"Thimbleful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is ready, and small pipes are extracted from the folds of the burnous and filled with half a thimbleful of the precious mixture. Two or three whiffs, deeply inhaled, stream out at mouth and nostrils; then the pipe is swiftly passed on to a friend, who drains the last drop of smoke and knocks out the ashes. Not a word ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... for you, Monsieur le Curie?" asked the landlady, as she reached down from the chimney one of the copper candlesticks placed with their candles in a row. "Will you take something? A thimbleful of Cassis*? A ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... agreed. "Get on it, commodore, and I don't need to caution you to screen everybody you put onto it very carefully." He looked at his own glass; it had a bare thimbleful in the bottom. He replenished it slowly and carefully. "It's been a long time since the Navy's had anything like this to worry about." He turned to Trask. "I suppose I can get in touch with you at the Palace ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... morning in the building next door. It was Madame Lerat's turn, but she required to prepare herself. She dipped the corner of her napkin into a glass of water and applied it to her temples because she was too hot. Then, she asked for a thimbleful of brandy, drank it, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... an actual thimbleful, though they need not hold a pint, and should bear some relation to the laws of gravitation in their poise upon the saucer. They should have a smooth rim. A fluted edge is a most uncomfortable finish for a drinking vessel. The wafer-basket ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... excuse me, gentlemen, but the discussion of these topics has quite unnerved me. Allow me to share with you a thimbleful." Fitz drained his glass, cast his eyes upward, and said solemnly, "To the repose of ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... breakfast cups should always be provided for the gentlemen. And then with pleasant neighbours,—or more especially with a pleasant neighbour,—the affair is not, according to my taste, by any means the worst phase of society. But I do dislike that handing round, unless it be of a subsidiary thimbleful when the business of the social ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... tea, "you will be put on rations. One cobnut and a thimbleful of sherry wine per diem. I ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... observed, to one in pre-war days), and as he measured his next with extreme care and a slightly jerky movement, would announce it as being his night-cap, though you would have thought he had plenty of night-caps on already. Puffin correspondingly took a thimbleful more (the thimble apparently belonging to some housewife of Anak), and after another half-hour of sudden single snores and startings awake again, of pipes frequently lit and immediately going out, the guest, still perfectly ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... short day; but the candles glittered at the shop windows, and leery-light-the-lamps was brushing about with his ladder in his oxter, and bleezing flamboy sparking out behind him. I felt a kind of qualm of faintness and down-sinking about my heart and stomach, to the dispelling of which I took a thimbleful of spirits, and, tying my red comforter about my neck, I marched briskly to the session-house. A neighbour (Andrew Goldie, the pensioner) lent me his piece, and loaded it to me. He took tent that it was only half-cock, and I wrapped a napkin round the dog-head, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... "Yassir, enough to paint a whole thimbleful of 'em." At last her ramblings ceased altogether, and her countenance began to clear—a welcome sight to Tom, who had learned her moods, and knew she was on the threshold of good humor now. He noticed that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Cassidy, it's tay-time, isn't it? So just step back to your kitchen and put on your kittle, and bring up two of your best china cups and saucers, and a nice piece of buttered toast, not forgetting a thimbleful of something neat, and then it's the mighty proud woman ye'll be entoirely to be waiting for once on the first lady in the island. . . . Come in, my daughter, ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... cast by the houses. The police were watching everywhere, with a word of menace ever ready on their lips; and soon the only means of egress from the cafes were the narrow, low doorways cut in the shutters through which the last customers—the insatiable, who are always ordering one thimbleful more to finish—passed out. ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... said, disregarding his daughter's protest, "that I will have a drop, just the very smallest possible drop, of brandy. A mere thimbleful will do; but I rather think I have caught ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Avoid the use of rich gravies, or pastry, or anything of the kind in excess. Take all the out-door exercise yon can and never indulge in a late supper. Retire at a reasonable hour, and rise early in the morning. Sulphur to purify the blood may be taken three times a week—a thimbleful in a glass of milk before breakfast. It takes some time for the sulphur to do its work, therefore persevere in its use till the humors, or pimples, or blotches, disappear. Avoid getting wet while taking ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... this little Catholic metropolis, a thimbleful of Rome, in such a wild and contrary neighbourhood. On the one hand, the legion of Salomon overlooked it from Cassagnas; on the other, it was cut off from assistance by the legion of Roland at Mialet. The cure, Louvrelenil, although he took a panic at the arch-priest's funeral, and so ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... grace of humility, when is it? who has a thimbleful thereof? Where is he that is 'clothed with humility,' and that does what he is commanded 'with all humility of mind'? (1 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to smoke and to walk about the same time. The family pipe is laid upon the couch, and papa, mamma, and the children take a solacing whiff as the spirit moves them. These pipes are identical with those used by the Chinese, and hold but half a thimbleful of tobacco, the smoke being inhaled ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... came. It was so small that he was ashamed to pay it. The suppression of gratuities enabled the monarch of this bevelled palace to offer a complete dinner for about the same price as a thimbleful of tea and ten drachms of cake a few yards away. Happily the monarch, foreseeing his shame, had arranged a peculiar method of payment through a little hole, where the receiver could see nothing but his blushing hands. As for the conjurers in evening dress, they apparently never ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... quite empty keg or seal-skin sack, to let us hear by the dashing that it contained liquid. One of the crew, whom I asked to ascertain what sort of spirit it was, made friends with the owner, and induced him at last to part with about a thimbleful of it, more could not be given. According to the sailor's statement it was without colour and flavour, clear as crystal, but weak. It was thus probably Russian corn ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... looked everywhere did he give up. Oddly, his compelling want at the moment was less for a drink than for a smoke. He began rolling a cigarette. Half-way through the brief task he desisted, returning the thimbleful of tobacco to its sack. For the hot smoke would merely dry out further his ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... however, their behaviour had a pedagogic basis. It seemed that they hoped, by constantly summoning the maid, to sharpen her memory. But Mrs. Shepherd was also implicated in the method; and this was the reason why Isabella—as she afterwards explained to Laura—never offered her a thimbleful of help. ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... of whiskey," he called out. He turned again to Philip. "I keep my own bottle of whiskey. I can't afford to pay fifty centimes for every thimbleful." ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Dat Jake is a cuter. When he goes down ter git de letters he cuts up all kines ob shines and capers. An' to look at him skylarking dere while de folks is waitin' for dere letters, an' talkin' bout de war, yer wouldn't think dat boy had a thimbleful of sense. But Jake's listenin' all de time wid his eyes and his mouf wide open, an' ketchin' eberything he kin, an' a heap ob news he gits dat way. As to Jinny, she jis' capered and danced all ober de flore. An' I jis' had to put my han' ober her mouf to keep ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... befallen him. It was not a great while before he heard her coming along the passage crying bitterly. This circumstance surprised him, because Marygold was one of the cheerfulest little people whom you would see in a summer day, and hardly shed a thimbleful of tears in a twelvemonth. When Midas heard her sobs, he determined to put little Marygold into better spirits by an agreeable surprise; so, leaning across the table, he touched his daughter's bowl (which was a china one, with pretty figures all around it) ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... was charming, and had suffered little or nothing from the delay. Mrs. Kenton was in raptures with it, and after a thimbleful of the good Hungarian wine had attuned her tongue, she began to sing the praises of ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... boy!" cried Twing, coming up; "no bones broken? all right? Take a pull; do you good—don't drink it all, though—leave a thimbleful for Haller there. How do ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... carried through as his practical joke. After that the Maluka gravely proposed "Cheon," and Cheon instantly became statuesque and dignified, to the further diversion of Brown of the Bulls—gravely accepting a thimbleful for himself, and, as gravely, drinking his own health, the Maluka just as gravely "clinking glasses" with him. And from that day to this when Cheon wishes to place the Maluka on a fitting pedestal, he ends his long, long tale with a triumphant: "Boss ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... good woman, perfectly ready herself to sup off her biscuit and salt butter. She began at once to persuade the young ladies to eat a portion of the delicacies which she had received. She was at length successful. "And now, marm," she added, "just a thimbleful of rum; it will do you good, I'm sure. I am not in favour of ladies taking to ardent spirits, but, just now, we may be thankful for some to cheer our hearts and ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... and drank. It was easy to drink the second glass and the third, and so on. The men fell into reminiscence and song, and no one knew how many glasses were mixed; and even when they stood at the door they turned back for "a thimbleful o' raw speerit to keep out the cold," for it had begun to snow, and there was a ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Jura Mountains. It is a sticky, sweet compound of a green or yellow color, and of such a fiery nature that it must be sipped, not drunk. Many a hater of the priesthood, holding up one of the little thimbleful glasses in which it is served, has exclaimed, "Blessed be monks for making thee! Compound of devil, dew and honey! in thee have they sought to indemnify themselves for lack of wife, and partially ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... Pickwick. 'A glass of brandy here!' The brandy was brought; and Mr. Weller, after pulling his hair to Mr. Pickwick, and nodding to Sam, jerked it down his capacious throat as if it had been a small thimbleful. 'Well done, father,' said Sam, 'take care, old fellow, or you'll have a touch of your ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... he said. "Let's call it off, eh? You shall have—well, a thimbleful of the brandy and go to bed. I'll ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... misbehavior, and accused is convicted for a Vestal; well, you know it. I'd look fine being buried alive in a seven-by-five underground stone cell, with half a pint of milk and a gill of wine to keep me alive long enough to suffer before I starved to death and a thimbleful of oil in a lamp to make me more scared of the dark when the lamp burned out. No burial alive for me. I'm in love. I'm too much in love to balance arguments. I'm not sorry I missed my chance, as you call it. I'm glad I escaped; the chance isn't missed for that matter. Rabulla's place hasn't ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... months, and a large arrear of little pricks on either side was pending. Sooner or later it would have to be fought out (like a feud between two nations), with a houseful of loss and woe to either side, but a thimbleful of pride and glory. Yet so much wiser were these women than the most sagacious nations that they put off to a cheaper time their grudge against ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... She squeezed out a thimbleful of orange juice and placed it in a low cup with a long snout like a locomotive oil can, designed to poke in out-of-the-way places. With this device she was able to get through my beard and find my mouth. As she gently ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... deposit on a side-table a plate of chicken sandwiches and (in deference to Peter's vegetarian views) a smaller plate of cheese sandwiches. At the close of play Mrs. Rastall-Retford would take one sandwich from each plate, drink a thimbleful of weak whisky and water, ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... one another, and were obliged to turn their heads and gesticulate over their neighbours' shoulders. The women particularly became animated, at first rather anxious as to the crush, and then ungloving their hands, catching up their skirts, and laughing at the first thimbleful of ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... way he got the gold was to take the sand and gravel from the banks of the river and wash it about in a pan till all the lighter particles passed off with the water, leaving the little spangles of gold at the bottom. Sometimes a week would pass without the miner getting more than a thimbleful, but occasionally he would find a few lumps as big as a pea. One day, however, just as Donald was getting discouraged, a piece of great good-luck befell him. He had been particularly depressed that day, for no gold at all had rewarded his search for a week, and the family were already in debt for ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... three wooden columns each, except the outer corner roof-supports, which are square and of bricks. In front is an artistic but most untidy conglomeration of awnings to protect from the sun pedlars, merchants and people enjoying their kalians, or a thimbleful of tea. ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... be better in thy bed, as thy duties call upon thee to be early." So saying, the Quaker bowed formally to each person present, and took his daughter out with him under his arm. Mrs. Roden and her son escaped almost at the same moment, and Mrs. Demijohn, having waited to take what she called just a thimbleful of hot toddy, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... while, as Bawly was marching along through the woods with his soldier cap on, Susie and Jennie were playing party at the old stump. They had just eaten the last of the sweet-sour cookies, and drank the last thimbleful of the orange-lemonade when, all at once, what should happen but that a great big alligator crawled out of the bushes and made a jump for them! Dear me! Would you ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... what it begun with, but it went further'n that; and so my mother told me, and predicked the whole, she did, the pious woman! But it were Providence that put me here. I've thought it all out in this here lonely island, and I'm back on piety. You don't catch me tasting rum so much, but just a thimbleful for luck, of course, the first chance I have. I'm bound I'll be good, and I see the way to. And, Jim"—looking all round him and lowering his ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... downstairs from her journey above to see after the comfort of her lodgers. Her candle stood upon the bar. She was about to take a thimbleful of rum as a solace for having her rest disturbed. She looked up without surprise or alarm as her ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... You must buy one. French or English are the best, they say. Then take a little powder, about a thimbleful, or perhaps two, and pour it into the barrel. Better put plenty. Then push in a bit of felt (it MUST be felt, for some reason or other); you can easily get a bit off some old mattress, or off a door; it's used ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... much trouble—along with a whole row of others, fine cords cemented to the side of the locker. The package I drew up weighed about ten pounds. Wilcox opened it and scooped out a thimbleful of greenish powder. He washed ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... great thing to mind is, not for any of our fellers to be nervous; so before starting we'll one and all come to my house and have a rasher of bacon; then every man-jack het a pint of cider into his inside; then we'll warm up an extra drop wi' some mead and a bit of ginger; every one take a thimbleful—just a glimmer of a drop, mind ye, no more, to finish off his inner man—and march off to Pa'son Mayble. Why, sonnies, a man's not himself till he is fortified wi' a bit and a drop? We shall be able to look any gentleman in the face ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... place, set with the liqueur glass she always drank her thimbleful of champagne in, and the throne chair from the drawing-room in which she presided over the feasts given in her honor, was almost too much for them. Margaret cried openly over her soup. Peter shaded his eyes with ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... finish the bottle." The lunatic poured out a thimbleful for himself and filled Gaudissart's glass. "Well, Monsieur, I have two puncheons left of the same wine; if you find it good we can ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... too all in good time, now my mind's relieved," replied the old man, with a chuckle, "and I think I'll weather to-night fer the sake o' fixin' that deed termorrow, Mr. Blake, if you'll kindly give me jest a thimbleful more o' that old liquor o' yourn—I kin manage it fust rate without the ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... herself with a clergyman. Jealousy did not as yet infuriate Alfred. Its first effect resembled that of a heavy blow. Little Beverley found him actually sick, and ran to the Robin. The ex-prizefighter brought him a thimbleful of brandy, but he would not take it. "Ah no, my friends," he said, "that cannot cure me; it is not my stomach; it is ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... offers a man a life. Never offer a man a thimbleful of Gospel. Do not offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or merely rest, or merely safety; tell them how Christ came to give men a more abundant life than they have, a life abundant in love, and therefore abundant in salvation for themselves, and large in enterprise for the ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... that at a state dinner, upon a time, a mild punch in thimbleful instalments was served to the guests in lieu of more generous beverages. Raising the tiny vessel and bowing to the Austrian Ambassador at his side, Mr. Evarts in undertone significantly ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... to do. And when they had him at Valleys House, the moment he showed interest in his food, down to the sea-down to the sea! At this time of year nothing like it! Then with regard to nourishment, he would be inclined already to shove in a leetle stimulant, a thimbleful perhaps four times a day with food—not without—mixed with an egg, with arrowroot, with custard. A week would see him on his legs, a fortnight at the sea make him as good a man as ever. Overwork—burning the candle—a leetlemore would have seen a very different state of things! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... all about the characteristics of prominent men, and have a keen appetite for all particulars concerning their personal habits and peculiarities. They love to hear what a celebrated man eats, drinks, and avoids, what time he rises and at what hour he usually goes to bed; and even a little thimbleful of scandal touching his shortcomings, delinquencies, and, possibly, his small vices, is as nectar to the gossip-loving taste. To tell some people what they have no right to know ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... dear," she said, in a kind, persuasive way; "there's hardly a thimbleful of wine in the whole glass. It will soothe your nerves, and make you ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... of the cursed rheumatism. How could it miss, with my wetting? Also feverish, and a slight headache. So much for claret and champagne. I begin to be quite unfit for a good fellow. Like Mother Cole in the Minor, a thimbleful upsets me,[459]—I mean, annoys my stomach, for my brains do not suffer. Well, I have had my time ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the gesture, the tension of his attitude, his preoccupied expression, and had a quick inner vision of a dirty, ragged, ignorant, gloriously free little boy on a raft on the Mississippi river, for whom life was not measured out by the clock, in thimbleful doses, but who floated in a golden liberty on the very ocean of eternity. "Why can't we bring them up like Huckleberry Finns!" she thought, protestingly, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... her hands. She had been heard to declare in public that if she were dying, and a thimbleful of whisky would restore her to health and Mr. Greiffenhagen, ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... last night," said Valentine; "but I have no right to say a word, for I was much the worst of the two. I'm wretchedly ill this morning, which is just what I deserve; and heartily ashamed of myself, which is only what I ought to be. Look at my hand! It's all in a tremble like an old man's. Not a thimbleful of spirits shall ever pass my lips again: I'll stick to lemonade and tea for the rest of my life. No more Squaw's Mixture for me! Not, my dear sir," continued Valentine, addressing Mat, who had been quietly stealing a glance at the bureau, while the painter was speaking to young Thorpe. "Not, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... Lucius Tode had been associated with old Parrish in this work, which, carried to a successful issue, would revolutionize the social organization of the world. The energy locked up in the atom is so stupendous that, as Eddington indicated, a thimbleful of coal, disintegrated, would carry the Mauretania from England to America and back again. To unlock this energy would be to set man free from bondage, to restore the pristine leisure and happiness ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... thimbleful of water, after fifty spillings, arrived safely in a tumbler; but as for air, no one in that court had breathed any thing but nitrogen ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... crackers. I think that would do first-rate. I have made dozens of crackers, and feel sure that I could turn out a good lot of them now. The squibs will be easier; we should only have to paste one side of the strips and roll them up so as to form suitable cases. When these are dry we should put a thimbleful of powder into each, and then fill them up with powder and charcoal. In order to make sure of a loud bang we could undo a piece of rope and wind the strands round each case for an inch and a half from the bottom. Of course, when we had ground down the burned wood ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... shapes of gold and ruby-coloured jellies. There were wonderful bonbons which even the Mayor's daughter did not have every day; and all sorts of fruits, fresh and candied. They had cowslip wine in green glasses, and elderberry wine in red, and they drank each other's health. The glasses held a thimbleful each; the Mayor's wife thought that was all the wine they ought to have. Under each child's plate there was a pretty present and every one had a basket of bonbons and cake ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... said the visitor. "And now, as you like the cigar, I should like you to try a thimbleful of what I call wine. I must warn you, though, that it is rather potent, and may produce effects you ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... three, having seen herself to the accurate cooking of her roast fowl, or her bit of sweetbread, and always had her pint of Scotch ale. She turned over all her clothes almost every day. In the evening she read Reynolds's Miscellany, had her tea and buttered muffins, took a thimbleful of brandy and water at nine, and then went to bed. The work of her life consisted in sewing buttons on to Moulder's shirts, and seeing that his things were properly got up when he was at home. No doubt she would have done better as to the duties ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... tell. If they had a thimbleful of sense, they would know that the denial of the family tie is sure to weaken the marriage tie. One thing I know is that society has put motherhood out of fashion. It considers the nursery a place of punishment instead of a place of pleasure. Young Mrs. Wrathall was here yesterday all in a twitter ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... riding—for "the 'Orbn can't walk." And no wonder. At the halting-place they unbag a little barley and wheat-meal, make dough, thrust it into the fire, "break bread," and wash it down with a few drops of dirty water. This copious refection ends in a thimbleful of thick, black coffee and a pipe. At home they have milk and Gh (clarified butter) in plenty during the season, game at times, and, on extraordinary occasions, a goat or a sheep, which, however, are usually kept ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... of the simplest. Let this demon once feel the contact of state ownership of the means of production and his baneful influence will vanish into thin air as his mediaeval predecessors did at the touch of a thimbleful ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... now mixed to his satisfaction, he filled the glasses of the company, allotting to each lady the thimbleful which he believed to be a woman's share of any alcoholic beverage, and extracting compliments from every one. The wassail bowl was a triumph, and the candle of Mr. Pickwick was put out. Even Dickens' hero could not have given such an air of jollity to a festive occasion like ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... honest and respectable man, "I could not swallow a thimbleful of anything paid for by your money; what is it? If I did I would dream for weeks of all that you have done, or if I didn't dream, the sorrows and the wrongs of my near relative, Widow O'Hagan and her family, would prevent me from sleeping; the Kellys that you've ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... tread to look at what nature could do in far-stretching color and beckoning horizon line. Along the sand-hills, frolicking in the breeze or faithfully clinging in the strong wind to their native thimbleful of earth, hung the cerulean harebells, to which I ardently clambered, listening for their chimes. In the preface to "Monte Beni," the compliment paid to Redcar is well hidden. My father speaks of reproducing the book (sketched out among the dreamy interests of Florence) ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... into her bedroom, and, returning with the travelling-bag, produced a bijou flask with a silver top that turned into a little drinking-cup. Into the top she swiftly poured a thimbleful ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... revolver. We have an amateur assassin to deal with, Mr. Narkom, not a hardened criminal; and the witlessness of the fellow is enough to bring the case to an end before this night is over. Why didn't he discharge that revolver to-day, and have enough sense to bring a thimbleful of powder to burn in this compartment after the work was done? One knows in an instant that the weapon used was an air-pistol, and that the fellow's only thought was how to do the thing without sound, not how to do it with sense. I don't suppose that there are three places in all London that ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... prate of civilisation (as, indeed, it's a defect they are rather prone to), I hear the measured blows of a mallet, see the bystanders crowd with torches about the grave, smile a little to myself in conscious superiority—and take a thimbleful of brandy ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... some romantic about a young Mexican female, who's called the Princess of Casa Grande. Which the repoote of this yere Princess woman is bad, an' I strikes a story several times of how she's that incensed ag'in Americans she once saws off a thimbleful of loco on a captain in some whiskey he's allowin' to drink, an' he goes plumb ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of a very light description. A sister-in-law of the good Pauline was accustomed to send in our dinner, which consisted one day of a thimbleful of saffron-coloured pilau, while the next would perhaps bring half the shoulder of a small fish. Had I boarded with my hostess, I should have kept fast-day five days in the week, and have had nothing to eat ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... hurtful. A doctor of judgment will never lose sight of the instinctive tendency of our inclinations, or forget that if painful sensations are naturally fraught with danger, those which are pleasant have a healthy tendency. We have seen a drop of wine, a cup of coffee, or a thimbleful of liqueur, call up a smile ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... in the Rockies with Upgrove, six or eight years ago, I pulled out an old buckskin tobacco pouch, turned it hopefully inside out in the search for a stray thimbleful, and discovered in a corner of the lining a faded yellow silk butterfly, all unknown to me till then! She must have worked it surreptitiously, like a mischievous, affectionate child; and as I held it in my hands, and stared at ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... State, carries the public good safe in the hold like brandy; and it is only when fear, storm, or the devil makes the rogues quarrel among themselves and break up the casks, that one gets above a thimbleful at a time. We should go on fighting with the rest of the world forever, if the ministers had not taken to ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is not sufficient to keep her head straight. Neither of these misfortunes befell us in entering the Macalister, for, from the hour we had selected, the sea was at its quietest, and we got over without shipping a thimbleful of water. We found a broad expanse studded with dense mangrove flats, and it was with difficulty we ascertained which was the main channel. We pulled on until about noon, by which time the mud swamps had disappeared, ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... showed a row of 0's long enough to allow Guillaume for once to relax the stern rule as to dessert which reigned throughout the year. The shrewd old draper rubbed his hands, and allowed his assistants to remain at table. The members of the crew had hardly swallowed their thimbleful of some home-made liqueur, when the rumble of a carriage was heard. The family party were going to see Cendrillon at the Varietes, while the two younger apprentices each received a crown of six francs, with permission to go wherever they chose, provided they ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... because we are continually counteracting or eliminating them by the help of (1) pills, (2) athletics, and (3) alcohol. Saner as regards material, but hopelessly irrational in method. Your ordinary employe begins his day with a thimbleful of black coffee, nothing more. What work shall be got out of him under such anti-hygienic conditions? Of course it takes ten men to do the work of one; and of course all ten of them are sulky and irritable throughout the morning, thinking only of their luncheon. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... M'Guire was glad to beg for it. And even himself, when he is downhearted with all these cruel disappointments, though as temperate a man as any child, will be sometimes crying for a glass of it. And I'll thank you for a thimbleful to settle what I got.' Soon after, she began with tears to narrate the deathbed dispositions and lament the trifling assets of her husband. Then she declared she heard 'the master' calling her, rose to her feet, made but one lurch of it into the still-life rockery, and with her head ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... kill the Frog, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy, as the old man paused to scoop up a thimbleful of glowing embers in ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... it than of his one thousand queens, I had to raise armies, charter ships, and wage warfare in which feats of incredible valor had to be performed by myself alone and unaided to secure the desired thimbleful. I have destroyed empires for a bon-bon at great expense ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... diverting round of some lazy August cabaret. But it was cold outside, with wind around the edges of the tall buildings and December just up the street, so better far an evening together under the soft lamplight and a drink or two of Bushmill's, or a thimbleful of Maury's Grand Marnier, with the books gleaming like ornaments against the walls, and Maury radiating a divine inertia as he rested, large and catlike, in ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... easel in the patio of the Pigeon Mosque and started in to paint the plaza with Cleopatra's Needle in the distance. This would occupy the morning. In the afternoon I would finish my sketch of Suleiman. Should Joe have a fresh attack of ague he could join Yusuf at the cafe and forget it in the thimbleful that cheers but ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a small amount of the powder is inclosed in an incision in the bait. The amount sufficient for a single dose may be easily held on the point of a knife blade, and death ensues in a a very few moments after the bait is taken. For a Bear the dose should be a half thimbleful, and it should be deposited in the centre of a piece of honey comb, the cells being emptied of their ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... the luck, there's not a fresh egg to be had—no, nor a fresh chicken," continued I, "nor a stale one either; nor a tayspoonful of souchong, nor a thimbleful of bohay; nor the laste taste in life of butther, salt or fresh; ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... going to conquer like Cortez, but his name was Thomas Tilman Lacey, and he had a lot of gall. After years of earnest effort, he lost his hair and the millions of the Infatuated Conquistadores. And by-and-by he came to Cairo with a thimbleful of income, and began to live again. There was a civil war going on in his own country, but he thought that one out of forty millions would not be strictly missed. So he stayed in Egypt; and the tale of his days in Egypt, is it not written with a neboot of domwood in the book ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
