"Staple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... captive princesses, valiant knights, fire-breathing dragons, and diabolical old magicians," added Browne, "which formed the staple of a highly edifying tale with which I overheard him entertaining Johnny the other afternoon at Castle-hill, as we were taking our siesta ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... Gaslight was the staple of Hymen's torch the next morning. London was under one of the fogs, of which it is popularly said you may cut them with a knife. The church was in dim twilight; the bride and bridegroom loomed through the haze, and the indistinctness made Clara's fine ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a short time previous to the appearance of man. And the true grasses,—a still more important order, which, as the corn-bearing plants of the agriculturist, feed at the present time at least two thirds of the human species, and in their humbler varieties form the staple food of the grazing animals,—scarce appear in the fossil state at all. They are peculiarly plants ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... by a treacherous advocate. Too late they exposed the deceit practised upon them, and protested their innocence. The alleged crimes were: flying to their place of assembly by witchcraft, adoring the devil, trampling upon the cross, blasphemy, riotous feasting, and vile offences against morality—staple charges recurring again and again, ad nauseam, whenever persecuted men and women have been compelled to meet secretly for God's worship. See L. Rossier, Histoire des protestants de Picardie (Paris, 1861), ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... an ancient writer, "would praise a worthy man, they praised him as a good farmer and a good landlord; and they believed that an praise could go no further." [10] Roman farmers raised large crops of grain—the staple product of ancient Italy. Cattle-breeding, also, must have been an important pursuit, since in early times prices were estimated in oxen and ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... into social, political, and religious life, the resultant effect of which, on human existence in America, is never to end. One year later still, cotton was first planted in the virgin soil of America, where it grew to perfection, and thenceforth becoming the staple production, made slavery and slave-breeding ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... As a final resort he organized a concert tour through Germany and Russia, the details of which are contained in his extremely interesting Autobiography. At these concerts his own music was the staple of the programmes, and it met with great success, though not always played by the best of orchestras, and not always well by the best, as his own testimony shows; for his compositions are very exacting, and call for every resource known to the modern orchestra. The Germans were quick ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... Each character is as excellently drawn as if delineation of character were the author's main object; and in the matter of style there is no concession to the tastes of the cruder public which makes murder novels its staple diet. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... seminaries of Gray's Inn, in Dugdale's time, were Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn. Originally the Exchange of the London woolen merchants, Staple Inn was a law-school as early as Henry V.'s time. It is probable that Bernard's Inn became an academy for law-students in ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... [15] In the "Staple of News," act iii. scene 2, Jonson talks of the miracles done by the Jesuits in Japan and China, as current ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... [Sidenote: The conjecture that Chaucer's ancestors were merchants, of no valydytye.] Next yo{u} seme to implye by a coniecturall argumente, that Chaucers auncesters sholde be m{e}rcha{n}ts, for that in place where they haue dwelled the armes of the marchantes of the staple haue bin seene in the glasse windowes. This ys a mere coniecture, and of no valydytye. For the m{a}rchantes of the staple had not any armes granted to them (asI haue bin enformed) vntill longe after the deathe of Chaucers parentes, w{hi}che was aboute the 10 or 12 of Edwarde the thirde; ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... and proper conformity with prices outside Germany.[147] But this is not the case. In spite of a very great rise in German prices, they probably do not yet average much more than five times their former level, so far as staple commodities are concerned; and it is impossible that they should rise further except with a simultaneous and not less violent adjustment of the level of money wages. The existing maladjustment hinders in two ways (apart from other obstacles) that revival of the import trade which is the essential ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... away, When once the east-wind of temptations beat Upon thee, with their dry and blasting heat! Rich men will not account their treasure lies In crack'd groats and four-pence half-pennies,[18] But in those bags they have within their chests, In staple goods, which shall within their breasts Have place accordingly, because they see Their substance lieth here. But if that be But shaken, then they quickly fear, and cry, Alas, 'tis not this small and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... cultivation and production of the great tropical staples, amounting annually in value to nearly $300,000,000." It is a suggestive commentary on Mr. Calhoun's evil foreboding, that the great tropical staple of the South has steadily increased in growth under free labor, and that the development of Texas never fairly began until slavery ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... to make the acquaintance of other Northern delicacies,—beaver-tails, moose-nose, rabbits' kidneys, caribou-tongues, and the liver of the loche, an ugly-looking fish of these waters. But the whitefish remains the staple; the fish-harvest here is as important a season as Harvest Home elsewhere. At the fishery, whitefish are hung upon sticks across a permanent staging to dry and freeze; an inch-thick stick is pierced through the tail, and the fish hang head downwards in groups of ten. This process makes ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... they did not at once actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact that they did not at once, or ever afterward, actually place all white people on an equality with one another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief-Justice and the Senator for doing this obvious violence to the plain, unmistakable ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... University of St. Andrews, and partly in Paris. His first considerable poem, "The Palice of Honour," was published in 1501, and dedicated to King James IV. It is an allegory, such as was at that time the staple of poetical composition, and contains but little that is particularly original. Another allegory, printed after his death, is entitled "King Hart," and has for its subject the heart of man. His greatest work is his translation of Virgil's "neid" into Scottish verse. In 1509, Douglas was ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... modern curtains, and, being anxious to test the truth of my imaginings, rose and pulled aside one of these curtains only to see, just as I expected, the blank surface of a series of unslatted shutters, tightly fitting one to another with old-time exactitude. A flat hook and staple fastened them. Gently raising the window, and lifting one, I pulled the shutter open and looked out. The prospect was just what I had been led to expect from the location of the room—the long, bare wall of the neighboring house. I was curious about that house, more curious at this moment ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... Ojibways. Schoolcraft's volume, which he chose to entitle "The Hiawatha Legends," has not in it a single fact or fiction relating either to Hiawatha himself or to the Iroquois deity Taronhiawagon. Wild Ojibway stories concerning Manabozho and his comrades form the staple of its contents. But it is to this collection that we owe the charming poem of Longfellow; and thus, by an extraordinary fortune, a grave Iroquois lawgiver of the fifteenth century has become, in modern literature, an Ojibway demigod, son ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... of abundant yield of the rich productions of the tropics, of sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, corn, and the grape, the vintage, now a staple, particularly so of California; of the great cereals, wheat and corn, in the Western, Northwestern, and Pacific States, and in that vast interior region from the valley of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains; and thence to the chain formed by the Sierra ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... way when the country was first discovered. It was also held in high estimation by the early settlers in what are now called the oil regions, for the medication of cuts and bruises, as well as an internal curative. It formed the staple of the British and American oils that were sold largely and at high rates throughout the country. It is a remarkable fact that since the quantity has increased so largely the popular faith has been correspondingly ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... large towns, the neglect of literature and classical learning, and the grievances of scholarly refinement in a world in which Greek iambic and Latin hexameter count for nothing,—such form the staple of his theses and tirades! His approximation at times to the confines of French realistic art is of the most accidental or incidental kind. For Gissing is at heart, in his bones as the vulgar say, a thorough moralist and sentimentalist, an honest, true-born, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and throughout the Rocky Mountains and the timbered ranges of the Pacific coast. In the East it has always ranked second only to the deer among the beasts of chase. The bear and the buck were the staple objects of pursuit of all the old hunters. They were more plentiful than the bison and elk even in the long vanished days when these two great monarchs of the forest still ranged eastward to Virginia and Pennsylvania. The wolf ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... either the Admiralty Islands, New Ireland, or New Britain touch an eel as food. The Maories, however, as is well known, are inordinately fond of eels, which, with putrid shark, constitute one of their staple articles of diet. ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... agree upon the general amity and commerce between the two nations, and afterwards, if Sweden held it fit, when they sent an ambassador to England, or otherwise, to propound anything concerning the fishing for herrings or the traffic in America, or touching a staple at Narva, Revel, or Gothenburg (which Eric likewise discoursed of at large), that the Protector would give a fair and ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... a poverty striken land inhabited by a turbulent and ignorant race whom she has with unrewarded solicitude sought to civilise, uplift and educate has been a staple of England's diplomatic trade since modern diplomacy began. To compel the trade of Ireland to be with herself alone; to cut off all direct communication between Europe and this second of European islands until no channel ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... his career provides the staple material for his eulogists, as it is not without genuine value. With the death of Louis XV., Voltaire evidently expected that he would be invited to return to Paris, but the government did not give him any encouragement. By the beginning of 1778 he had finished ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... of fluted feeding rollers a narrow lap, about 71/2 in. wide, is passed into the head, in which the following action takes place: Assuming that the stroke is finished, the lap is seized near its end by a pair of nippers, so as to leave about half the length of the staple projecting. These projecting fibers are combed by a revolving cylinder, partially covered with comb teeth. When the front or projecting ends of the fibers are thus combed, a straight comb in front of the nippers drops into them, the nippers open, and the fibers are drawn through the straight comb. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... my previous messages to the injurious and vexatious restrictions suffered by our trade in the Spanish West Indies. Brazil, whose natural outlet for its great national staple, coffee, is in and through the United States, imposes a heavy export duty upon that product. Our petroleum exports are hampered in Turkey and in other Eastern ports by restrictions as to storage and by onerous taxation. For these mischiefs ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur
... not quite equal to those that grow on the equator. The coffee, sugar, tobacco, and spices are somewhat inferior to those of Java, Sumatra, and Celebes. Rice is the staple food of the common people, and has been raised from prehistoric periods. Maize, which I believe you Americans ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... When the way we had first chosen is barred against us, we are not to lie still, but to move onward with added diligence on the way that is thus opened to us. If outward success is arrested and reverted, there is only the more reason for improving the staple of our inward being. If those dearest to us have passed beyond the reach of our good offices, there are the more remote that may be brought near, and made ours, by our beneficence. If our earthly life is rendered desolate, the affections, hopes, and aims thus unearthed may ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... touched famine prices. Wheat, which in the last decade of the nineteenth century had averaged about L9 a ton, rose to over L31 a ton, its price two years before the Battle of Waterloo. Other imported food-stuffs, of course, rose in proportion with the staple commodity, and the people of Britain saw, at first dimly, then more and more clearly, the real issue that had been involved in the depopulation of the rural districts to swell the populations of the towns, and the consequent lapse of enormous areas of ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... of a slab of some kind of coarse, dark-coloured, ill-flavoured bread, and a bowl of maize-meal porridge such as has constituted the staple food of the natives of that part of the ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... staple of the evening—those composed by Monsieur Jullien always, of course, claiming precedence and preference. These are usually interspersed with solos on the flageolet, to contrast with obligati for the ophecleido; the drummers—side, long, and double—are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... speak on the subject, and when we bear in mind that the excess charge of 40s. to 45s. per case does not benefit the State, but serves to enrich individuals for the most part resident in Europe, the injustice of such a tax on the staple industry becomes more apparent and ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... out the thred of his verbositie, finer then the staple of his argument. I abhor such phanaticall phantasims, such insociable and poynt deuise companions, such rackers of ortagriphie, as to speake dout fine, when he should say doubt; det, when he shold pronounce ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... George Brotherton, "right smart little line of staple and fancy love that firm is carrying this season. Rather nice titles too; good deal of full calf bindings—well, say—glancing at the illustrations, I should like to read the text. But man—say—hear your Uncle George! With me it's always a sign of low ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... ten sledges north, loaded with supplies, that the hunters might replenish their failing stores. Because of the unsatisfactory trading arrangements, the men had not ventured far afield; and, now, because of the shortness of staple food, they had gathered at the settlement to restock before circling out on the hunt again. The opportunities for game at this time were the worst in the winter. Moose had "yarded up"—that is, gone into winter seclusion in some snowy corral farther north—and bears were enjoying their ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should say doubt; det when he should pronounce ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... difficulties may result to the advantage both of England and America: to England, by giving her a real hold upon India as the source of her cotton-supply, and to America by making the North the best customer for the staple of the South. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... ancient dominion, has turned her heroic tyrannicides into a community of slave-breeders for sale, and converted the land of George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Jefferson, into a great barracoon—a cattle-show of human beings, an emporium, of which the staple articles of merchandise are the flesh and blood, the bones and sinews ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... stable and byre in winter, when they were brought home. As for the flocks of sheep, they seem to have been reckoned and marked every autumn, and milked and shorn in summer; but to have fought it out with nature on the hill-side all the year round as they best could. Hay, therefore, was the main staple, and haymaking the great end and aim of an Icelandic farmer.... Gunnar's death in our Saga may be set down to the fact that all his men were away in the Landisles finishing their haymaking. Again, Flosi, before the Burning, bids all his men go home and ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... beetroot being taxed, the grower strives after that kind producing the largest percentage of saccharine matter. Hardly less important is the residue. The pulp of the crushed beetroot in these regions forms the staple food of cows, pigs and sheep. Mixed with chopped straw, it is stored for winter use in mounds by small cultivators, in enormous cellars constructed on purpose by large owners. Horses refuse to eat this mixture, which has a peculiar odour, scenting farm ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... (except a few, such as Sawing Mills) neither are they great Encouragers of Manufactures, because of the Trouble and certain Expence in Attempts of this kind, with uncertain Prospect of Gain; whereas by their staple Commodity, Tobacco, they are in hopes to get a plentiful Provision; nay, often very ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... good that the masse of our commodities were alwayes in our owne disposition, and not at the will of others. Therefore it were good that we did seeke out some small Island in the Scithian sea, where we might plant, fortefie, and staple safely, from whence (as time should serue) wee might feed those heathen nations with our commodities without cloying them, or without venturing our whole masse in the bowels of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... any of the other writers. I could not exercise editorial control over his articles, and I was sometimes obliged to sacrifice to him portions of my own. The old Westminster Review doctrines, but little modified, thus formed the staple of the Review; but I hoped by the side of these, to introduce other ideas and another tone, and to obtain for my own shade of opinion a fair representation, along with those of other members of the party. With this end chiefly in view, I made it one of the peculiarities of the ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... Martinique kept in their caverns idols made of cotton, in the form of a man, with shining black seeds of the soap-berry (Sapindus) for eyes, and a cotton helmet. These were the original deities of the island. It cannot now be decided whether the cotton thus worshipped was long-staple or upland; but the tendency of the savage mind to make a fetich of its chief ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... the contrary as Gifford's Juvenal, probably, take it all in all, the very best version of a classic in the language. But though Juvenal has many passages which sufficiently remind us of Horace, some of them light and playful, others level and almost flat, these do not form the staple of his Satires: there are passages of dignified declamation and passionate invective which suffer less in translation, and which may be so rendered as to leave a lasting impression of pleasure upon the mind of the reader. Like Horace, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... methods are found in De Chelly. In the third wall from the east, in the upper part of Casa Blanca ruin, there is a well-finished doorway sealed by a thin slab of stone set in mud. On the right side of the opening, about the middle, a loop or staple of wood has been built into the wall, and in the corresponding place on the left side a stick about half an inch in diameter projects. An opening into the small room west of the White House proper has a similar contrivance, and another example occurs in the front wall of the small single ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... Hatton Hall was over, it formed the staple of conversation in the neighborhood. Everyone wondered who would be there and who would be left out. About the dinner itself there was no doubt, for there is little variety in such entertainments. The meat and the drink offerings are similar, and the company are bound by fashion and ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... harvests of sugar-cane and tobacco. The amount of sugar yielded by a given area is said to be greater than in any other West Indian island. Rice, of the mountain variety and grown without flooding, nourishes almost any place and is a staple food of the laboring classes. In addition to these products cotton and maize are commonly cultivated, and yams, plantains, oranges, bananas, cocoanuts, pineapples, and almost every other tropical fruit are grown in abundance. Among indigenous plants are several noted for ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... now the great staple of Virginia, In the legislature of this State, in 1833, Thomas Jefferson Randolph declared that Virginia had been converted into 'one grand menagerie, where men are reared for the market, like oxen for the shambles.' This same gentleman thus compared the foreign ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... vexed in a Belgian loom, And into cloth of spongy softness made, Did into France or colder Denmark doom, To ruin with worse ware our staple trade." ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Indies. It is fortified by a high stone wall, mounted by a considerable number of guns, which were formerly only on the land side, but have now been added to the side next the sea. The city has vast trade, being the staple or emporium for all goods to and from Peru and Chili; besides that, every three years, when the Spanish armada comes to Porto Bello, the Plate fleet comes here with the treasure belonging to the king and the merchants, whence it is carried ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... to increase the production of important articles of consumption will, it is hoped, improve the demand for labor and advance the business of the country, and eventually result in saving some of the many millions that are now annually paid to foreign nations for sugar and other staple products which habitual use has made necessary ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... extravagance the praises which had been lavishly bestowed upon the gentlemen whose career generally terminated in Newgate or on the Tyburn Tree, and by giving "the accomplishment of verse" to the sentiments and the language which formed the staple of the popular thieves' literature of the circulating libraries. The medium chosen was the review of a manuscript, supposed to be sent to the writer by a man who had lived so fully up to his own convictions as to ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... year '32 is known by the people as the potato cholera. With these circumstances the legislature ought to be acquainted, inasmuch as they are calamities that will desolate and afflict the country so long as the potato is permitted to be, as it unfortunately is, the staple food of the people. That we are subject in consequence of that fact, to periodical recurrences of dearth and disease, is well known and admitted; but that every season brings its partial scourge of both these evils to various ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... done, as opportunity offered, the same as in all similar beginnings. Since the year of our Lord 1623, four forts have been built there by order of the Lords Directors,(2) one on the south point of the Manhatans Island, where the East and North Rivers unite, called New Amsterdam, where the staple-right(3) of New Netherland was designed to be; another upon the same River, six-and-thirty Dutch miles [leagues] higher up, and three leagues below the great Kochoos(4) fall of the Mohawk River, on the west side of the ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... are the staple and the strength of the Christian ministry. These three facts are misapprehended, and have failed to produce their right impression, unless they have driven home to our consciences and understandings the triple conviction of my text. And so I come to you with the simple questions which are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... amounts to a positive compact to supply that nation exclusively with naval stores whenever they may be at war. Had the list of contraband articles been reduced—had naval stores and provisions, our two great staple commodities, been declared not to be contra-band, security would have been given to the free exportation of our produce; but instead of any provision being made on that head, an article of a most doubtful nature, and on which I will remark hereafter, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... Cantonese. They are bold navigators; the grand island of Formosa, now ceded to Japan, was colonised by them; and by [Page 15] them also the savage aborigines were driven over to the east coast. A peculiar sort of black tea is grown on these mountains, and, along with grass cloth, forms a staple in the trade of Amoy. The harbour is not wanting in beauty; and a view from one of the hill-tops, from which hundreds of villages are visible, is highly picturesque. Of the town of Amoy with its 200,000 people there ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... predominant public opinion of his day. He may come to act habitually on the basis of ideal standards which he has himself set up through reflection, or which he has acquired from some moral system or tradition, far in advance of those which are the staple determinants of character for most of his contemporaries. He may be one of those rare moral geniuses, singularly unsusceptible to praise and blame, who create a new ideal of character by the dominant individuality of their own. Or, as more ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Peninsula and France, we can see that Greece has many sources of material prosperity within her reach, if only she applies her liberated energy to their development. Yet these are all of them specialized products, and Greece will never export any staple commodity to rival the grain which Rumania sends in such quantities to central Europe already, and which Bulgaria will begin to send within a few years' time. Even the consolidated Greek kingdom will be too small in area and too ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... requiring varnish, they serve better for walls and partitions than do ordinary boards. Boxes, also, are made of them; indeed, it would be difficult to describe the numberless uses to which they are put. The trunk, however, is the more valuable part, as the pith of the interior is the staple food of large numbers of the inhabitants of these regions. I will not stop here to describe how the sago is made; but ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the case, you have only to scrape away a little mortar from the gate-post near the hinge, and I will give you, through that opening, a pair of pincers and a hammer, with which you may by night draw out the nails of the staple, and we can easily put that to rights again, so that no one will ever suspect that the lock was opened. Once shut up with you in your loft, or wherever you sleep, I will go to work in such style that you will turn out even better ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... range, with the Beacon hill upon the north, and Hackpen long ridge to the south; and beyond that again the Whetstone hill, upon whose western end dark port-holes scarped with white grit mark the pits. But flint is the staple of the broad Culm Valley, under good, well-pastured loam; and here ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... Like that priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S. Wisdom Hely's. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our staple food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are not Boyl: no, M Glade's men. Doesn't bring in any business either. I suggested to him about a transparent ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... ladder, composed of a single pole with bits of wood nailed on to it a foot apart. This they placed up against the door of the loft. They could see that this was fastened only by a hasp, with a piece of wood put through the staple. It had been arranged that Geoffrey only should go up, Lionel removing the pole when he entered, and keeping watch behind the out-house lest anyone should come round the house. Both had cut heavy sticks as they came along to give them ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... carried the length past post number two, looped the chain around post number three, having the chain long enough so that he might tauten the wire and hold the crankhandle steady with his knee or left arm while he drove the holding staple in post number two. And ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... 'the warbling of his muse' with him. It is no better or worse than the staple. In the character of ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... I have consulted, Brother Adipose Tissue. It is just the right land for rice, and that is the staple product of all ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... it. They don't want staple values, because, now and then, they can pick up a bargain or drive a hard trade. And they can peddle 'wildcat' stocks to tenderfeet.... We must stop that ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... attached by short chains; 5 ditto of somewhat different make; 30 ditto, but with leather cuffs; 2 waist straps with leather cuffs attached; 9 pairs of leather cuffs padded; 11 pairs of leg-locks; a quantity of foot and hand cuffs (iron), with chains and catches to fasten to a staple in the wall or bedstead; 21-1/2 pairs of padded leather handcuffs; a larger quantity of handcuffs, single and double, of iron; 22 sets of strong body fastenings, very heavy chains covered with leather and iron ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... first few weeks of residence, I ran short of fresh provisions. The people of the neighbourhood had sold me all the fowls they could spare; I had not yet learned to eat the stale and stringy salt-fish which is the staple food in these places, and for several days I had lived on rice-porridge, roasted bananas, and farinha. Florinda asked me whether I could eat Tamandua. I told her almost anything in the shape of flesh would be acceptable; so the same day she went with an old negro named ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... right of the public road in passing from Charlotte. The lingering signs of the old family mansion are still visible; and the plow, in this centennial year, runs smoothly over its site, presenting a more vigorous growth of the great Southern staple, cotton, than the adjoining lands. The plantation was a part of the valuable lands owned by Ezekiel Polk in the "Providence" settlement, and near the present flourishing village of "Pineville." The family mansion, around which "Jimmy Polk" sported with his younger brothers and ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... basement, in a large, dusky room that we shared with three other families, each family occupying one of the corners and as much space as it was able to wrest. Violent quarrels were a commonplace occurrence, and the question of floor space a staple bone of contention. The huge brick oven in which the four housewives cooked dinner was another prolific source of strife. Fights over pots were as frequent and as truculent as those ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... their violence long before they had the mastery of him; and this very submission terrified the more tender-hearted amongst them. However, they bound him; carried him down many stairs, and, having remembered an iron staple in the wall of a certain vault, with a thick rusty chain attached to it, they bore him thither, and made the chain fast around him. There they left him, shutting the great gnarring brazen door of the vault, as they departed for the ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... the safest and most staple you could buy. It will positively pay regular dividends. We stand back of these statements. You must admit, therefore, that it is a good buy for you. So why do you hesitate about buying a ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... political outrages which have formed the staple of complaint for many years against the people of the South, your committee diligently inquired, and have to report that they found nothing or almost nothing new. Many old stories were revived and dwelt upon by zealous witnesses, but very few indeed ventured to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... the staple food of the population, which was made soon after the commencement of the war, was composed partially of rye and potato flour. It was not at all unpalatable, especially when toasted; and when it was seen that the war would not be as short as the Germans had expected, the ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... small, it is thinned out to one stalk or sometimes two in a hill so that it can develop freely. This stalk is to the common people almost as serviceable as the bamboo to tropical dwellers. It is used for fences, ceilings, walls and many other purposes. The grain of the two varieties is the staple food, few but the richer classes eating rice which is not raised in the north and is high in price. A third species of millet, shu-shu, is used chiefly for distilling a whiskey that is largely used but almost ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... arising out of the general treaty, there would probably be a periodical congress of delegates of the parliaments of the States belonging to the league, as a development out of the existing Interparliamentary Union. A regular staple of discussion for this body would be afforded by the reports of the interstate conference and of the different international bodies. The congress would thus cover the ground that is at present occupied by the periodical Hague Conference and ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... which the wine ceases to flow directly the bottles become filled. Men or lads remove the full bottles, replacing them by empty ones, while other hands convey them to the corkers, whose guillotine machines are incessantly in motion; next the agrafeurs secure the corks by means of an iron staple, termed an agrafe; and then the bottles are conveyed either to a capacious apartment aboveground, known as a cellier, or to a cool cellar, according to the number of atmospheres the wine may indicate. It should be explained that air ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... far, suited the views of both parents, to send Dolly to some first-rate boarding school for a year or two. Only, they could not do without her. She was the staple of Mrs. Copley's life, and the spice of life to her husband. Dolly was kept at home therefore, and furnished with masters in music and drawing, and at her pressing request, in languages also. And just ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... harder than I had believed, the staple of the lock clinging to the hard teak wood of which the chest was made. I must have been ten minutes at it, compelled to use a wooden bar as lever, before it yielded, groaning as it finally released its grip, like a soul in agony. I felt the girl clutch me in terror at the sound, her frightened ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... possible addition of a temporary counter, you have gained room enough to admit of the introduction of a "5c, 10c or 25c counter." The next thing to do is to send to some reliable jobber for a bill of staple household sellers, with which you can mix hundreds of articles from your own stock; then send out a little circular ("dodger") to the over-anxious inhabitants, telling them of a few of the articles to be found on your "Cheap Counter," and they will ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... occupations, and live a great portion of their time in the open air. The clothing of all classes is scanty. The use of woolen fabrics for underwear has not yet been introduced, and coarse cotton domestic is the universal shirting, and cotton jeans, or cotton and wool mixed, constitute the staple for outer wearing apparel. The men wear shoes throughout the year much more commonly than boots. They never wear gloves, mittens, scarfs, or overcoats, and they scorn umbrellas. Probably this whole 4,000 people do not possess ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... rash, but generous maiden! your fate is that of her in Scottish story, who thrust her arm into the staple of the door, to oppose it as a bar against the assassins who threatened the murder of her sovereign. The deed of devotion was useless; save to give an immortal name to her by whom it was done, and whose blood flows, it is said, in the veins ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... fitting cover (this has the advantage of being fire-proof). A shoe box 15 by 15 by 28 inches is convenient in size, since it may be divided into two compartments. It should have a hinged cover and, at the front, a hook and staple, or some other device to hold down the cover tightly; an ordinary clamp window fastener answers this purpose very well. The size of the container, which depends upon the size of the kettle used, should be large enough to allow for at least four inches ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... which held the staple and threw open the unshapely door. There were no steps, but a little friendly pushing and pulling brought even the Invalid within the room. There was a moment's silence; then, from Hope, "Oh, the magnificent chimney! Think of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... I was there in 1768, and again in 1783 and 1784, above four months. People of all nations are there seen in their proper habits; all languages are spoken; it is a free port, and the staple of the Levant trade, as well as of the West-Indian commerce.—There are regular vessels which ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... Wheat is the staple food over the greater part of the country. Rice is not largely distributed. In much of the eastern mountainous country bajra (Holcus spicatus) is the chief grain. Most English and Indian garden-stuffs are cultivated; turnips in some places very ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... joined it. The discovery of the upland pastures beyond the Blue Mountains, which were remarkably adapted to sheep, made an epoch in the history of the colony. Spanish merino sheep were introduced: wool became the chief staple; the production of it, especially after the invention of the combing-machine, became very profitable, and free emigrants poured in. The Australian Agricultural Company was formed in England. Western Australia began ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... crossed by fallen trees; huge trees overhead in the sun, dripping lianas and tufted with orchids, tree ferns, ferns depending with air roots from the steep banks, great arums—I had not skill enough to say if any of them were the edible kind, one of our staples here!—hundreds of bananas—another staple—and alas! I had skill enough to know all of these for the bad kind that bears no fruit. My Henry moralised over this the other day; how hard it was that the bad banana flourished wild, and the good must be weeded and tended; and I had not the heart to tell him how fortunate they were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by the Discovery in the south polar ice, seals and penguins formed staple articles of the diet of the men. Though the flesh of both of these creatures has a strong and peculiar flavor, it was found to be an agreeable change from pemican and other preserved material. So vigorous were the men's appetites, stimulated by the excessive cold, ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... all my life by this grandfather of whom I have just spoken. Now, he has a great many good points—there is no doubt about that; I'll not disguise the fact from you—but he has two very great faults, which are the staple of his bad side. In the first place, he has the most confirmed obstinacy of character you ever met with in any human creature. In the second, he is ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of the greatest importance, that King Cotton turns out to be a thorough citizen-king, and adapts himself very readily to changed events. The great Southern staple can be raised by small cultivators as easily as corn or potatoes; and difficulty begins only when sugar and rice are to be produced. Yet it will not be long before these also will come within reach of the freedmen, if they continue their present ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... drinks, the older man explained himself. An experienced trader, he had been operating between the mainland and Norlar for many years. It had been a profitable business, for the island had been dependent upon the mainland for many staple items, and had in return furnished many items of exquisite craftsmanship, as well as the produce of its extensive fisheries ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... always loved the good in childhood, and desired to do the right. In those early years I was actively useful to my mother, who, in the absence of my father on his long voyages, was engaged in mercantile business, often going to Boston to purchase goods in exchange for oil and candles, the staple of the island. The exercise of women's talents in this line, as well as the general care which devolved upon them, in the absence of their husbands, tended to develop and strengthen them ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... rustic life is more oppressive to those who have limited resources than the corresponding monotony of a town life. For this reason, and for many others, it is certain—and perhaps (unless we get to fighting with steam-men) it will continue to be certain through centuries—that, for the main staple of her armies and her navies, England must depend upon the quality of her bold peasantry and noble yeomanry; for we must remember that, of those huge-limbed men who are found in the six northern counties of England and in the Scottish ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... of the woolly caps and frieze clothes of the latter, the peasants wore the red fez, and were generally dressed in blue cloth. The plough cultivation of Bulgaria was now exchanged for the innumerable herds of swine, which form the staple commodity of Servia, fed in the immense oak woods which cover the country. "They form" (as Mr Paget informs us in his work on Hungary) "a very important article of trade between Servia and Vienna; and I doubt if Smithfield could show better shapes or better feeding than the market ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... of twisted thongs; and during the night their hands were fettered, and sometimes a light iron chain was put round their necks. Those who betrayed any symptoms of discontent, were secured by a thick billet of wood about three feet long, which was fastened to the ankle by a strong iron staple. All these fetters were put on as soon as the slaves arrived at Kamalia, and were not taken off until the morning they set out for the Gambia. In other respects, the slaves were not harshly treated. In ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... all the smoke, so that none of the effect should be lost. When we abandoned this camp the next day, the miserable wretches remained in it and collected the offal about the cooks' fires to feast still more, piecing out the meal, no doubt, with their staple article of food—grasshoppers. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... to do that for reasons best known to himself,—a reserve which is extremely conducive to the social interests of a community, since the conjecture into the origin and nature of those reasons stimulates the inquiring faculties, and furnishes the staple of modern conversation. And as it is not to be denied that, if their neighbours left them nothing to guess at, three-fourths of civilized humankind, male or female, would have nothing to talk about; so we cannot too gratefully encourage that needful curiosity ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... threatening danger? Outwardly all now was peaceful. Each waking-time the fishers put forth in their long boats of metal strips covered with fish-skins. Every sleeping-time they returned laden with the fish that formed the principal staple of the community. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... March the expedition cast anchor before the Island of Mozambique, where, as Gama learnt through his Arab interpreters, there were several merchants of Mahometan extraction, who carried on trade with India. Gold and silver, cloth and spices, pearls and rubies, formed the staple of their commerce. Gama at the same time was assured that in pursuing the line of the coast, he would find numerous cities; "Whereat we were so joyful," says Velho in his naive and valuable narrative, "that we wept for pleasure, praying God to grant us health that we might see ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... Parkinson, Bib. Banks, No. 89.—Native name, MADAWICK, "Skip-jack" of the settlers. "Rays, D. 8-28; A. 2-23; P. 15." Very common in shallow sandy bays, and forming the staple food of the natives, who assemble in fine calm days, and drive shoals of this fish into weirs that they have constructed of shrubs and branches of trees. Specimen caught by hook on the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... defeated a French squadron carrying nearly double as many guns. During the great war the island belonged to England, and indeed a portion of it is called to this day the Citta Inglese. It at one time acquired a certain importance in a mercantile point of view, sardines being the staple article of commerce. ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... Demerara without shoes and stockings, and returned in a few years with pounds sterling enough to purchase an estate and a pardon. Half-a-dozen boats, some of them neat little feluccas with three masts, are drawn up on the beach: there is not much fishing; the vine-disease has raged, and the staple export consists of maize in some quantities; of cantaria, a grey trachyte which works more freely than the brown or black basalt, and of an impure limestone from Ilheu Baixo, the only calcaire used in Funchal. This ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... thought of that which does not pass, and is unaffected by time and change. Just as reason requires some unalterable substratum, below all the fleeting phenomena of the changeful creation—a God who is the Rock-basis of all, the staple to which all the links hang—so we are driven back and back and back, by the very fact of the transiency of the transient, to grasp, for a refuge and a stay, the permanency of the permanent. 'In the year that King ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... square miles; Lancashire has 1,700; Attica has 700. Yet this tiny country has given us an art which we, with it and all that the world has done since it for our models, have equalled perhaps, but not surpassed. It has given us the staple of our vocabulary in every domain of thought and knowledge. Politics, tyranny, democracy, anarchism, philosophy, physiology, geology, history—these are all Greek words. It has seized and up to the present day kept hold of our higher education. It has exercised an unfailing ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... times to his once. His best ideas are enjoyed and used, and in due time are sent back, often quite innocently, for re-issue. Nay, even what is popularly known in England as "modern American humour" has been claimed as a leaf out of Punch's book, quaint exaggeration forming its staple feature, as in the case where we are told that "a young artist in Picayune takes such perfect likenesses that a lady married the portrait of her ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... since the consular ports were thrown open. So also with silk. As we have formerly shown, the demand has been extensive, and China can supply enormous quantities. From a trivial export, silk has become the second great staple of shipment. Although our imports from China have hitherto consisted chiefly of three or four principal staples, there is no reason, looking at the extensive resources of that vast empire, why they should continue so restricted. Something has even been done of late years in this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a liquor of modern date, which has nearly superseded the use of brown stout, and very much encroached on the consumption of other malt liquors, till it has become the staple commodity of the English brewery, and of such consequence to the government, in point of revenue, that it may be fairly said to produce more than all the rest. Porter, when well brewed, and of a proper age, is considered a wholesome and pleasant liquor, particularly ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... will you give us the Fifty-first Psalm to sing at the morning service—it always seems to me that it is the soul's staple food; and let us begin ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... bows, the position of which are adjusted by gauge screws; and by the sliding of the blocks, the distance of the oxen from each other may be regulated. The middle of the yoke is furnished with a draught staple or eye-bolt which is moveable and regulated by a hand screw at the top, whereby the pitch of the draught it regulated. Invented by David Chappel, and entered at the Patent ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... reasonable to ascribe some share in the restoration of good to Klopstock, both because his own writings exhibit nothing of this most abject euphuism, (a euphuism expressing itself not in fantastic refinements on the staple of the language, but altogether in rejecting it for foreign words and idioms,) and because he wrote expressly on the subject of style ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... at once, but forced conversation did not flourish. Bourcelles was not fashionable; no one ever had appendicitis there. Yet ailments of a milder order were the staple, inexhaustible subjects at meals. Instead of the weather, mon estomac was the inexhaustible tale. The girl brought in the little Cantonal newspaper, and the widow read out selections in a high, shrill voice, regardless who listened. Misfortunes and accidents were ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... figure of her husband but a moment, when she was torn away by Hartmann and his assistant, and before she realized their intention, the former had slipped about her waist the broad leather strap he had brought from the room above, and was busy securing it to an iron staple fixed in the wall at one side of the room. Then he stood back and surveyed the scene with a ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... Seine, as it narrowed in its windings, I discovered Harfleur and Hocher nearly opposite; and, a good deal lower down, the little fishing town of Quillebeuf, apparently embedded in the water. Honfleur itself is surely among the most miserable of fishing towns[93]—or whatever be the staple commodity that supports it. But the environs make amends for the squalidness of the town. A few years of peace and plenty would work wonders even in the improvements of these environs. Perhaps no situation is more favourable for the luxury of a summer retirement.[94] ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... known to what short commons we were reduced. Our discomforts were soon over, however, for Lord Douglas hearing that I was in a starving condition, hastened from the "Cross," not heeding the terrible accounts of the track, bringing with him a supply of the staple food of the country, "Tinned ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... appear again and again, at regular recurring intervals, in the excruciating "Facetiae" columns of those penny serials, of limited merit and "unlimited circulation," that delight the eyes and ears of below-stairs readers, the staple of whose mental pabulum ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for the very considerable sums drawn for on the Home Government, by the military department, for the pay and provisions of the troops, necessity would compel the merchants of England to reduce their shipments to Australia. The great fall in the price of the principal colonial staple, wool, has added very materially to the difficulties arising out of this state of affairs, by reducing the value of remittances made in that article to one half of what it used to be. The quantity of wool increases, it is true, from ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... employments, he was one of the best reputed spies which the French court had in England, as well as the most industrious agent which England had in obtaining intelligence from France. In fact, he sold each country to the other with the greatest possible complaisance. The great staple of the intelligence that he gave to both was false; but he took care to mingle a sufficient portion of truth with what he told, to acquire a considerable degree of reputation. He was, indeed, much too well versed in the practices of coiners, not to know ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... on foreign grants and technical assistance. Agriculture, including fishing, hunting, and forestry, contributes 40% to GDP, employs 80% of the labor force, and provides most of the exports. The country is not self-sufficient in food production; rice, the main staple, accounts for the bulk of imports. The government - which is hampered by internal political disputes - is struggling to upgrade education and technical training, privatize commercial and industrial enterprises, improve health services, diversify exports, promote tourism, and ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... attempt to escape. Cuthbert had in every way endeavored to ingratiate himself with his guard. He had most willingly obeyed their smallest orders, had shown himself pleased and grateful for the dates which formed the staple of their repasts. He had assumed so innocent and quiet an appearance that the Arabs had marveled much among themselves, and had concluded that there must have been some mistake in the assertion of the governor's guard who had handed the prisoner over to them, that he was one of the terrible ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... woods. But against that I will effectually guard, though the dogs should take a liking to his ugly visage, and let him pass. The youth returned to the door, while giving vent to this soliloquy, and completed the fastenings by placing a small chain through a staple, and securing it there by a padlock. He is a pettifogger, and surely must know that there is such a thing as feloniously breaking ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... at the time uppermost in the mind of the "Street," Page was naturally to be found crammed with facts about that staple. One could not help being interested in studying a man of his type, as long as one kept his grip on his pocket-book. For he was a veritable pied piper when it came to enticing dollars to follow him, and in his promotions he had the reputation ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... restored to our country, and now constitutes one of the States of our Confederacy, "upon an equal footing with the original States." The salubrity of climate, the fertility of soil, peculiarly adapted to the production of some of our most valuable staple commodities, and her commercial advantages must soon make her one of our most ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... herself with lapping up the defensive drop which the grub (The Larva of Chrysomela populi, the Poplar Leaf-beetle.—Translator's Note.) distils at the end of its intestine. This fluid no doubt represents to her some highly-flavoured beverage with which she seasons from time to time the staple diet fetched from the drinking-bar of the flowers, some appetizing condiment or perhaps—who knows?—some substitute for honey. Though the qualities of the delicacy escape me, I at least perceive that the Odynerus does not covet anything else. Once its jar is emptied, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... cooking and eating customs of the original or copper-colored inhabitants. The difference in environment and climate and conditions, together with the amplified wealth of native supplies, did the rest. In Merrie England, as all travelers know, there are but three staple vegetables—to wit, boiled potatoes, boiled turnips, and a second helping of the boiled potatoes. But here, spread before the gladdened vision of the newly arrived, and his to pick and choose from, was a boundless ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... to go unpunished for her wrongful dealings; about half an hour after she had been asleep, who should come snuffing about in the garden but Boxer, the gardener's ugly, old rough terrier. He had no business at all in the garden, but had managed to get his chain out of the staple, and there he was running about, and dragging it all over the flower beds, and doing no end of mischief; then he made a charge at Mrs Spottleover, who was on the lawn, where she had just punched out ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... fur trade into a staple industry changed this point of view to a limited extent. The government, as we have seen, considered it desirable that colonists should be established in New France {62} at the expense of traders. For the St Lawrence, however, the first and only fruits of this enlightened policy had ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... A rawhide thong tied it fast to a staple in the door jamb. With the bell shrilling its summons inside, the man paused long enough to study the knotting of the thong before he untied it and stepped inside. He went to the telephone slowly, thoughtfully, his cigarette held between two fingers, his forehead drawn down ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... dinner, Alice, profiting by her experience of the day before, faced the servants with composure, and committed no solecisms. Unable to take part in the conversation, as she knew little of literature and nothing of politics, which were the staple of Lucian's discourse, she sat silent, and reconsidered an old opinion of hers that it was ridiculous and ill-bred in a lady to discuss anything that was in the newspapers. She was impressed by Lucian's cautious ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... this settlement, and indulged with liberty of conscience, and at present the reigning religion is that of the English church. The climate is very sultry in summer, and not very salubrious. The soil is fruitful, and produces a great quantity of tobacca, which the people cultivate as their staple commodity. The seat of government is established at Annapolis, a small town beautifully situated on the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... with the pearrl-bearing mussels which are a staple article of diet with the Alpine natives,'" quoted Archer in declamatory style. "I had to write that two hundred and fifty times f'rr whittlin' a hole in ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... flower of the earth or gem of the sea humbug—but Ireland great in prosperity, her harbours full of ships, the woollen trade, her ancient staple, revived: all that vast unused water-power, greater than all the steam of Manchester and Birmingham tenfold, at full work; the linen ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... just been out, sir, to look after him," said Harry, "and the fellow does not seem to have liked his night's lodgings. He broke jail, and was off before any of the men were up this morning; they found the door open, and the staple off—he must have kicked his way out; which could easily he done, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... containing five or six hundred persons. Although it was now well into October, the natives of both sexes were entirely naked, with the exception of a slight band about the loins. They subsisted upon fish and the products of the soil. Indian corn was their staple. It was secured in the autumn in bags made of braided grass, and buried in the sand-banks, and withdrawn as it was needed during the winter. The savages were of fine figure and of olive complexion. They ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... know by this time, had a great appetite for conversation: he talked well, listened well; one of his chief enjoyments was, to give and receive from his fellow-creatures in that way. I hope, and indeed have evidence, that he required good sense as the staple; but in the form, he allowed great latitude. He by no means affected solemnity, rather the reverse; goes much upon the bantering vein; far too much, according to the complaining parties. Took pleasure (cruel mortal!) in stirring ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... February to May 1609, there was considerable material progress in and about Jamestown. Perhaps forty acres were cleared and prepared for planting in Indian corn, the new grain that fast became a staple commodity. A "deep well" was dug in the fort. The church was re-covered and twenty cabins built. A second trial was made at glass manufacture in the furnaces built late in 1608. A blockhouse was built at the isthmus which connected the Island ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... far as ample employment to all engaged in the staple manufactures of the town is concerned, trade still continues favourable for the workman, but the manufacturers generally complain that, for the season, sales are late of commencing, and many of them are already rather slackening their operations to keep their stocks down. The unexpected ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... within; "insignificant in himself, he rears a giant structure—which will yet cause the wreck of the ship of state, should its keel grate too closely on that adamantine wall. 'L'etat c'est moi,' said Louis XIV., and that 'slavery is the South' is as true an utterance. Our staple—our patriarchal institution—our prosperity—are one and indissoluble, and the sooner the issue comes the better for ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... stay after that. The unhappy slip became the staple of Saratoga conversation. Young Boosey (Mrs. Potiphar's witty friend) asked Morris audibly at dinner, "Where do the parvenus sit? I want to sit among ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... straight, and give your five feet five its—full value. You can help along a little by wearing high-heeled shoes. So you can do something to encourage yourself in serenity of aspect and demeanor, keeping your infirmities and troubles in the background instead of making them the staple of your conversation. This piece of advice, if followed, may be worth from three to five years of the fourscore which ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... for our guidance in life. . . Knowledge of human nature, as it actually presented itself in the shifting scene before them, and a vivid appreciation of the importance of the moral law, are the staple of the best ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... ascent, By many an easy step the matron went; Then o'er the pavement glides with grace divine (With polish'd oak the level pavements shine); The folding gates a dazzling light display'd, With pomp of various architrave o'erlaid. The bolt, obedient to the silken string, Forsakes the staple as she pulls the ring; The wards respondent to the key turn round; The bars fall back; the flying valves resound; Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring, So roar'd the lock when it released the spring. She moves majestic through the wealthy room, Where treasured garments cast ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... it appears a marvel how they can be housed in the few dwellings that exist. There is an endless supply of fine timber in the forests, and powerful sawmills are already erected; but the island is, like its soil, 'poor.' Its main staple, 'coffee,' does not pay sufficiently to enable the proprietors of estates to indulge in the luxury of a house at Newera Ellia. Like many watering-places in England, it is overcrowded at one season and deserted at ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... of the millets as the great staple food crops of these three nations, and the systems of agriculture they have evolved to realize the most from them, are to us remarkable and indicate a grasp of essentials and principles which may well cause western nations ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... spare our Compliments to the Women, now we are dead, who paid so little Regard to them while we were living. But to pass by that, I must tell you, I have let you go on a long while, without contradicting you on this favourite Article, which I always think on with satisfaction, as it is the staple Commodity of this Island, and the chief Support of our Poor. But you shou'd act the Part of one of those faithful Lappers you were talking of, and put the worst part of their Cloth Manufacture outmost, and then Matters wou'd wear a very different Aspect. Do you consider what a dangerous ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous |
