"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... If, on the contrary, he seemed depressed mentally and yearned for exercise, a rise in temperature and fair weather were in order. He amassed a large fortune in making weather bets, but one day when the thermometer was down below zero, he stepped on a tack and all the mercury ran out of his heel. After that he lost all his money betting with a neighbor who had a rheumatic left joint, and died of grief in ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... not nervous and jumpy by nature," he observed. "I've seen dead men before. Still, next time you want to leave one in my office after dark, I wish you'd put a light with him, or tack up a sign, or even leave somebody to tell me about it. I'm sorry it's Starr and not that thoughtful old horned ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... deal more promising than the Hut was before Clarence and Geoff and I took hold of it. See, Elsie,—this room is done. I think Miss Young will choose it for her bedroom, as it is rather the largest; so you might tack up the dotted curtains here while I sweep the other rooms. And that convolvulus chintz is ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... with an appreciative nod. "But you were wrong—you were wrong—you should have kept off. The Canadian Government ain't like your bloomin' democracy. It don't forgive—it don't forget. Tack that up, Bucky. It's a principle we've ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... very humblest. Sir Joseph has explained our true position to us. As he says, a British seaman is any man's equal excepting his, and if Sir Joseph says that, is it not our duty to believe him? ALL. Well spoke! well spoke! DICK. You're on a wrong tack, and so is he. He means well, but he don't know. When people have to obey other people's orders, equality's out of the question. ALL (recoiling). Horrible! horrible! BOAT. Dick Deadeye, if you go for to infuriate this here ship's company ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Our tack was toward the eastern distance, and no glimpse of land or cloud made us aught but solitary travelers in illimitable space. The sun was beneath the deep, but in the hush of the pale light one felt the awe of its coming. Slowly a faint glow ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Providence the lives of his gallant crew, all now depending upon one of the many accidents to the masts and rigging which there was so much reason to apprehend. Happily, the sails stood well; the Indefatigable continued to gain by every tack; and at eleven o'clock, with six feet water in her hold, she passed about three-quarters of a mile to windward of the Penmarcks; enabling her officers and men, after a day and night of incessant exertion, at length ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... the sun shone full in their faces, which they considered might be of disadvantage to them, and stretched out a little, so that at last they got the wind as they wished. The Normans, who saw them tack, could not help wondering why they did so, and said they took good care to turn about, for they were afraid of meddling with them. They perceived, however, by his banner, that the King was on board, which gave them great joy, as they were eager to fight with him; so ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.—When the Republican party came into power in 1801, it was pledged to make reforms "to put the ship of state," as Jefferson said, "on the Republican tack." About a third of the important Federalist office-holders were accordingly removed from office, the annual speech at the opening of Congress was abolished, and the written message introduced—a custom followed ever since by our Presidents. Internal taxes were repealed, the ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... more. Galusha wondered what had set him off upon that tack. That afternoon, while in the village, he met Nelson Howard and the latter furnished an explanation. It seemed that the young man had been to see Captain Jethro, had dared to call at the light with the deliberate intention of seeing and interviewing him on the subject ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Quixote; "pack, tack, string proverbs together; nobody is hindering thee! 'My mother beats me, and I go on with my tricks.' I am bidding thee avoid proverbs, and here in a second thou hast shot out a whole litany of them, which have as much ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... gleamed brilliant as sunny snow, the hull being scarcely visible, and the sea around dark; other smaller vessels too, so that they looked like heavenly-winged things, just alighting on a dismal world. Shifting their sails, perhaps, or going on another tack, they almost disappear at once in the obscure distance. Islands are seen in summer sunshine and green glory; their rocks also sunny and their beaches white; while other islands, for no apparent reason, are in deep shade, and share ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... were of her list, and had agreed to be patronesses, when lo and behold! Lady Conyngham, not having been sent to by the Duchess of Richmond, took offence, and set up a new list, placing the King at the head, whom she commanded to go, and all these ladies turned tack directly, abandoned the Duchess, and are now of the new Government—a pretty semblance of what might occur in the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... nothing flash nor green— A Seneschal confessed; Most people deemed his reverend mien Some family bequest. And yet but three short, happy years Had seen him on our tack, And made us verge on VERE DE VERES— ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... byes mesilf. [Coming down.] If a little milithary sugar-plum like you, Miss Jenny, objects to not goin' wid' 'em, what do you think of an ould piece of hard tack like me? I can't join the regiment till I've taken you and Miss Madeline back to Winchester, by your father's orders. But it isn't the first time I've escorted you, Miss Jenny. Many a time, when you was a baby, on the Plains, ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... undeniably the belle. And while the old woman, who idolized her, found far more pleasure than even her mother in her belleship, she was as watchful over her as Argus. Every young man of the many who haunted the old French mansion among its oaks and maples had to meet the scrutiny of those sharp, tack-like eyes. The least slip that one made was enough to prove his downfall. The old woman sifted them as surely as she sifted her meal, and branded them with an infallible instinct akin to that of a keen watchdog. Many a young man who passed that silent figure ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... as bad off as the horses, pretty near," said Captain Devers, the other. "There isn't one of them that hasn't turned his saddle-bags inside out to-day for the last crumb of hard-tack. They're worn to skin and bone. Three of them broke down entirely back there at the creek crossing, and if there weren't Indians all round us, nothing would have fetched them along. There goes Davies, coddling ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Blake's dozen ships might well have been surrounded and taken if his admirals had not known their business. Penn tacked right through Evertsen's squadron to come to the side of Blake, and Lawson foiled de Ruyter by bearing away till he had enough southing to tack in the wake of Penn and fall upon Tromp's rear (diagram 2). Evertsen then attempted to get between Monk and the rest of the fleet and two hours after the fight in the center began Monk also was engaged. When the lee vessels of the "red" or center ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... in that respect," cried Anne, taking another tack. "If Leslie had asked you if anything could be done for him, THEN it might be your duty to tell her what you really thought. But you've no right ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... British ships, man," said the old sailor, with contempt. "I meant Americans, of course; it makes all the difference in the world. But as for land—I hate it. It's only good to grow vegetables, and soft tack, and fresh water, and tar, and timber, and breed children to make sailormen out of—why, it's a sort of a cook's galley, a kitchen they call it there, for the sea at best! Give me the sight of blue water, and let me have ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... gained in many ways sooner than by mere learning, he was only angry with himself for his past folly in making himself her school—nay, her taskmaster. To-night, though, he would start off on a new tack. He would not even upbraid her for her conduct the night before; he had shown her his displeasure at the time; but she should see how tender and forgiving he could be. He would lure her to him rather than ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of the way, the wind was fair and almost dead aft from the meridian of the Cape of Good Hope, down in the 'roaring forties,' till we got to the Heads. Consequently, the brig couldn't help herself but go straight onward, when the trades were shoving her along and while nobody wanted her to tack, or beat up, or otherwise perform any of those delicate little points of seamanship which a true sailor likes to see his ship go through, almost against his own interest, sometimes, as far as hard work is concerned in reefing and furling and taking in sail, or piling on the canvas and 'letting ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... death of you some day if you don't correct the habit," warned Ned. "If you'll use your eyes you will observe that the package contains hard tack, and——" ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... lay in May, affecting well-watered and jungle-clad valleys and ravines. They place their nests in thick bushes, at heights of from 2 to 8 feet from the ground, and either wedge them into some fork, tack them into three or four upright shoots between which they hang, or else suspend them like an Oriole's or ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... birds now began to find the uproar in the elements, for numbers, both of sea and land kinds, came on board of us. I took notice of some, which happening to be to leeward, turned to windward, like a ship, tack and tack; for they could not fly against it. When they came over the ship they dashed themselves down upon the deck, without attempting to stir till picked up, and when let go again, they would not leave the ship, but endeavoured to hide ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... serious, too! Ken's seriousness almost finished me. And I suppose father will take the same tack! Oh, I don't want to be grown-up,—I ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... peevishly, "why do you tack on these petty details to my grand conception? It is the idea I want to sell; other people can use it. Now, will the government ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... unsatisfactory, the artist, after brief and chill consideration, reverting to his toil. Now, tact and discretion are essential in approaching the Mordaunt Estate, for he is a prickly institution. I was sure that the newcomers had taken the wrong tack with him. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... that you've made up your mind to reform after this, p'raps we might let you off easy, Bud. But the next time you get caught, oh! but you're going to get it. Better quit that crowd, and try another tack. Ted and Ward have all the fun, and you fellows take the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... stormy ocean of the last twenty-three years we have seldom sailed on the same tack, there has been nothing hostile in our signals or manoeuvres, and, on my part at least, there has been a cordial disposition towards friendly and respectful sentiments. Under that influence, I now send to you a small work which exhibits my fair and full opinions on the arduous ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... spaces where artists made their studios, turning queer, dilapidated corners into what they called their homes. The third story of the Randolph house had been let for "light housekeeping apartments"; Keineth herself had helped tack the little black and gilt sign at the door. The tenants used the side door that let into the brick-paved alley. Keineth had always felt a great pride in their home—it was always neatly painted, their steps shone, and there were no papers collected behind their iron gratings. ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... for Seabright now," proposed Andy, as they swung about on a long tack. "Maybe he's there waiting ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... collections he seems to have had much doubt, for he wrote to Henslow in 1834:—"I really began to think that my collections were so poor that you were puzzled what to say; the case is now quite on the opposite tack, for you are guilty of exciting all my vain feelings to a most comfortable pitch; if hard work will atone for these thoughts, I vow it ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... newspapers was always saying how extraordinary it was that The Avenger chose such a peculiar time to do his deeds—I mean, the time when no one's about the streets. Now, doesn't it stand to reason that the fellow, reading all that, and seeing the sense of it, said to himself, 'I'll go on another tack this time'? Just listen to this!" He pulled a strip of paper, part of a column cut from a ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... fowl that swim, such as swans, keep their wings and most of their feathers above water, both lest they should wet them and that they may serve them, as it were, for sails. They have the art to turn those feathers against the wind, and, in a manner, to tack, as ships do when the wind does not serve. Water-fowls, such as ducks, have at their feet large skins that stretch, somewhat like rackets, to keep them from sinking on the oozy and ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... 'Afraid you can't spare it, can't you? A gentleman comes and asks you with tack and civility for a temp'y loan of about 'arf nothing, and all you do is to curse and swear at him. Do you know what I call you—you and your thousand quid? A tuppenny millionaire, that's what I call you. Keep your blooming money. That's all I ask. Keep ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... from the northwest, and if it held would be favorable for crossing Lake Teffe. They could go to Ega and return rapidly without having to tack. ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... form of words after a gentleman in a glazed cap and black raiment, we had suffered change into base assassins, the offscouring of society, starving for want of employment, and willing to "imbrue our coarse fists in fraternal blood" for the sum of eleven dollars a month, besides hard tack, salt junk, and the hope of a Confederate States bond apiece for bounty, or free loot in the treasuries of Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas, after the war. How carefully from that day we watched the rise and fall of United States ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... better tack to the southwest. We can use up a day at that course, and then double back, probably thirty or forty miles to the south, and in that way we can cover a ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... with Dukes and others furtively or openly engaged in the task of closing up paths over mountains, or shutting off walks by the lakes. Very awkward and inconsiderate of CHAMBERLAIN going off on this tack. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various
... Watch a coyote come out of his lair and cast about in his mind where he will go for his daily killing. You cannot very well tell what decides him, but very easily that he has decided. He trots or breaks into short gallops, with very perceptible pauses to look up and about at landmarks, alters his tack a little, looking forward and back to steer his proper course. I am persuaded that the coyotes in my valley, which is narrow and beset with steep, sharp hills, in long passages steer by the pinnacles of the sky-line, going with head cocked to one ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... boat, and returned to his ship. Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot, however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung round; starboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat against a head sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three tall cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs. But by her ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... who at once resumed his prying and gazing. This did not suit the other's temper at all, for he was above all things a sociable soul. So after a minute he cut in again on another tack. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... from New York came for Aileen. Mrs. Champney tried another tack: the next time her nephew came to Flamsted, later on in the autumn, she asked him to write her in detail concerning his intimacy with her cousins, the Van Ostends, and of their courtesies to him. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... bar-door, with a hazy view of calling its attention to the matter, and then, pulling up the collar of his rough pea-jacket, stepped boldly out into the rain. Three or four minutes' walk, or rather roll, brought him to a dark narrow passage, which ran between two houses to the water-side. By a slight tack to starboard at a critical moment he struck the channel safely, and followed it until it ended in a flight of old stone steps, half of ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... the professors told her it was O. K., so she got a book out of the library on old furniture and now we are contented and strictly up to date. These damned rugs though, I can't get her to tack 'em down. They're just like so many rags on the floor! I never had a chance to tell you what she did to my ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... to the east of Norfolk Island, and to go from the Loyalty, New Hebrides, Banks, and Santa Cruz groups to New Zealand, it is necessary to make a long stretch out to the N.E. (the trades blowing from about S.E. by E.), standing down to S. on the other tack. But Norfolk Island is almost due ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them as litter, to be swept out, but accept them as suitable straw or matting for the bottom of my carriage. When I turn up into the mouth of the Assabet, which is wooded, large fleets of leaves are floating on its surface, as it were getting out to sea, with room to tack; but next the shore, a little farther up, they are thicker than foam, quite concealing the water for a rod in width, under and amid the Alders, Button-Bushes, and Maples, still perfectly light and dry, with fibre unrelaxed; and at a rocky bend where they are met and stopped by ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... died; a mighty thirst there was nothing to quench settled down on man and beast, and we all felt that unless Providence listened to the prayers and imprecations which the whole town set to work with frantic zeal to hurl at it, or that abominable comet in the sky sheered off on another tack with the least possible delay, we should all be reduced to cinders in a very ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... nothing but hitches and improbable features in this case. Nothing fits; nothing jibes. I get just so far in it and then I run up against a wall. Either there is a superhuman power of duplicity in the persons who contrived this murder or we are on the wrong tack altogether." ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... replied. "Between us, we've managed to set them off on a false tack somewhere. The humming has ceased. It's gone—for ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... they, missy?" exclaimed Mancy, beaming with delight, as she took another tack from her mouth, and pounded it into place. "I got 'em from de grocer man, and co'se I has to tack 'em, else how would dey ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... efforts never slack, And though he twist, and twirl, and tack, Alas! still faithful to his back The pigtail hangs behind ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... called us to de wagons an' tole us we wus free. Dey give each of us a cap full of hard-tack. Dey took clothes an' provisions an' give us nothin'. One crowd of Yankees would come on an' give us something an' another would come along an' take it away from us. Dey tole us to call marster an' missus Johnny Rebs, that we wus free an' had no marsters. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the basis of infantile discipline. He was in a tremendous hurry to push on my spiritual growth, and he fed me with theological meat which it was impossible for me to digest. Some glimmer of a suspicion that he was sailing on the wrong tack must, I should suppose, have broken in upon him when we had reached the eighth and ninth chapters of Hebrews, where, addressing readers who had been brought up under the Jewish dispensation, and had the formalities of the Law of Moses in their very blood, the apostle ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... has a wooden floor, and there are signs of personal dignity—what is known in England as 'respectability'—struggling with poverty. Perhaps the ancient clock, whose worm-eaten case reaches from the floor to the ceiling, and whose muffled but cheery tick-tack is like the voice of an old friend, impressed me in favour of this poor home as soon as ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... van, which had been discomfited. The English admiral gave chase; but the French ships being clean, he could not come up and close them again, so they retired at their leisure. Then he put his squadron on the other tack, in order to keep the wind of the enemy; and next morning they ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... every tack, just as it's wanted. But there was Moffat, yesterday, in a room behind the milliner's shop near Cuthbert's Gate; I was with him. The woman's husband is one of the choristers and an elector, you know, and Moffat went to look for his vote. Now, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Herald took a slightly different tack. Its editorial writer was a former New York newspaperman of unusual abilities who had been driven to the Southwest by tuberculosis. In an editorial which was deplored by many prominent business men, he pointed out that unpunished murderers were all too common in ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... forces of negroes in Sumter with the exception of the boys who carried messages to the different parts of the fort day and night, were locked up days, and turned out nights, to work. We drew our rations of hard-tack and salt pork twice a day; mornings when we ceased work and turned in for the day, and again, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, so as to have supper eaten in time to go to work ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... what shall we ask her in Arithmetic? (The 2ND PIRATE whispers to him.) Excellent. (To her) If you really are a teacher as you say, answer me this question. The brigantine Cocktail is in longitude 40 deg. 39' latitude 22 deg. 50', sailing closehauled on the port tack at 8 knots in a 15-knot nor'-nor' westerly breeze—how soon before she sights ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... wrong tack, then;" and they went off round the corner at a speed their build would hardly have credited ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... married; and yet, you know, my dear, what a good wife I made him." Such is my learned friend's argument, to a hair. But finding that this doctrine did not appear to go down with the House so glibly as he had expected my honorable and learned friend presently changed his tack and put forward a theory which, whether for novelty or for beauty, I pronounce to be incomparable; and, in short, as wanting nothing to recommend it but a slight foundation in truth. "True philosophy," says my honorable friend, "will always continue to lead men to virtue by the instrumentality ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes, then he would come to, and by that time she would be away down wind on another tack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment —but only just a moment—then it would belly out taut ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... benches outside the store were curbed, and finally disappeared altogether. Fanny took charge of the window displays, and often came back to the store at night to spend the evening at work with Aloysius. They would tack a piece of muslin around the window to keep off the gaze of passers-by, and together evolve a window that more than made up for the absent ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... and slow down this cruiser and now you're all ready to come in for a share of the salvage. Get out! Clear out! Beat it! Take 'em away, Captain, and leave me the Admiral. She can give everyone of you the lead by a mile and then overhaul you on the first tack. Get out, for I'm going to take a riding lesson and I'm going to pay extra and have ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... for this line of rejoinder. It seemed to be made with perfect innocence, and yet it put him in a corner at once. He did not care to inquire into the reason of Harry's surprise, or to what work he alluded; so he went off on another tack. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... her in stays before the sail was furled, with the result that she heeled over and Desmond had narrowly escaped being flung into the sea. Seeing the boy's plight, Bulger had sprung forward, and, knocking Parmiter from the wheel, had put the vessel on the other tack, thus giving Desmond the one chance of escape which, fortunately, he had been able to seize. The captain had been incensed to a blind fury, first with Parmiter for acting without orders and then with Bulger for interfering with the man at the wheel. In a paroxysm of madness ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... the petticoats all thinking. They saw that in studying fashion plates and practising expressions they had been going upon the wrong tack. The card for them to play was 'the poor.' But here a serious difficulty arose. There was only one poor person in the whole parish, a cantankerous old fellow who lived in a tumble-down cottage at the back of the church, and fifteen able-bodied ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... starvation, but steady, living hunger that stalked about the decks, slept in the forecastle; the tormentor of waking moments, the disturber of dreams. We looked to windward for signs of change. Every few hours of night and day we put her round with the hope that she would come up on that tack at last! She didn't. She seemed to have forgotten the way home; she rushed to and fro, heading northwest, heading east; she ran backwards and forwards, distracted, like a timid creature at the foot of a wall. Sometimes, as if tired to ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... retirement had done much to lessen Coach Brown's resolve. It had remained for a small group of loyal Elliott alumni to approach the coach on a new tack. These men believed that John Brown might be landed if the proper appeal were made. They had studied out that the other schools had failed in striving to outbid one another, a point which seemed to prove that money to John Brown was no object. All right then—the way to reach him must be through ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... then, I think I see; but then I go off on a wrong tack: I get a silly fit, and a hopeless one, and lose my clue. And yet, after all, there is a highway; and wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein,' murmured Louis, as he gazed on ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... across the moors, which would lead them into it again with a saving of several miles, the sun shining out with a little stronger promise than he had yet given, they resolved upon the latter. But in the middle of the moorland the wind and the hail came on with increased violence, and they were glad to tack from one to another of the huge stones that lay about, and take a short breathing time under the lee of each; so that when they recovered the road, they had lost as many miles in time and strength as they had saved in distance. They did not give in, however, but after another ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... lose your head," said King Charles; "they don't understand that sort of thing out there, and, besides, the idea is not original. Didn't Livingstone try that tack?" ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... superfetation; accession, reinforcement; increase &c. 35; increment, supplement; accompaniment &c. 88; interposition &c. 228; insertion &c. 300. V. add, annex, affix, superadd[obs3], subjoin, superpose; clap on, saddle on; tack to, append, tag; ingraft[obs3]; saddle with; sprinkle; introduce &c. (interpose) 228; insert &c. 300. become added, accrue; advene[obs3], supervene. reinforce, reenforce, restrengthen[obs3]; swell the ranks of; augment ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Bolshevism. Some governments had publicly stigmatized the Bolshevists as cutthroats; one had pledged itself never to have relations with them, but the Prinkipo invitation bespoke a resolve to cancel these judgments and declarations and change their tack as an improvement on doing nothing at all. The scheme was also an error in substance, because the sole motive that could warrant it was the hope of reconciling the warring parties. And that hope was doomed ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... but, at the expiration of that brief space, the sails were again gleaming through the trees, Jasper having wore, jibed, and hauled up under the lee of the island on the other tack. The wind was free enough, as has been already explained, to admit of this manoeuvre; and the cutter, catching the current under her lee bow, was breasted up to her course in a way that showed she would come out to windward of the island again without any difficulty. ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... people hold, when in a bitter mood, is that inexorable circumstance only tries to prevent what intelligence attempts. Renounce a desire for a long-contested position, and go on another tack, and after a while the prize is thrown at you, seemingly in disappointment that no more ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... It was necessary to tack, to enter the channel of the river; and, at that fatal moment, the wind struck the mainmast with a force which instantly threw it over-board; and the ship, cast on her beam-ends by the violence of the shock, lay exposed to a heavy sea, which broke ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... Confucius' able rule, succeed in obtaining the Protectorate, and thus defeat his own insidious design to dethrone the legitimate Ts'i house. The wily Marquess of Ts'i thereupon—of course at the instigation of the intriguing "great families"—tried another tack, and succeeded at last in corrupting the vacillating Lu prince with presents of horses, racing chariots, and dancing women. Then it was (497) that Confucius set out disheartened on his travels. Recalled thirteen years later, he soon afterwards began to devote his remaining powers to the Annals ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... tried to be a boy again just for that night. I grasped the handle of the Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the carpet, the crouching hammer ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... Lane Cox sid of the post house? boath bound In A bond of A hundred pound for the parish of Ockley to pay one pound for the bewrall of William Drew In case he dy In bed lam and Ly wise to pay the Surgant for Cure of his sore Legs and Lychwise to tack Drew out when cured which sayed Drew was put In by Henry Worsfold and Edward ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Edgecumbe, 'if this is simply a war of brute force against brute force, then doubtless the Government is going on the right tack. But if it is more,—if it is a war of God against the devil, of right against wrong, of the forces of heaven against the forces of hell, then we are forgetting our chief Power, we are failing as a nation to utilize the ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... ever since, has been like a ship beating against head winds between opposing shores. It has stood on one tack to avoid Arianism or Tritheism, till it finds itself running into Sabellianism; then it goes about, and stands away till it comes near Arianism or Tritheism again. Unitarianism is on both sides: on one side in ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... Mr. Hendricks. "Merely friendly call. And for heaven's sake don't swallow a tack, son. I'm going to ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Annie to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who pokes his nose in our packing room, but they are Tom, Dick, and Harry to her. It is not being called by your first name that makes the rub. It is being called it when you must forever tack on the Mr. and the Mrs. and the Miss. Annie is in awe of no human being. Annie is the fastest packer in the room and draws the most pay. Annie sasses the entire factory. Annie never stops talking unless she wants to. Which is only now and ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... sea. It was within three miles of the light, though hardly visible in the gloom to the watchful eye of the light-keeper on his gallery, when Butler attempted to go upon another tack. Twice he tried, twice he failed, when, making a third attempt, the boom of the sail jibed, and instantly the boat capsized. The disappearance of the sail from his horizon told the man upon the gallery of the peril of ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... gathered o'er our track, The little English hornets stung, My heavy shot against them flung Passed o'er their barks, so swift to tack, And every ball they gave us ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... "that many people appear to like a drab-colored world, hung around with dusky shreds of philosophy"; but it is more obvious still that, whether they like it or not, the drapings grow a trifle dingier every year, and that no one seems to have the courage to tack up something gay. What is much worse, even those bits of wanton color which have rested generations of weary eyes are being rapidly obscured by somber and intricate scroll-work, warranted to oppress and fatigue. The great masterpieces of humor, which have kept men young ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... believe it, fellows," he cried, "while we've been nearly breaking our necks looking to the east and south for a sail, why, here's a little buzzing motorboat acoming along an the same tack we carried; and ten chances to one now, it's carrying our two good Silver Fox ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... for weeks, had WANTED anything that Oliver could furnish. Strangely enough too, as he afterward discovered, the bullet-headed Dutch porter had driven the last tack into the clean, white, welcome face of the sign only five minutes before Oliver stopped in front of it. Still more out of the common, and still more incomprehensible, was the reply made to him by the head salesman, whom he found just inside the door—a wiry, restless ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... types of humanity. The rich man can go from here to England whenever he feels inclined, the legs of the other are by an invisible fatality prevented from carrying him beyond certain narrow limits. Neither rich nor poor as yet see the philosophy of the thing, or admit that he who can tack a portion of one of the P. and O. boats on to his identity is a much more highly organised being than one who cannot. Yet the fact is patent enough, if we once think it over, from the mere consideration of the respect with which we so often treat those who are richer than ourselves. We observe ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... the machining interrupted the conversation, which thus was renewed from time to time in the pauses of the noise. The room being "tidied," Mrs. Somerville sat down on the bed and taking up some pieces of cloth began to tack them together with needle and thread, ready for the machine. It never seemed to occur to her to rest even ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... away wi' her to Munsooree Pahar. Then Mulvaney changes his tune an' axes her solemn-like if she'd thought o' t' consequences o' gettin' two poor but honest soldiers sent t' Andamning Islands. Mrs. DeSussa began to cry, so Mulvaney turns round oppen t' other tack and smooths her down, allowin' 'at Rip ud be a vast better off in t' Hills than down i' Bengal, and 'twas a pity he shouldn't go wheer he was so well beliked. And soa he went on, backin' an' fillin' an' workin' up t'awd lass wal she fell as if her life ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... every case in which he was engaged as if his life had depended on the result. Nothing escaped him. He kept his mind constantly even with the current of the cause. He was a man to steer a leader, if ever that leader should get, for an instant, on the wrong tack, or be uncertain as to his course. His suggestion and interference—rare, indeed, with such a man as Mr. Subtle, incessant with Mr. Quicksilver—were always worth attending to, and consequently received ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... to Pipe Spring along the foot of the Vermilion Cliffs, then his "north-east" was up toward Kanab and through Nine-Mile Valley to the head of the Kaibab, where a trail led him over to House Rock Valley, on his "south-east" tack, skirting the Vermilion Cliffs again. But they lost it and struck the river at Marble Canyon, through a misunderstanding of the course of the trail, which bore easterly and then northerly around the base of the cliffs to what is now Lee's Ferry, where there was an ancient crossing. Another trail ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... it is difficult to go wrong; and a farmer who does his own wiring and takes pride in its appearance is more apt to be right than a professional electrician who is careless at his task. After the work has been passed, tack on the moulding capping, with brads, and paint the ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... my oraculous lord does or says, be it true or false; invent tales that shall please; make baits for his lordship's ears; and if they be not received in what they offer at, they shift a point of the compass, and turn their tale, presently tack about, deny what they confessed, and confess what they denied; fit their discourse to the persons and occasions. What they snatch up and devour at one table, utter at another; and grow suspected of the master, hated of the servants, while they inquire, and reprehend, ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... were liberated; and the ever-ready Lawless, who had maintained his place at the helm through all the hurly-burly by sheer strength of body and a liberal use of the cold steel, instantly clapped her on the proper tack. The ship began to move once more forward on the stormy sea, its scuppers running blood, its deck heaped with fallen men, sprawling and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Colonel, now thinks better Of his rash vow his gift to "demonstrate," Receiving a "precipitated letter" Warning him not to be—precipitate. Many a Betting Man who'd hedge or tack Must wish he had Mahatmas ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... are the protected remains of a stake known as Jacob's Post. A stranger requested to supply this piece of wood with the origin of its label would probably adventure long before hitting upon the right tack; for Jacob, whose name has in this familiar connection a popular and almost an endearing sound, was Jacob Harris, a Jew pedlar of astonishing turpitude, who, after murdering three persons at an inn on Ditchling ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... workers were ready to return to the room, the men had finished the arrangements at which they had been at work before lunch, and were beginning to tack festoons of evergreens along the walls, the dull paper of which had been covered with fluting of soft pink muslin. The effect was heavy and clumsy in the extreme, and Rosalind stamped her foot with an outburst of ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... this tack, of course her sisters were silenced. They quited her a little, and then went down and searched the house ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... requested to slacken speed; but suspecting his passengers to be afraid, he only flogged the brutes into a still more furious gallop. Observing this, Mr. Stephenson coolly said, "Let us try him on the other tack; tell him to show us the fastest pace at which Spanish mules can go." The rogue of a driver, when he found his tricks of no avail, pulled up and proceeded at a more moderate speed for the ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... into the larboard main channels, to see that the lead was correctly hove; and having directed the Cruiser brig, then in company, to keep right a-head, he kept the ship under sail till midnight, when she had worked up tack by tack to Femeren, a distance of six leagues. He was thus enabled to reach Sir Richard Keats's division on the following day in time to concert measures for the removal of Romana's army ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... it. I watched and watched, never feeling a bit like sleep though my eyes burned something cruel and my feet—they were lumps of prickly wood, not feet. Dull lumps with every now and then a stab as if a tin tack had been driven into them. Beyond me in the open alley-way the light was strong, and I could see men pass frequently, but no one came into my corner till the end, and no one saw me. I heard six bells go in the first watch ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... main "In all directions plough: now bellies out "My canvas; not a single course explor'd. "Hence am I borne against the rocks; hence 'whelm'd "In the wide depth of ocean; nor my sails "Know I to tack returning. Did not heaven "Check the indulgence of my love, by marks "Obvious to all? when from my hand down dropp'd "The tablet, which the boy was bade to bear. "Mark'd that my falling hopes not? More deferr'd "Thy wishes, or ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... blue sea from Maine to Afrikee, and round again on an even keel to Cochin China for cochineal, and back to Chili for Chili sauce, and home again to Banbury Cross—that's me! Lemuel Mizzen, able seaman! Fed on hard tack or soft tack, or a starboard tack or a port tack, it's all the same to me! Now then, skipper, you piped ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... waters of that strange sea, there was great lightness of heart among us, and we went very merrily about such tasks as were needful. And so, in a little, we had the kedge tripped, and had cast the ship's head to starboard, and presently, had her braced up upon the larboard tack, the which we managed very well; though our gear worked heavily, as might be expected. And after that we had gotten under way, we went to the lee side to witness the last of that lonesome island, and with us came the men of the ship, and so, for a space, there was a silence among us; ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... my card," said Deweese, dismounting. Taking a brown cigarette paper from his pocket, he wrote his name on it; then pulling a tack from a notice pasted beside the office door, he drew his six-shooter, and with it deftly tacked the cigarette paper against the office door jamb. Remounting his horse, and perfectly conscious that Oxenford ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... aside her work and rose to quit the room. She returned five minutes later with pen and ink, but Aunt Mary was now off on another tack. ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... don't care," said Philip, who was nettled by this implication. And Celia, who had shown her power of irritating, took another tack. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... though to indicate he understood. Then, while Ralph was busy starting the sloop on another tack, Toglet leaned over ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... finished what they had come to Sunkhaze to do. They climbed aboard the huge ice-craft. The sheet was paid off, and with dragging peavey-sticks instead of centerboard to hold the contrivance into the wind, the boat moved away on its tack across ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... house which has, like many old houses, a narrow side-light on either side of its front-door, and a row of panes across the top, can make a pretty effect by preparing a series of these transparencies to fit the door-glasses, and fastening them on by driving a stout tack into the sashes so as to support the four corners of each pane. The transparencies could be prepared secretly and put into place overnight, or on Christmas morning, before any one is up, so as to give mother a pleasant surprise as ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... then gingerly wound his weary way through a labyrinth of furniture, boxes, and rolls of carpet to his humble couch set up behind the piano or in some other unlikely place, if marriage were a failure, while contact with the business end of a tack gave point to his thoughts. No, indeed! The spring and autumn of his discontent are made glorious summer now by the more civilized system which, beginning at the attic and working downward, cleans one room, or perhaps two at a time, as a day's work, restoring ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... Tack, keeping close together doing scout work, were cut off from their companions. They had ventured too far over the Hun lines, and were in danger of being shot down. But a squadron of airmen from Pershing's forces made a sortie and drove the Germans to cover, ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... a place where the ground appeared to have been lately disturbed, and on digging there discovered a large store of bacon, hard-tack, ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... sanctorum, was a roomy apartment with three windows, each shaded by white cotton curtains. On the floor was a home-made carpet; no hand was employed in its manufacture save its owner's, from the time she commenced tearing the rags in strips, to the final blow given to the last tack that confined it to the floor. A very high post bedstead, over which were suspended white cotton curtains, gave an air of grandeur to one side of the room. No one had slept in it for ten years, though it was made with faultless precision. The ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... his feet and snapped his fingers rapidly. Had he sat on a tack his rebound could not have been more sudden. This last was news ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... as well as alarmed. Another bomb exploded close behind them, and started them off on a new tack. Run which way they might, it seemed as though that terrible enemy in the air kept hovering above them, sending a little black object shooting earthward every half dozen seconds, to be followed by a sudden crash, many times magnified in ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... animal. Clifton, the most superstitious of the crew, made the singular observation that when the dog was on the poop he always walked on the windward side, and afterwards, when the brig was out at sea, and altered its tack, the surprising animal changed its direction with the wind the same as the captain of the Forward would have done in his place. Dr. Clawbonny, whose kindness and caresses would have tamed a tiger, tried in vain to win the good graces of the dog; he lost his time ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne |
