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... decorated the mountain shrubbery with my belongings. And how after all my hurry of dropping down from Koyo San, the brakesman forgot to hook our car to the train and started off on a picnic while the engine went merrily on and left us out in the rice-fields. Suffice it to say I landed in a whirl that spun me down to Uncle's house and back to the hotel. And by the way my thoughts are going, for all I know I may be booked to ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... steel moved by white steam and living by red fire and fed with black coal. The other seems to draw its strength from the very soul of the world, its formidable ally, held to obedience by the frailest bonds, like a fierce ghost captured in a snare of something even finer than spun silk. For what is the array of the strongest ropes, the tallest spars and the stoutest canvas against the mighty breath of the infinite, but thistle ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... dazzled the child, gave way to the strong excitement that shot light out of his eyes and brought scarlet into his cheeks. "Here, take it!" He dashed the tree down in front of Kaviak, and a sudden storm agitated its sturdy branches; it snowed about the floor, and the strange fruit whirled and spun in the blast. Kaviak clutched it, far too dazed to do more than stare. The Boy stamped the snow off his mucklucks on the threshold, and dashed his cap against ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... long course of years, growing old, faithful to the man who might have given her his name, honorable, having resisted temptations and snares, worthy of the motto which used to be engraved on the tombs of Roman matrons before the Caesars: "She spun wool, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Jim grimly. 'Well, I got the chance just now. Thompson said something to him, and he spun round, saw me, and shouted "Thomson". I went up and capped him, and he was starting to say something when he seemed to change his mind, and instead of confessing everything, he took me by the arm, and said, ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... of which recalled those of Robespierre and Saint-Just, showed the upper part of a shirt-frill in fine plaits. He still wore breeches; but his were of coarse blue cloth, with burnished steel buckles. His stockings of black spun-silk defined his deer-like legs, the feet of which were shod in thick shoes, held in place by gaiters of black cloth. He retained the former fashion of a muslin cravat in innumerable folds fastened by a gold buckle at the throat. The worthy man had not intended ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... beggin' yer honor's pardon,' sez I, 'and not mine.' The officers all laughed, and the owld man, sez he, 'Teddy, you're quite ingenuous!' 'Thank yer honor,' sez I, 'but I'll cotton to Ichabod Green in that line, since he invinted the new spun-yarn mill.'" ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... teeth, buried his knees in the barrel of the horse, unhooked his scabbard and swung it aloft, deftly catching the reins again in his left hand. But Giovanni was fully prepared. He released the bridle, his arm went back and the knife spun through the air. Yet in that instant in which Giovanni's arm was poised for the cast, the prince lifted his horse on its haunches. The knife gashed the animal deeply in the neck. Still on its haunches it backed, wild with the unaccustomed pain. The ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... these experiments was natural; the glass plate which he had held was the same I was using; as for the phial, might it not be some old compound that I had known him or the daguerrotypist use, now casually spun out of the past and woven in with my present pursuits? Nevertheless, I was glad to shove aside this rationalistic interpretation: on the verge of drowning, I magnified the straw to a lifeboat, and caught at it. I pardoned myself for going ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... and fabrics woven from spun glass. This was decidedly notable in the marvelous dress woven from one loom for the Spanish Princess Eulalia at a cost of $2,500. That these goods also serve as a canvas does for artistic work—was evidently proved by the ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... was usually the work of the winter months. The fabrics then worn were almost entirely of wool, silk and cotton being scarcely known. The wool, when not grown on the farm, was purchased in a raw state, and was carded, spun, dyed, and in many cases woven at home: so also with the linen clothing, which, until quite a recent date, was entirely the produce of female fingers and household spinning-wheels. This kind of work occupied the winter months, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... Seward, I called his attention to the fact that the government is surrounded by the finest, most complicated, intense, and well-spread web of treason that ever was spun; that almost all that constitutes society and is in a daily, nay hourly, contact with the various branches of the Executive, all this, with soul, mind, and heart is devoted to the rebels. I observed to him that si licet exemplis in parvo grandibus uti. Napoleon suffered more from the ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... a ring in his nose, but she could not always lead him by it. So, without more ado, she spun the tale, laughing at intervals. The story evidently impressed the duke, for his face remained ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... tone, that I thought that question was settled. He could not restrain some complaints, but they were not bitter, nor was he angry, and then rising and taking a few turns in the room, without saying a word, and his head bent, as was his custom when embarrassed, he suddenly spun round upon me, and exclaimed, "But whom shall ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... met a fellow in a caravan, with a dog-eared book in his pocket. He said he never stirred without it—wanted to know where I'd been, never to have heard of it. It was my guess—in its twentieth edition! ... The globe spun round at that, and all of a sudden I was under the old stars. That's the way it happens when the ballast of vanity shifts! I'd lived a third of a life out there, unconscious of human opinion—because I supposed it was ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... Ch'ing Wen's lips, when the coat was handed to her. The lamp was likewise moved nearer to her. With minute care she surveyed it. "This is made," Ch'ing Wen observed, "of gold thread, spun from peacock's feathers. So were we now to also take gold thread, twisted from the feathers of the peacock, and darn it closely, by imitating the woof, I think it will ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the blue. Then came a bare five minutes of punting, dropping, passing, snapping, ere the officials appeared from somewhere and gathered the opposing captains to them. A coin flashed in the sunlight, spun aloft, descended, and was caught in the referee's palm. "Heads!" cried Ferguson, the Yates captain. "Heads it ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... offered. The key and lock of that pit is eternal despair. O consider how quickly your pleasures and gains will end, and spare some of your thoughts from present things, to give them to eternity, that thread spun out for ever and ever;—the very length of the days of the Ancient of days, who hath no beginning of days nor end of time! Remember now of it, lest ye become as long miserable as God is blessed, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... upwards at a rakish angle, and the rigging seemed like spun silk. No sails were set; the yacht was under steam, and doing about seven or eight knots. She judged that it was a boat of a hundred tons or so, probably Clyde-built, and not more than two ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... should be made, and, by dint of application, I succeeded in completing these two machines to her satisfaction. She began to spin with so much earnestness, that she would hardly take a walk, and reluctantly left her wheel to make dinner ready. She employed Francis to reel off the thread as she spun it, and would willingly have had the elder boys to take her place when she was called off; but they rebelled at the effeminate work, except Ernest, whose indolent habits made him prefer it to ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... Polotzk was an agitated mass of people, waving colored handkerchiefs and other frantic bits of calico, madly gesticulating, falling on each other's necks, gone wild altogether. Then the station became invisible, and the shining tracks spun out from sky to sky. I was in the middle of the great, great world, and the longest road ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... his mother's spinning-wheel, which stood directly under the clock; this was the dearest piece of furniture in the whole house for the boy; but he dared not touch it, for if he did, he got a rap over the fingers. While his mother spun, he would sit for hours together looking at the buzzing spindle and the revolving wheel, and then he had his own thoughts. Oh! if he only durst spin that wheel! His father and mother slept; he looked at them, he looked ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... yet men are not satisfied. The interests of commerce and the fisheries require railway communication with the rest of Europe. That will certainly come in a few years, nor will it be long before the telegraph has spun its net, and regular steam communication has commenced along the coast of the Arctic Ocean far beyond the sea which was opened by Chancelor to the commerce ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... principally from the alteration of olivine, pyroxene, and amphibole,—or more commonly from serpentine, which itself results from the alteration of these minerals. Chrysotile is the most common, and because of the length, fineness, and flexibility of its fibers, enabling it to be spun into asbestos ropes and fabrics, it is the most valuable. Anthophyllite fibers, on the other hand, are short, coarse, and brittle, and can be used only for lower-grade purposes. Crocidolite or blue asbestos is similar to chrysotile but ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... a revolver cracked in the doorway o' the dug-out, I felt a sting in the left shoulder, spun around and fell, but jumped up just as Jabez changed directions for the cook shack. It was only a step from the dug-out an' we rushed in, slammed the door, dropped in the bar, an' turned to face a man with two guns on us. Monody dropped on him, an' I was about ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... William Johnson will take a word of another kind. As you know, Tayoga, as I know, and, as all the nations of the Hodenosaunee know, Waraiyageh is their friend. He will speak to them no word that is not true. He will brush away all that web of craft, and cunning and cheating, spun by the Indian commissioners at Albany, and he will see that there is no infringement upon the ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was I was sitting on the floor with my back against the door. The discovery amused me exceedingly and I laughed; and Jarman, baffled, descended to his own floor. I found getting into bed a difficulty, owing to the strange behaviour of the room. It spun round and round. Now the bed was just in front of me, now it was behind me. I managed at last to catch it before it could get past me, and holding on by the ironwork, frustrated its efforts to throw me out again on to ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... gesture, which bade her begone as fast as might be. Her feet were strangely heavy, in spite of her. She reached the curb in time to hear only the whir of wheels as a carriage sped away over the stones of the street. She stood alone, irresolute for half an instant as the crunch of wheels spun up to the curb again. A hand reached out and beckoned; involuntarily she obeyed the summons. Her wrist was seized, and she was half pulled through the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... round, and, striking his left heel against his right, flew round again in a circle. Natasha guessed what he meant to do, and abandoning herself to him followed his lead hardly knowing how. First he spun her round, holding her now with his left, now with his right hand, then falling on one knee he twirled her round him, and again jumping up, dashed so impetuously forward that it seemed as if he would rush through the whole suite of rooms without drawing breath, and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... hand and lay trembling in his palm, and as he talked, it shifted smoothly, as if of its own volition, forward toward his fingertips, backward, to the side, dropping out until it seemed about to fall, only to be caught with one finger through the trigger-guard and spun up again. Always the heavy weapon was in motion as though some of the nervous spirit of Reeve had entered the heavy metal. It responded to his thoughts rather than to his muscles. Bull Hunter gazed enchanted. He was accustomed to forgetting ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... and offer them now, in this general labour of Reformation, to the candid view both of Church and Magistrate; especially because I see it the hope of good men that those irregular and unspiritual courts have spun their utmost date in this land, and some better course must now be constituted. He, therefore, that by adventuring shall be so happy as with success to ease and set free the minds of ingenuous and apprehensive men from this needless thraldom; he that can prove it lawful and just ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... form of the genus Hydropsyche is said to spin around the mouth of its burrow a silken net for the capture of small animal organisms living in the water. Before passing into the pupal stage, the larva partially closes the orifice of the tube with silk or pieces of stone loosely spun together and pervious to water. Through this temporary protection the active pupa, which closely resembles the mature insect, subsequently bites a way by means of its strong mandibles, and rising to the surface of the water casts the pupal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... (Calophyllum inophyllum), so that the bluff should grow upward. And the bluff rose, and Kana grew. Thus they strove, the bluff rising higher and Kana growing taller, until he became as the stalk of a banana leaf, and gradually spun himself out till he was no thicker than a strand of a spider's web, and at last he ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... angry glances of approaching caballeros, laid her hand on the officer's shoulder, and he spun her down the room. ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... breast, he fell heavily on the ground. The mob closed upon him, and were just seizing, him to tear open his thrice-holy trust, when they felt themselves pushed aside right and left by some giant strength. Some went reeling to the further side of the square, others were spun round and round, they knew not how, till they fell where they were, and the rest retired before a tall athletic officer, who was the author of this overthrow. He had no sooner cleared the ground than he was on his knees, and with ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... groups, as may be seen in some countries around the catholic chapels. Within, the long tiers of benches display as fair an array of fashion and flowers as would be seen in any similar congregation in any country. The days of going to meeting in home-spun and raw hide moccasins are vanishing fast all through the province. These are the solid constituents of every-day apparel, but for holidays, even the bush maiden from the far-off settlements of the gulph shore has a lace veil and silken shawl, and ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... the shoulder blades, the small of the back, the buttocks, the belly, they descended with the full force of the robust arms and weight of O'Kin. Every time the legs were raised at the shock the suspended body spun round. Every time the toes rested on the ground the bow descended with merciless ferocity. The sight of the torture roused the fierce spirit in the tormentors. O'Kin redoubled the violence of her blows, seeking out the hams and the withers, the ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... material conventional for mourners' attire is certainly appropriate and proper for mourning garb. For the undyed wool of black sheep, when spun and woven, results in a cloth dingy in the extreme. The wearing of garments made of it suits admirably with grief and gloom of spirit, deepens sadness, accentuates woe, almost produces melancholy. And the sight of it, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... showed her the lamp and the fruits he had gathered in the garden, which were, in reality, precious stones. He then asked for some food. "Alas! child," she said, "I have nothing in the house, but I have spun a little cotton and will go and sell it." Aladdin bade her keep her cotton, for he would sell the lamp instead. As it was very dirty she began to rub it, that it might fetch a higher price. Instantly a hideous genie appeared, and asked what she would have. She fainted ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... only authorized by our traditions. Divers English Puritans oppose, against this point, that the observation of the first day is proved out of Scripture, where it is said, the first day of the week. Acts 20:7; I Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10. Have they not spun a fair thread in quoting these places? If we should produce no better for purgatory, and prayers for the dead, invocation of the saints, and the like, they might have good cause, indeed, to laugh us to scorn; for where is it written that these were Sabbath days in which those meetings were ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... fully believed, maternally, that he looked at her the second time. To his first hurried impression of her as an elegant and delicately nurtured woman—one of the class of distinguished tourists that fashion was beginning to send thither—he had now to add that she had a quantity of fine silken-spun light hair gathered in a heavy braid beneath her gray hat; that her mouth was very delicately lipped and beautifully sensitive; that her soft skin, although just then touched with excitement, was a pale faded ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... The public prosecutor spun out a whole drama to bring Mme. de Dey's son to her house of a night. The mayor had a belief in a priest who had refused the oath, a refugee from La Vendee; but this left him not a little embarrassed ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne |
