"Turnspit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him. But now all these provided him with plenty of good advice indeed, and great assurance of feeling, but not a movement of leg, or lip, or purse-string in his favour. All good people of either persuasion, royalty or commonalty, knowing his kitchen-range to be cold, no longer would play turnspit. And this, it may be, seared his heart more than loss of ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... third method referred to involved the shifting of manual labour from man to his domestic beast, for the faithful hound was pressed into the service of the cook. The dog worked in a cage, operating a wheel or drum which in its turn revolved the turnspit. Such turnspits seem to have had a lingering existence, and were occasionally heard of in North Wales late ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... where they were joined by a few desperate men of the Yorkist party. The battle of Stoke, in Nottinghamshire, terminated the affair. The youth and his tutor were captured, and the principal officers were slain. According to one account, Simnel was made a turnspit in the royal kitchen; according to another authority[373] he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. It would appear as if Henry was afraid to visit the Earl of Kildare too heavily for his transgressions, as he retained him in the office ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... has introduced the late Emperor Louis, the late King of Italy, the late Pope, and other notable political personages. The light esteem in which he held everything French is notable in this drawing. Conspicuous in the foreground are several dogs belonging to the English turnspit breed, one of which views a yapping French poodle with the most unmitigated disdain. The landscape and surroundings in this composition deserve particular attention, as they are charming examples of Leech's oft-admitted talent ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... happened to be in the house at the time. Among the distinct breeds kept in Egypt there was a massive wolf-dog, a large, heavily-built hound with drooping ears and a pointed head, at least two varieties of Greyhound used for hunting the gazelle, and a small breed of terrier or Turnspit, with short, crooked legs. This last appears to have been regarded as an especial household pet, for it was admitted into the living rooms and taken as a companion for walks out of doors. It was furnished with a collar of leaves, or of leather, ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... than of a flower or a stem, we are much more likely to presume upon our judgment respecting proportions here, we are very apt to assert that the plesiosaurus and camelopard have necks too long, that the turnspit has legs too short, and the elephant a body ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... such a slap, it is burning now—and all sorts of colors danced before my eyes. He always used to be so nice and kind to me, and to you, too, and so I used to be fond of him—he is my uncle too—but a box on the ears, a slap such as the cook might give to the turnspit—I am too big for that; that I will certainly not put up with it! Since my last birthday all the slaves and upper servants, too, have had to treat me as a lady and to bow down to me! And now!—it was just here.—How dare he?" She began to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... turnkey at the Fleet in Mr. Pickwick's time, may have sprung The Cook was assisted by the Baster and Hasler, or turnspit, the latter from Old Fr. hastille, spit, dim. of Lat. hasta, spear. The Chandler was a servant as well as ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... to legend, was hidden in an underground vault, where he was at last starved to death through the neglect of the man whose duty it was to provide him with food. Simnel was pardoned, and employed by Henry as a turnspit in his kitchen. ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... with its hooks, which cannot be rivalled by any mechanical contrivance, is only a variety of the wild Dipsacus; and this amount of change may have suddenly arisen in a seedling. So it has probably been with the turnspit dog; and this is known to have been the case with the ancon sheep. But when we compare the dray-horse and race-horse, the dromedary and camel, the various breeds of sheep fitted either for cultivated ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... tripod used in surveying, and his family Bible. Bobby had to be torn bodily from the room which contained the four swords. Esther spent her happiest hour in the old kitchen, admiring the huge fireplace and the andirons and turnspit. ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... business is the story that you understand anything about it. You never could explain any mortal thing about it to me when I asked you. "See what was done the last time": that was the beginning and the end of your wisdom. Youre nothing but a turnspit. ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... dog, fancy dog, lap dog, toy dog, bull dog, badger dog; mastiff; blood hound, grey hound, stag hound, deer hound, fox hound, otter hound; harrier, beagle, spaniel, pointer, setter, retriever; Newfoundland; water dog, water spaniel; pug, poodle; turnspit; terrier; fox terrier, Skye terrier; Dandie Dinmont; collie. [cats][generally] feline, puss, pussy; grimalkin[obs3]; gib cat, tom cat. [wild mammals] fox, Reynard, vixen, stag, deer, hart, buck, doe, roe; caribou, coyote, elk, moose, musk ox, sambar[obs3]. bird; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... rhimes have aught to do with dog, If kitchen smoak resembles fog, If changing sides from Hardwick to Lord B—t Can with a turnspit's turning humour suit, If to write verse immeasurably low, Which Malloch's verse does so compleatly show, Deserve the preference—Malloch, take the wheel, Nor quit it till you bring ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... Henry's reign, any one entering the royal kitchens might have observed a boy, meanly dressed, following his occupation as a turnspit; and that boy, had he felt disposed to give you his history, would have told you how once upon a time he was crowned a king, and lived in a palace, how nobles bowed the knee before him, and troops fought at his bidding. He would have told how people had ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... method of roasting a joint of meat or a fowl was by suspending it in front of the fire by a strong hempen string tied to a peg in the ceiling, while some one—usually an unwilling child—occasionally turned the roast around. Sometimes the sole turnspit was the housewife, who, every time she basted the roast, gave the string a good twist, and thereafter it would untwist, and then twist a little again, and so on until the vibration ceased, when she again basted and started it. As the juices sometimes ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... the library in Marlboro' Street at home, had had so little meaning for me. Verily he had painted no worse than the reality. As I strode homeward, my own sorrow subdued by the greater sorrow I had looked upon, the craving I had had to be alone was gone, and I would have locked arms with a turnspit. I called to Banks, who was behind at a respectful distance, and bade him come talk to me. His presence of mind in calling on the watch had made even a greater impression upon me than his bravery. I told him that he should ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... these outcasts that among the pariahs is frequently found the turnspit-dog. There is also a small petted variety of the pariah, usually of a white colour, and with long silky hair. This animal is taught ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... have seen at work is exquisitely adapted to the social need it meets. Fine work is done by fined-down workers, amazingly dwarfed and neat. Some I could hold on the palm of my hand. There is even a sort of turnspit Selenite, very common, whose duty and only delight it is to apply the motive power for various small appliances. And to rule over these things and order any erring tendency there might be in some aberrant natures are the most muscular beings I have seen in the moon, ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... girl, and she was used to be alone; but the bare, roomy house seemed lonely after her father and his party had set out. She wandered to the kitchen where the two old women-servants were preparing, with the aid of a turnspit, the early supper; there she learned that only old Simon, the lame ostler, was left in the stables, which stood on either side of the courtyard. This was not re-assuring news: the more as Madeline knew her father might ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman |
