"Stave" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lawton and the others. He says that they are all flushed with confidence in their own courage and fighting powers and the ability of their leaders. Oh, if only the Army of the Potomac would come! If we could only stave off battle long enough for ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... cut out in the chalk of the hill-side, something comparable only with the Giant of Cerne Abbas in Dorset and the White Horses of Wiltshire. That figure is some two hundred and forty feet in height and holds in each hand a stave or club two hundred and thirty feet long. It would seem impossible to be certain either of its age or its purpose, but we may perhaps be sure that it lay there upon the Downs above Polegate before the ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... wicked stave, Till thy drooping courage rise, And the glow-worm of the grave Glimmer in thy ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... it. There has been a dreadful scene. I never imagined that Archibald could be so angry. He was terrible—and he is ill anyway and in great trouble about his financial affairs. I have been worried to death about him for weeks. He says things are going so badly downtown that he can't stave off the crash any longer, and now—this—this—" She broke down utterly, burying her convulsed face in her hands, which even in the instant of horror and tragedy, Gabriella noticed, had been manicured since the morning. "George ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... with his head upheld he walked, And ever the rain drove down; And now and again to himself he talked In the streets of Danbury town. And now and again he'd stop and troll A stave of music that seemed to roll From the inmost depths of his ardent soul; But the wind took hold of the notes and tossed them And the few who chanced to be ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... Elizabeth was a bad ambassador; and Cousin George, when he took his leave, promising to be ready to meet Sir Harry at twelve on the morrow, could almost comfort himself with a prospect of success. He might be successful, if only he could stave off the Walker and Bullbean portion of Mr. Hart's persecution! For he understood that the success of his views at Humblethwaite must postpone the payment by Sir Harry of those moneys for which Mr. Hart and Captain Stubber were so unreasonably ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... I dare say I shall become quite good again. Ah, your new Judaisms will never appeal like the old, with all its imperfections. They will never keep the race together through shine and shade as that did. They do but stave off the inevitable dissolution. It is beautiful—that old childlike faith in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, that patient waiting through the centuries for the Messiah who even to you, I dare say, is a mere symbol." ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... knows very well, dropping prices and the loss of foreign markets have devastated too many family farmers. Last year, the Congress provided substantial assistance to help stave off a disaster in American agriculture, and I am ready to work with lawmakers of both parties to create a farm safety net that will include crop insurance reform and farm ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... scruples were not for such as he, and if she crowded him too far he had an answer to her reproaches which would effectually reduce her to silence. But Billy knew that answer, and the reason for the gleam which played like heat-lightning in his eyes, and she hastened to stave off disaster. ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... Company of the North, La Chesnaye became a director. No one knew better than he how bitterly the monopolists of Quebec would oppose Radisson's plans for a trip to Hudson Bay; but the prospects were alluring. La Chesnaye was deeply involved in the fur trade and snatched at the chance of profits to stave off the bankruptcy that reduced him to beggary a few years later. In defiance of the rival companies and independent of those with which he was connected, he offered to furnish ships and share profits with Radisson and Groseillers for a ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... crouch behind him, the young fellow stood at bay, hooting, shouting, and waving his stave in a semicircle, within whose sweep the creatures were not anxious to intrude. Weary at length of trying to surprise the fortress by a flank movement, yet reluctant to abandon the hope of seizing Pike, the wolves ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... the laurell'd stave Are measures, not the springs, of worth; In a wife's lap, as in a grave, Man's airy notions mix with earth. Seek other spur Bravely to stir The dust in this loud world, and tread ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... missed. Turning to Massieu, she asked him if he had a cross. He had not, nor could one be found; but an Englishman broke his stave into two pieces, and these tied together ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... said the Queen lightly;—"But, surely, Sir Walter, if you see ruin and disaster threatening so great an Empire in the far distance, you and other wise men of your land are able to stave it off?" ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the dangers of the northern shore, which was to leeward; towards this broken land, however, and lee-shore, the ship settled very fast, notwithstanding our utmost efforts: In this pressing emergency we were obliged to stave all the water-casks upon the deck, and between decks, to clear the vessel, and to make her carry better sail, and at length, happily escaped the danger which threatened us. After we got clear of those islands, and drew off from the Streight's mouth and the land, we found the sea run more regularly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... English summer, dying under the intolerable doom of evanescence for all things beautiful, presented the spectacle of creeping decay in a hectic flare of russet and crimson, like a withered woman striving to stave off the inevitable with pitiful ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... stave the Bishop off, though. He had to hear the whole yarn, and the minute he gets it straight ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... in doing lay her safety, and kept her fully employed, so much so, indeed, that from sheer lack of time she was able to stave off the faintness which had threatened to overpower her. After a time her father came to himself, and Erica's face, which had been the last in his mind in full consciousness, was the first which now presented itself to his awakening gaze. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... the eager massed bands set them free with a gesture, and after they had played a stave, a small stentorian choir at the back of the platform broke forth, and in a moment the entire multitude, at first raggedly, but soon in good ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... a "rough-and-ready" hammock, by taking apart a flour barrel or sugar barrel, and in the end of each stave bore a three-quarter inch hole with a heated poker, or bit and auger. Then lace thin rope (clothes line is good) through the holes. This can be accomplished easily by noting method of lacing in figure "A." The stay-blocks "B" should be 12 inches long. Figure "C" shows hammock ready ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... spars, Watkins, and fasten them to float in front of her bows like a triangle. Matthews, catch hold of that boat hook and try to fend off any piece of timber that comes along. You get hold of the sweeps, lads, and do the same. They would stave her in like a ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... believe in the cause, whatever it is. What a concatenation now, that you and I should make fools of ourselves in order to stave off the establishment of national education, as if we could, or as if ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... now, on a solitary island, I would mash his Hands with a Club or with my Feet, if he strove to grub up roots; that were I Alone with him, wrecked, in a shallop, and there were one Keg of Fresh Water between us, I would stave it, and let the Stream of Life waste itself in the gunwales while I held his head down into the Sea, and forced him to swallow the brine that should drive him Raving Mad. But this is unchristian, and I must ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... and too little of that. Some of the younger children asked for more when they had done their portion—an application which disturbed William much. While his wife quieted them as well as she could, he left his seat and went to the door. He whistled a cheery stave, which did not, however, prevent a broad drop or two (much more like the "first of a thunder-shower" than those which oozed from the wound of the gladiator) from gathering on the lids of his gray eyes, and plashing thence to the threshold. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... such seasons of repentance are wont to have their end: he patiently waits, till nature faints with the effort of resistance, and lies passive and hopeless under the next access of temptation. What we need then is some expedient or instrument, which at least will obstruct and stave off the approach of our spiritual enemy, and which is sufficiently congenial and level with our nature to maintain as firm a hold upon us as the inducements of sensual gratification. It will be our wisdom to employ nature against itself. Thus sorrow, sickness, and care ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... checked Ted's laughter on the instant, "your tomfoolery has fixed us at last. Out we'll go next spring, as sure as you want a licking. Hand'll foreclose now, for sure; and I can't say I'll blame him. No use me trying to stave ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... follow many a stave. I know it well, so rings the book throughout; Much time I've lost in puzzling o'er its pages, For downright paradox, no doubt, A mystery remains alike to fools and sages. Ancient the art and modern too, my friend. 'Tis still the fashion as it used to be, Error instead of truth abroad ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... at dusk our Mess carouse, With catches strong and brave, The mules their tuneful hearts arouse, And answer stave for stave. 'Dumb nature' breaks in festive noise, Remembering in this East The mystic bond which knits the joys ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... clamouring and swarming all round the camp, and the French soldiers told off for our protection either could not or would not keep them out. Montcalm, in great anxiety, came over himself seeking to restore order; but the Indians were drunk with blood, and would not listen to him. He begged us to stave in our rum barrels, which was instantly done; but the act provoked the savages, and they pounced upon our baggage, which had been reserved to us by the terms of the treaty. We appealed to the Marquis; but he advised us ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... altissimis Deo and peace on earth to all men of goodwill," persisted Joseph. "It is Christmas morning, mother." And he began to troll out the stave of a carol, "Simeon, that ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... was short lived. Tabitha, now thoroughly aroused, and forgetful of her dignity, swooped down upon the tormentor, wrested his slingshot from his grasp, and before anyone could divine her intentions, seized a barrel stave from the woodpile and gave the surprised boy ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... I would go 'way and jump in the river, but pa said: "Hennery, come here, my angel," and he spit on his hands and picked up a barrel stave. I went right up to pa, as innocent as could be, just as any dutiful son should, and right there before the animals and freaks pa—well, that's the reason I am not sitting down very much these ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... now in Usui, and so the mace-bearers, being on their own ground forgot their manners, and peremptorily demanded their pay before they would allow us to move one step farther. At first I tried to stave the matter off, promising great rewards if they took us quickly on to Suwarora; but they would take no alternative—their rights were four wires each. I could not afford such a sum, and tried to beat ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... paid for what they had allowed the sailors to take up upon credit. But the first lieutenant would not allow any of them to come on board until after the ship was paid; although they were so urgent that he was forced to place sentries in the chains with cold shot, to stave the boats if they came alongside. I was standing at the gangway, looking at the crowd of boats, when a black-looking fellow in one of the wherries said to me, "I say, sir, let me slip in at the port, and I have a very nice present to make you;" ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... his grandsire's time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. His dinner is his other work, for he sweats at it as much as at his labour; he is a terrible fastener on a piece of beef, and you may hope to stave the guard off sooner. His religion is a part of his copyhold, which he takes from his landlord, and refers it wholly to his discretion: Yet if he give him leave he is a good Christian to his power, (that is,) comes to church in his best clothes, and sits there with his neighbours, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... A crime has been committed. Sandy is charged with it. He is black, and therefore he is guilty. No colored lawyer would be allowed in the jail, if one should dare to go there. No white lawyer will intervene. He'll be lynched to-night, without judge, jury, or preacher, unless we can stave the thing off for a day ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the light of Maggie Jones's story, I concluded that poverty was at the root of nearly everything. If I could stave off poverty no real harm could come ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... about 4 o'clock, the drummers of the regiment began to beat their drums as hard as they could stave, and I saw men running in every direction, and the camp soon became one scene of hurry and excitement. I asked some one what all this hubbub meant. He looked at me with utter astonishment. I saw soldiers ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... would he sing a stave or two of a Dutch drinking song, swaying a short squab Dutch bottle in his hand, while his myrmidons would join in chorus, until the woods echoed again;—as the ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... wishes to divide his time, he can do so; but he can only occupy ten minutes in all. We are called to deliberate, as well as to act. We are asked if we wish to stave off final action? I answer, No. I want speedy action. But at the same time let us have deliberation. I wish to give a vote that my constituents ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... struggle against the inevitable fate that was visibly rising like a tide; and the great stroke of reciprocity which was attempted in 1911 was not nearly so much a belated attempt to give effect to a party principle as it was a desperate expedient by an ageing administration to stave off dissolution. The Laurier government died in 1911, not so much from the assaults of its enemies as from hardening of its arteries and from old age. Its hour had struck in keeping with the law of political ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... itching impatience to aid the South! Men of England, we are suffering for a principle common to all humanity; can not you suffer somewhat with us? Can you not, out of the inexhaustible wealth of your islands, find wherewithal to stave off the bitter need, for a season, of your cotton-spinners? Feed them?—why we would, for a little aid in our dire need, have poured in millions of bushels of wheat to your poor,—one brave, decided act of sympathy on your part for us would ere this have trampled ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... making of yourself, and return to do what I want you to do. It won't be long! There's a vast difference between dawdling around a university learning something that is going to be useless while your father pays the bills, and turning that foolish education into dollars to stave off an empty belly. ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... they wearied of their toil and asked for a little rest, Frodi answered: "Ye shall sleep no longer than the cuckoo is silent, or while I speak one stave." Then the ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday
... do you much good to be seen talkin' to me, for both men an' boys hate what are called bosses' pets; but we'll stave off this row till you get used to the ropes, when it's a case ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... Continued economic instability drove a 70% depreciation of the currency throughout 1999, which forced a desperate government to "dollarize" the currency regime in 2000. The move stabilized the currency, but did not stave off the ouster of the government. Gustavo NOBOA, who assumed the presidency in January 2000, has managed to pass substantial economic reforms and mend relations with international financial institutions. Ecuador completed its first standby agreement since 1986 ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... in whistling the Black Joke, or singing Black-eyed Susan, or some such sorrowful ditty."—"By no means," cried the doctor; "such pastimes are neither suitable to the place, nor the occasion, which is altogether a religious exercise. If you have got any psalms by heart, you may sing a stave or two, or repeat the Doxology."—"Would I had Tom Laverick here," replied our novitiate; "he would sing your anthems like a sea-mew—a had been a clerk a-shore—many's the time and often I've given him a rope's end for singing ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... had never spoke in meeting before, and he hemmed and hawed some, but he got on quite well while he was telling about a certain poor boy, and all that, and how the boy when he grew up was out at sea, in an open boat, and saw a great sword-fish making for the boat Hail Columbia, and bound to stave right through her and sink her,—and how this man he took an oar, and give it a swing, and broke the critter's sword square off; and then Uncle Cephas—he 'd begun to git a little flustered—he stops short, and waves his arms, and says ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... desired to know the cause of a metamorphosis so singular and so absolute, Wayland only answered by singing a stave from a comedy, which was then new, and was supposed, among the more favourable judges, to augur some genius on the part of the author. We are happy to preserve the couplet, which ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... It is originally just a volumen, that is, a 'roll' of parchment, papyrus, or whatever else the 'book' (i. e., the bark—the 'liber') might be composed of. Nor can we regard as aught other such terms as 'leaf' or 'folio,' which is also 'leaf.' 'Stave,' too, is suggestive of the staff on which the runes were wont to be cut. Indeed, old almanacs are sometimes to be met with consisting of these long sticks or 'staves,' on which the days and months are represented ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "Yes, but I stave him off. I know what it is right enough, and I don't want to hear it; but I suppose I ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... the enterprise if it were all? And, pray, what more has day to offer? A lamp that burns more clear, a purer oil, say winter-strained, that so we may pursue our idleness with less obstruction. Bribed with a little sunlight and a few prismatic tints, we bless our Maker, and stave off ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... act by which he renounces his seignorial rights of every description "—At Sollier they destroy the mills belonging to M. de Forbin-Janson. They sack the house of his business agent, pillage the chateau, and demolish the roof, chapel, altar, railings, and escutcheons. They enter the cellars, stave in the casks, and carry away everything that can be carried, "the transportation taking two days;" all of which cause damages of a hundred thousand crowns to the marquis.—At Riez they surround the episcopal palace with fagots, threatening to burn it, "and compromise with the bishop on a promise ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... on to specify what further measures the South demanded, in sharp, incisive terms, but this extract suffices to show that our leaders used every power of tongue and moral suasion to stave off bloodshed. ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... stave off meetin' Sadie's glance any longer. "Eh?" says I. "Why, that's only Mabel. ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... insinuated Bigot, leaning over to his angry guest, at the same time winking good-humoredly to Varin. "Come, now, De Beauce, friends all, amantium irae, you know—which is Latin for love—and I will sing you a stave in praise of this good wine, which is better than Bacchus ever drank." The Intendant rose up, and holding a brimming glass in his hand, chanted in full, musical voice a favorite ditty of the day, as a ready mode of restoring harmony among ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and plain and sea and distant Welsh mountains beyond that. Now I thought nothing of these things, but looked up to where it seemed that I must be judged. I could make out one or two banners pitched and floating idly in the sunshine, and one seemed to have a golden cross at its stave head; but I could make out none of the devices on them, and so I looked idly back on the crowd again. And then men brought us food and ale, and at last, after some gruff talk among themselves, the guards untied my hands, though they left my feet bound ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... free and easy Without admiring Pergolesi? Or through the earth with comfort go, That never heard of Doctor Blow? I hardly have; And yet I eat, and drink, and shave, Like other people, if you watch it, And know no more of stave or crotchet Than did the primitive Peruvians, Or those old ante queer diluvians, That lived in the unwash'd earth with Jubal, Before that dirty blacksmith, Tubal, By stroke on anvil, or by summ'at, Found out, to his great ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... would be a very bad thing for the marquis to remain here any longer!' There spoke the owl. And here the lion, when the bad news came: 'I had asked for my recall after Ticonderoga. But since the affairs of Canada are getting worse, it is my duty to help in setting them right again, or at least to stave off ruin so ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... day out, or sun or rain, Or sallow leaf, or summer grain, Beneath a wintry morning moon Or through red smouldering afternoon, With simple joy, with careful pride, He plies the craft he long has plied: To shape the stave, to set the sting, To fit the shaft with irised wing; And farers by may hear him sing, For still his door is wide: "Laugh and sigh, live and die,— The world swings round; I know not, I, If north or ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... with safety and honour, without inflicting grievous disappointment and sufferings, and incurring thereby a degree of obloquy fatal to any Ministry. They seemed, in fact, to imagine, as they went on, that the day of reckoning could never arrive, because they had resolved to stave it off from time to time, however near it approached, by a series of desperate expedients, really destructive of the national prosperity, but provocative of what served their purposes, viz. temporary popular enthusiasm. What cruelty! what profligacy! what madness! And all under the flag on which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Mr. Virtue Retreating chin retiring ... home-bird Mr. Holmes High instep high boots ... mud ... peat Mr. Peat Crooked legs broken legs ... crushed Mr. Crushton Apprehension suspension ... gallows Mr. Galloway Sombre sad ... mourning ... hat-band Mr. Hatton Music stave ... bar Mr. Barcroft Violinist violin ... high note ... whistle Mr. Birtwistle Painter paint ... colored cards ... whist Mr. Hoyle Plumber plum-pudding ... victuals Mr. Whittles Joiner wood ... ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... time we speak of, when many deaths among their kith and kin had afforded full proof that the goddess was enraged, they met in solemn conclave and decided to perform every Sunday and Tuesday night for a month such a ceremony as would delight the heart of that powerful deity and stave off further mortality. The limitation of the period of propitiation to one month was based not so much upon religious grounds as upon the fact that a Municipality, with purely Western ideas of sanitation ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... quite true that when one feels in danger one talks like mad to stave it off, even when one doesn't quite want ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... Chan, an' den he teched me up. He nuvver hu't me, but in co'se I wuz a-hollerin' ez hard ez I could stave it, 'cause I knowed dat wuz gwine mek him stop. Marse Chan he hed'n open he mouf long ez ole marster wuz tunin' 'im; but soon ez he commence warmin' me an' I begin to holler, Marse Chan he bu'st out cryin', an' stept right in befo' ole marster, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... managed to stave off the evil day until lunch was half over; but procrastination was not nearly as wholesale a thief of time as they wished ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... to chatter at the beginning, but when you are warmed to the job you are disposed to silence, drop perhaps one behind the other, and reserve your talk for the inn table and the after-supper pipe. An occasional joke, an occasional stave of song, a necessary consultation over the map—that ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... of room, house, surroundings, etc.—Frame house, front porch with two swings. Fence around yard. Chinaberry tree and Tree of Paradise, Coxcomb in yard. Southeast of Norton-Wheeler Stave Mill ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... of relief. The boy was going to show good sense and willingness after all. "I guess you'd better learn barrel-making first," said he. He rose. "I'll take you to the foreman of the cooperage, and to-morrow you can go to work in the stave department. The first thing is to learn to ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... long, thin barrel stave, that was curved up a little on either end. To the middle of the stave he tacked some ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... so near that they fired upon him, and one bullet nicked his glove, but he was hopeful that after his long rest he might again stave them off. He sent back no defiant cry, but, settling into determined silence, ran at his utmost speed. The forest here was of large trees, with no undergrowth, and he noticed that the two parties did not join, but kept on as they had come, one on the right and the other on ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... when he came out to Rome it began all over again. It never would have done if Andrea had been a good husband. I did my best. I tried to stave it off, but I was too miserable and lonely and I cared at last. And he was madly in love with me. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... stupid. "Nobody could get back! I told you the tunnel caved in, till it was solid between us and the others. Collins saw I had to follow you. In two more minutes Dick would have come to hunt Thompson's stope for me, and we had no guns to stave him off. You and Collins left them in the tunnel!" It was just what we had done, and I wasted good time in remembering it, guiltily. Paulette stood up and twisted back her streaming cloud of hair. "So, as I had to come with you," she resumed without looking at me, "don't you think ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... spring day slipped away. In vain the minister, apprised of the block, lengthened out the formulae for the other pairs, and blessed them with more reposeful unction. It was impossible to stave off the Leibel-Green item indefinitely, and at last Rose remained the only orange-wreathed spinster in the synagogue. And then there was a hush of solemn suspense, that swelled gradually into a steady rumble of babbling tongues, as minute succeeded minute ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... land, and the Good Luck, having done her duty, went down the river alone. Years after, could Aladdin have met with that log, he would have recognized it like the face of a friend, and would have embraced and kissed it, painted it white to stave off the decay of old age, and set it foremost among ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... at the great task with this hurry and tumult of birds just outside the open window? I hear the Thrush, and the Blackbird, that romantic liar; then the delicate cadence, the wiry descending scale of the Willow-wren, or the Blackcap's stave of mellow music. All these are familiar—but what is that unknown voice, that thrilling note? I hurry out; the voice flees and I follow; and when I return and sit down again to my task, the Yellowhammer trills his sleepy ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... to write their names. By certain proceedings which took place at Christchurch Police-court on Tuesday, it would almost seem that some of the dark-faced wanderers already are educated a little too much. At all events, they occasionally manifest an ability to 'take a stave' out of the rest of the community. At the court in question a Gipsy woman named Emma Barney was brought to task for 'imposing by subtle craft to extort money' from a Bournemouth shopkeeper named Richard Oliver. It seems that Oliver is troubled with pimples on his face, and that ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... equipments, Ben-Hur stepped into the street so close to the line of march as to bring every one of the company under view while passing. The torches and the lanterns were being borne by servants, each of whom was armed with a bludgeon or a sharpened stave. Their present duty seemed to be to pick out the smoothest paths among the rocks in the street for certain dignitaries among them—elders and priests; rabbis with long beards, heavy brows, and beaked noses; men of the class potential in the councils of Caiaphas and Hannas. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... hands of the Air Traffic Bureau. We are prepared to defy the ultimatum of the enemy, whoever he may be. But we want your help, Mr. Jones. Every ship of the Air Navy will be in the upper levels within the prescribed twenty-four hours, and we will endeavor to stave off their attacks until such time as you can fit the Pioneer for a journey ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... with here and there a flickering lamp, that served but to make the darkness visible, and here and there the lighted window of some gin-shop, or drinking-cellar, whence proceeded a mingled clamor of voices roaring the stave of some song, or ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... William Dent!" cried Michael. "There's fire for your money! It may be a romantic visit from one of the young ladies—a sort of Cleopatra business. Have a care and don't stave in Cleopatra's head." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... can stave him off if he does," added Richard, confidently. "Didn't you see me tumble down when that fellow ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... Heriulf determined to accompany Eric on his voyage to Greenland, and made his preparations to give up his farm. Upon the ship with Heriulf was a Christian man from the Hebrides, he it was who composed the Sea-Rollers' Song, which contains this stave:[47-1] ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... stave off the worst by not looking at him, by looking at other things, impersonal, innocent things; the bright, yellow, sharp gabled station; the black girders of the bridge; the white signal post beside it holding out a stiff, black-banded arm; the two rails curving ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... destroyed, and by practically suggesting to them the policy, or rather the impolicy, of imposing the heavy due of $1 per registered ton on all European Shipping entering their ports, whether in cargo or in ballast, scarcely tended to stave off their collapse, and the Borneans must have formed their own conclusions from the fact that when they gave up portions of their territory to the BROOKES and to the British North Borneo Company, the British Government no longer called for the observance of these provisions of the ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... The Dublin Troper of the thirteenth century has a number of farced Kyries and Glorias, also a collection of Sequences. A Dublin Processionale of the fourteenth century contains the most elaborate form of the Officium Sepulchri, with musical notation on a four-line stave—the foundation of the Miracle Play of the Resurrection. Another Dublin Troper dates from 1360 and was used in St. Patrick's Cathedral. It contains the hymn, "Angelus ad Virginem", alluded to by Chaucer. The ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... significant that during the most critical period of the 1862 campaign, the most glorious to the Confederacy, Lee was Commander-in-Chief of the Southern armies. But when Lee left Richmond for the Northern border, Davis once more assumed supreme control, retaining it until it was too late to stave off ruin. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... six regular meals a day, and between times stave off their appetite with numerous Schweitzer ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... are rather of a social, or, strictly speaking, political than of a financial kind. In the first place, I echo what was stated in the speech last night of my hon. friend, the President of the Council—that we cannot stand still; we cannot stave off some great change; we cannot stand alone—Province apart from Province—if we would; and that we are in a state of political transition. All, even honorable gentlemen who are opposed to this description of Union, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... "Stave the miller off him," said Murray, "or he will worry him dead. The Abbot, my lord, offers us the hospitality of the Convent; I move we should repair hither, Sir Piercie and all of us. I must learn to know the Maid of Avenel—to-morrow I must ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... pursuit of each other, the object of the race being to give blows and avoid receiving them. The staves accordingly are seen flying through the air in all directions. The dexterity with which the combatants manage to elude each other's blows, catch a stave thrown at them, pick up one from the ground, and that without alighting or losing a moment's time, is to the stranger who for the first time beholds the sport truly astonishing. When a horseman who happens to be without ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... old land is thine, And thou a traitor slave of it: Think how the Switzer leads his kine, When pale the evening star doth shine; His song has home in every line, Freedom in every stave of it; Think how the German loves his Rhine And ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... mixed up in my head ... but one thing out-stood: I must do my duty by my barrel stave ... as the farmer leaped into the circle he did not notice me staggering on the outskirts. I rushed up and let him have the barrel stave full across ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... can't you see that it's you I want?" And she leaned forward, speaking quickly to stave off interruption. "Don't make a fuss about it, please; because I have settled everything in my mind. I'll ask Mrs Rivers to take baby and Parbutti for me. I know she gladly will. As for me, of course I go down to Dera to-morrow, and do what ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... another important consideration. Work is at a standstill. Mobiles and Nationaux who apply forma pauperis receive one franc and a half per diem. Now, at present prices, it is materially impossible for a single man to buy sufficient food to stave off hunger for this sum, how then those who depend upon it for their sustenance, and have wives and families to support out of it, are able to live, it is difficult to understand. Sooner or later the population will have to be ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... teeming shores of the Terra di Lavoro; saddled already with children he cannot make up his feeble mind to emigrate; in short, to go a-coralling is his sole chance, if he wishes to keep his home together and to stave off charity or starvation from his young ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... of his colleagues, "in the eastern end of the circuit, annoyed Lincoln once while he was holding court for Davis by attempting to defend against a note to which there were many makers. We had no legal, but a good moral defense, but what we wanted most of all was to stave it off till the next term of court by one expedient ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... Of late years there have been a number of theatrical representations of Mendelssohn's "Elijah." I have witnessed as well as heard a performance of "Acis and Galatea" and been entertained with the spectacle of Polyphemus crushing the head of presumptuous Acis with a stave like another Fafner while singing "Fly, thou massy ruin, fly" to the bludgeon which was playing understudy ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... leader was of knowledge great, Either for charge or for retreat. He knew when to fall on pell-mell; To fall back and retreat as well. 160 So lawyers, lest the bear defendant, And plaintiff dog, should make an end on't, Do stave and tail with writs of error, Reverse of judgment, and demurrer, To let them breathe a while, and then 165 Cry whoop, and set them on agen. As ROMULUS a wolf did rear, So he was dry-nurs'd by a bear, That fed him with the ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... will, to hold back the destructive force which, to the ignorant minds of the braves, was only a natural force of defence, meant a task needing more than authority behind it. For the very fear of that authority put in motion was an incentive to present resistance to stave off the day of trouble. The faces that surrounded Jim were thin with hunger, and the murder that had been committed by the chief had, as its origin, the foolish replies of the Hudson's Bay Company's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... terrific. The Spaniard was firing her guns as she came on, the Nashville was replying. Captain Long was working to stave off the impending disaster. Hastily the engineer got up steam. The gun-boat was well under ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott
... unfolded every aspect of the science of the management of land, would be assimilated by the intelligent bailiff, and they may even have been influenced by a patriotic desire to reveal to the small holder scientific methods of tillage, which might stave off the ruin that they deplored as statesmen and exploited as individuals. But the lessons were thrown away on the small cultivator; they probably presupposed the possession of capital and labour which were far beyond his reach; and science may have played but little part even in the accumulations ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... wavered and trilled on that word "Salong": the effect was so much to the singer's liking that he sang the stave over again. A bumping and a rattle as of loose objects in an empty box formed the accompaniment to ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... I go up to the depot he'll stand right in the middle of the railroad track and go to sleep. I have to whale the timbers out of him to get him awake enough to step ahead so's a train of cars won't stave in his broadside. But get him home here where he can see the barn, the place where he knows I stow the oats, and he wants to run right over top of a stone wall. Can't hardly hold him, I can't. Who-a-a!... Well, Cap'n Sears, here we ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... dairy-maiden, thy smiling; Thy glove[128] there 's a wile in, of white hand the cover; When a-milking, thy stave is more sweet than the mavis, As his melodies ravish the woodlands all over; Thy wild notes so cheerie, bring the small birds to hear thee, And, fluttering, they near thee, who sings to discover. To fulness as growing, so liquid, so flowing, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... inventive skill and knowledge the original patentee may have disclosed, and trusting to the power of money, rapid movement, and mendacious advertising to build up a business which shall presently assume such formidable proportions as to force a compromise, or stave off an injunction until the patent has expired. In nine cases out of ten such a course can be followed with relative impunity; and guided by skilful experts who may suggest really trivial changes here and there over the patented structure, and ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... and we all hoped Baldwin was next, I tuned a slight stave to the words in Macbeth (D'avenant's) to be sung by a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... down to it," he continued, "killing a man, no matter what he's done to you, is a serious business. I propose we make one more attempt to stave this thing off. Let's see if we can't get to talk with the marshal himself; at any rate, warn him of the danger of going any further. Boys, let's not fire the first shot. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... perching himself grotesquely on the easy chair). I was ass enough to keep it until about ten minutes ago. Up to that moment I went on desperately reading to her—reading my own poems—anybody's poems—to stave off a conversation. I was standing outside the gate of Heaven, and refusing to go in. Oh, you can't think how heroic it was, ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... so foul a crime Be guilty? Ah! how nearly, thyself, Reft was the solace that we had in thee, Menalcas! Who then of the Nymphs had sung, Or who with flowering herbs bestrewn the ground, And o'er the fountains drawn a leafy veil?- Who sung the stave I filched from you that day To Amaryllis wending, our hearts' joy?- "While I am gone, 'tis but a little way, Feed, Tityrus, my goats, and, having fed, Drive to the drinking-pool, and, as you drive, Beware the he-goat; with ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... All the morning I felt more ashamed than I cared to own at the thought of how the neighbours, great and small, would laugh at what they would call your folly, when they knew what had happened; so I resolved to take this step to stave it off, if so be 'twas possible. And when I saw Mrs. Garland I knew I had done right. She pitied me so much for having had the house cleaned in vain, and laid in provisions to waste, that it put her into the humour ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... be all hungry and tired. We will go to St. Bertin at once, and you shall be feasted royally. Hearken, villains!" shouted he to the peasants. "This ship belongs to the fair sir here,—my guest and friend; and if any man dares to steal from her a stave or a nail, I will have his thief's hand ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... quarters; and a German attendant with hands constructed especially for the purpose of kneading and gouging the innermost muscles of his master, who it appears had to be kneaded and gouged three times a day by a masseur in order to stave off paralysis, locomotor ataxia or something equally unwelcome to ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... subscribed in aid of a project to bring the curse of disunion upon our country. You know this to be the fact, and we challenge you as truthful men to deny it, that for many years it has been a favorite idea with some of your statesmen, and not of leaders of the Democratic party only, to stave off the troubles that were rapidly growing out of the slavery question, by having recourse to a 'distraction' based on the acquisition of Cuba. You know, or ought to know, that the very man who is now at the head of the Southern Confederacy was advised, at the North, in 1853, to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... together. At length the speed of the pseudo herald could save him no longer from the fangs of his pursuers; they seized him, pulled him down, and would probably soon have throttled him, had not the Duke called out, "Stave and tail!—stave and tail! [to strike the bear with a staff, and pull off the dogs by the tail, to separate them.]—Take them off him!—He hath shown so good a course, that, though he has made no sport at bay, we will ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... nor child, nothing but his own carcass. One can always get one's self out of a difficulty, but the others who had households and brats! Rousselet had five. Matters were not going to be very cheerful at home. He must rely on charity or credit, he did not know what, but something to stave off that distress, real and sad distress, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... of these three conditions would stave off recognition by foreign powers, until we had ourselves abandoned the attempt to reduce the South ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... has written that their chief vice, or debauchery, was that of drunkenness, "which they exercise for the most part with brandy. This they drink as liberally as the Spaniards do clear fountain water. Sometimes they buy together a pipe of wine; this they stave at the one end, and never cease drinking till they have made an end of it. Thus they celebrate the festivals of Bacchus so long as they have any money left." The island of Tortuga must have witnessed some strange scenes. ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... From below there was a sound of music. Up at the Fort the band was playing. There was no moon, but the stars were bright and glittering in strange tints. Now and then a party rather merry with wine and whisky trolled out a noisy stave that had been imported from the mother country years ago about Jacques and his ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... measured swing, they pass, The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee, Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass; Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring, Their nooning take, while one begins to sing A stave that droops and dies 'neath the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... It is exactly a matter for the interference of the state. The Athenian in the comedy, wearied of war, concludes a separate peace with the enemy for himself, his wife, his children, and his servant; and forthwith raises a jovial stave to Bacchus. Now all sensible people would not only be glad to enter into amicable relations with Smoke, but would even be content to pay a good sum for protection against the incursions from factory chimnies ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... Bacchanalians Boswell had copied the Rabelaisian fay ce que vous voudras of the Franciscans of Medmenham Abbey with Sandwich, Wilkes, and others. At any rate, as their self-constituted laureate, he produced the following extraordinary song, which can be paralleled for inanity only by the stave he sang before Pitt in the Guildhall of London, as a means of attracting the notice of the Premier with a view to Parliament. The ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... hair gleaming between the rusty bars of the prison door, and the worn visage of the wounded Cavalier turning towards it as the flower turns to the sun. And surely Master Wildrake himself, with his glass of sack half-way to his mouth, never put it down to sing a finer Royalist stave than Lovelace's "To Althea, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... horror from beginning to end. He could now move his toes. If only he could fall forward, grasp that incineration tube, turn it on Barter! With Barter unable to control him he would regain his senses in time, he hoped, to stave off the certain charge of Naka Machi, whose hatred for himself he now understood ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... he wrote: "Can't you do something to stave off King Ptush? In making up my passenger-list I can't get hold of enough mammals to fill an inside room. I have been through the country with a fine-tooth comb, and as far as I can find out there isn't a prehistoric beast left in creation. If this ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... again, and, after another short prayer, joined us with a face of angelic serenity. Having greeted each of us affectionately, he entered into conversation with us, until we were called, as we soon were, to table. I, who watched his actions most closely and ever found them regular and harmonious as a stave of music, was amazed at the brevity of this preparation and thanksgiving. In the evening, therefore, when we were alone together, I said, using the filial privilege which I knew was mine, "Father, it seemed to me this morning that your preparation ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... good job now, Tom, that we anchored where we did, instead of in the direct line of the tide, for one of those timbers would stave a hole in her bow as if she were ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... this stave they whirled round the fire, dropped and rebounded from their knees, and again whirled round as the chorus was again repeated. The rippling of the waves upon the pebbly margin where we were seated filled up the pauses ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... the offices of Manderson, Colefax and Company. But they were never carried out. Blackbeard would quell the mutiny of his old self within him and go soberly down to his counting-house—humming a stave or two of 'Spanish Ladies', perhaps, under his breath. Manderson would allow himself the harmless satisfaction, as soon as the time for action had gone by, of pointing out to some Rupert of the markets a coup ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... suit!" faltered the boy. The light in those peering, bloodshot eyes told him that the longshoreman would mistreat that beloved uniform; and Johnnie wanted to gain time. Something, or some one, might interrupt, and thus stave off—what? ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... answered with a curse and lifted his axe to stave in the door. Before the weapon could descend a report rang out in the twilight, and with a scream the attacker sprang from the ground, and then fell to rubbing his ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... ladies on his right, and now towards the gentlemen on his left! It used to seem to my astonished vision as if his form grew taller, his arm longer, his hair redder, and his little green eyes brighter, with every stave; and particularly when he perceived any falling off of time or discrepancy in pitch; with what redoubled vigor would he thump the gallery and roar at the delinquent quarter, till every mother's son and daughter of them skipped and scrambled into ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... work, and we may even take glad refuge in it to stave off depression, but we are then often adding fuel to the fire, and tiring the very faculty of resistance, which hardly knows that ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Surveyor-General himself—soon after the close of the war of 1812, and it remained intact until a year or two after the town of York became the city of Toronto, when it was partly demolished and converted into a more profitable investment. The new structure, which was a shingle or stave factory, was burned down in 1843 or 1844, and the site thenceforward remained unoccupied until comparatively recent times. When I visited the spot a few weeks since I encountered not a little difficulty in fixing upon ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... they roared out this stave, they whirled round the fire, dropped, and rebounded from their knees, and again whirled round as the chorus was again repeated."—Travels in Albania, i. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... larger boats than ours; but it was impossible always to avoid concealed dangers, over which the waters did not cause the slightest ripple. The large boat struck on a sharp rock, and with such violence as to stave her bottom; she was immediately unladen, and temporarily repaired without injury to the cargo. Although the river is extremely low, there is a very large body of water in it; the outer banks are nearly a ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... find him. He was ready to pay two hundred pounds for Bertie, to stave off the worst of his creditors, if this marriage had gone on. Bertie must now have the money instead, and go and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... unquestioned and unchidden, the emperor to have done with slaying, the poet to rise from his unfinished rhyme, the tender and gracious lady to cease from nice denying words (mixed though they be with pitiful sighs that break their sequence like an amorous ditty heard through the strains of a martial stave), and all men, gentle or base, to follow Death's gaunt standard into unmapped realms, something of majesty enshrines the paltriest knave on whom the weight of Death's chill finger hath fallen. I doubt not that Cain's children wept about his deathbed, and that the centurions spake in whispers ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... home, and how he might find his relations and friends, and then I bethought me that I would sing a song. I don't suppose that many people have sung under such circumstances, but I managed to strike up a stave, one of those with which I had been accustomed to amuse my messmates in the Naiad's forecastle. It was not, perhaps, one of the merriest, but it served to divert Clem's thoughts, as well as mine, from ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... did not, at the time, tie up with views about the Colorado trip. That was still the guiding star of all her hopes. She must study harder during the spring term and stave off the threatened and unspeakable calamity. It was a hard resolution to put through, especially when she conceived a marvellous idea-a "farce" like one Polly Currier told her about when she was home for her Easter vacation. Missy wrestled ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... time for further words. The four quickly made for the gates. They opened and closed them quickly. Each held a stave that seemed not unlike a young tree, of which a ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... of their steady feet; but from the Dusky Men rose up hideous confused yelling, and those that could free themselves from the tangle of the throng rushed desperately against the on-rolling hedge of steel, and the whole throng shoved on behind them. Then met steel and men; here and there an ash-stave broke; here and there a Dusky Felon rolled himself unhurt under the ash-staves, and hewed the knees of the Dalesmen, and a tall man came tottering down; but what men or wood-wights could endure the ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... thy young pate," said Adam, "if thou darest to lift a finger to me." And then, in defiance of the young Drawcansir's threats, with a stout heart and dauntless accent, he again uplifted the stave. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... state of impecuniosity that, in 775, a decree was issued ordering that twenty-five per cent, of the revenues of the public lands (kugaideri) should be appropriated to increase the emoluments of the metropolitan officials. This decree spoke of the latter officials as not having sufficient to stave off cold or hunger, whereas their provincial confreres were living in opulence, and added that even men of high rank were not ashamed to apply for removal to provincial posts. As illustrating the straits to which the metropolitans were reduced and the price they had to pay for relief, it is instructive ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the words, he put his barrel-stave rocker on the embers. It blazed up generously, filling every corner of the shack with light, and giving them more confidence. There were no ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... but of those others who heard the tale there were more than one or two who praised it much, and deemed it marvellous as might well be that a child should have faced and slain those three monsters who had put two stout men to flight. And one man made up this stave, which was presently sung all about the Eastern Mote, and went over the water with the tale ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... but down through the valley, and by Stockbridge and Silvermills as hard as I could stave. It was Alan's tryst to lie every night between twelve and two "in a bit scrog of wood by east of Silvermills, and by south the south mill-lade." This I found easy enough, where it grew on a steep brae, with the mill-lade flowing swift and deep along the foot of it: and here I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... other hand, whether Elizabeth's policy had been dictated by a most consummate, if by no means elevated, state-craft based upon an abnormally astute calculation of risks and chances, or merely by a desperate desire to stave off an immediate contest, whatever shifts might be involved; whether it was in fact peculiarly long-sighted, or opportunist to the last and lowest degree; it had been actually a complete success. She had given the Provinces ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... while I lay and listened, oh the river's sleepy tune Seemed to change its rippling music, like the cuckoo's stave in June, And the cannon's distant thunder and the engines' warlike drone Seemed to mingle with its burthen in a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... stave was concluded, Adrian, sensible that in such orgies there was no chance of prosecuting his inquiries, left the desecrated chamber and fled, scarcely drawing breath, so great was the terror that seized him, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... blades came down chunking into the ever-widening notch. Summers had seen sword play in Montreal armories, and had heard the ax clang often on the side of Western firs, but—for Thurston was fighting to stave off ruin—this grim struggle in the face of a desperate risk surpassed any remembered exhibition of fencers' skill with the steel. The trunk was bending visibly beneath the hewers, the river frothed more at their feet, and the giant logs were rolling, creeping, shocking close behind, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... conveniently indefinite. When was Lysias coming? His letter said nothing about such an intention, and took for granted that all the materials for a decision would be before Felix. Lysias could tell no more. The excuse was transparent, but it served to stave off a decision, and to-morrow would bring some other excuse. Prompt carrying out of all plain duty is the only safety. The indulgence given to Paul, in his light confinement, only showed how clearly Felix knew himself to be doing wrong, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... this the tender sound of his own voice And sweet self-pity, or the fancy of it, Made his eye moist; but Enid feared his eyes, Moist as they were, wine-heated from the feast; And answered with such craft as women use, Guilty or guiltless, to stave off a chance That breaks upon them perilously, ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... dare refuse Theophilus Clamp. When she knows—that I know—what she knows, she'll do pretty much what I tell her. I wonder if she hasn't set on foot a marriage between her scapegrace son and Mildred? That would be a mishap, truly! But, as guardian, I can stave that off until the estate is settled, my wedding over, and myself comfortably in possession. Then, perhaps, we'll let the young folks marry,—at least we'll think of it. If my son George, now, had not that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... To stave off the ordeal he saw himself forced to invent a new set of doubts and objections. On his next visit to the house of Mitri, he owned himself convinced of the vanity of the Protestant faith, but hinted at an inclination towards the Catholic. The big priest stared ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... merely nominal rate, owing to the difficulty they experience in procuring return freights from England. The short crops in Canada and the great scarcity of money, forced an unusual number of laborers in that country into the stave and lumber business. Under advices that heavy shipments were in prospect, coupled with the general check upon business on account of the war, prices became depressed. Notwithstanding all this, the shipments ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... interpreted aright by the brothers, who see what her meaning is. Then she goes home to her husband; and here comes in, not merely irony, but an intentional rebuke to sentiment. Her husband is lying helpless and moaning, and she asks him whether he has slept. To which he answers in a stave of the usual form in the Sagas, the purport of which is that he has never known sleep since the death of Olaf his son. "'Verily that is a great lie,' says she, 'that thou hast never slept once these three years. But now it is high time ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... the measure could have been decently avoided, most certainly not, consistent with the letter and spirit of my instructions. I have endeavored to adapt the mode to the main end I have in view, that is, to stave off any question touching the expediency of the voyage at this time, or prior to my obtaining permission to make it; for the reasons mentioned in my letter of the 24th instant, as well as for others, which it may not be prudent to mention just now. Perhaps they are not well founded. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... the platform may give you time to grip yourself, compose your thoughts, and stave off disaster. Perhaps the surest and most practical method is to begin a new sentence with your last important word. This is not advocated as a method of composing a speech—it is merely an extreme measure which may save you ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein |
