"Polishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wished that he had not allowed himself to be deprived of his sword and armour. At the time it had seemed to him that the Earl's remark that the latter needed polishing and the former stropping betrayed only a kindly consideration for his guest's well-being. Now, it had the aspect of being part of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... beyond the moat, on every side, the tents of the besieging party were pitched. Rather uncomfortable shivers ran down the children's backs as they saw that all the men were very busy cleaning or sharpening their arms, re-stringing their bows, and polishing their shields. A large party came along the road, with horses dragging along the great trunk of a tree; and Cyril felt quite pale, because he knew this ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... veranda, smoking a cigar and trying to re-create, for his companion, a mental picture of an Indian camp as he had seen it in Wyoming in the middle '90's, when Sergeant Williamson came out from the house, carrying a pair of the Colonel's field-boots and a polishing-kit. Unaware of the Colonel's presence, he set down his burden, squatted on the floor and began polishing the boots, humming softly to himself. Then he must have caught a whiff of the Colonel's cigar. Raising his head, he saw the Colonel, ...
— Dearest • Henry Beam Piper
... experiments had to be made, to determine how best to employ oil colour so that the spots or pips may be equal-tinted, the outline clear and sharp, the pigment well adherent to the surface, and the drying such as to admit of polishing without stickiness. The plates for printing are engraved on copper or brass, or are produced by electrotype, or are built up with small pieces of metal or interlaced wire. The printing is done in the usual way of colour-printing, with as many plates as there are colours (usually five), ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... nurses led me to a large room on the second floor. As we neared the door a young interne, so the nurse told me, came out. He was thoughtfully polishing his glasses. ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... The plural possessive pronoun bracketed McConkey with Lord Moyne. McConkey's wife, assuming for the moment that he had not abstained from matrimony as he had from tobacco, shared his joys and sorrows, his hopes and fears, heartened him for his daily toil, would join no doubt in polishing the muzzle of the machine gun. So Lady Moyne in her gorgeous raiment, sustained Lord Moyne, her man. That was the suggestion of the possessive pronoun, and the audience was not allowed to miss it. Poor Moyne did ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... platters, little casks and vessels; especially to preserve verjuices in, the best of any: Pales are also made of cleft willow, dorsers, fruitbaskets, canns, hives for bees, trenchers, trays, and for polishing and whetting table-knives, the butler will find it above any wood or whet-stone; also for coals, bavin, and excellent firing, not forgetting the fresh boughs, which of all the trees in nature, yield the most chast and coolest shade in the ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... extraordinary piece of work, considering the difficulty of cutting such a material. It was chipped into a rude outline, and finished into its exact shape by polishing down with jeweller's sand. The polish is perfect, and there is hardly a scratch upon it. At least one of the old Spanish writers on Mexico gives the details of the process of cutting precious stones and polishing them with teoxalli or "god's sand." Masks in stone, ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... had no occasion for such geometry operations, as he termed them; that it might be well enough, perhaps necessary, for your counting-house, silk-gloved captains, who run between New York and Liverpool, to be rubbing up their glasses and polishing their sextants, for they hardly ever knew where they were, except at such times; but as for himself, he had little need of turning star-gazer at his time of life, and that as he had already told me, he ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... said. "I've got some polishing and patching to do, anyway." He made his voice sound easy and innocent, but I noticed his eyes were alert and wary, watching me as I ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... "Trugsess" or steward, who wishes to marry Isot, claims to have achieved the deed, but his fraud is exposed through the machinations of the women. Queen Isot and her daughter have recognized in Tristan their former acquaintance Tantris, and when polishing his armour the princess finds the sword with a gap in its blade exactly fitting the splinter which she has taken from Morold's skull. She now realizes who Tristan is, and, filled with anger and hatred, she goes with the sword to where Tristan is in his bath, determined to wreak instant ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... behavior, and maintain a grave and majestic demeanor, "which is like a palace in which virtue resides"; but especially that we should guard the tongue. "For a blemish may be taken out of a diamond by carefully polishing it; but, if your words have the least blemish, there is no way to efface that." "Humility is the solid foundation of all the virtues." "To acknowledge one's incapacity is the way to be soon prepared to teach others; for from the moment that a man is no longer full ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... best to wash it first in hot water and white soap and then use the polishing cloths. The cloths can be used until they are worn to shreds. Do not wash them. Knives, forks, spoons and other small pieces of silver will keep bright and free from tarnish if they are slipped into cases made from the gray outing flannel and treated ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... that much of the depth of colour of old oak panelling is really nothing but dirt, though the true dark brown tint of old age can be found underneath, and right to the centre of each piece. Spring-cleaning of the past consisted very much in polishing with beeswax and turpentine, without removing the dirt produced by smoky fires and constant handling, so that extraneous matter became coated with the polish and preserved beneath it. I have had occasion, when restoring old woodwork, to wash off this outside accretion, and ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... but immediately apologized for his unseemly mirth, and fearful lest he should disturb the dignified body again, he withdrew from the hall, and busied himself in polishing up the brass ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... poets polishing a phrase Show anger over trivial things; And as she blundered in the blaze Towards him, on ecstatic wings, He raised a hand and smote her dead; Then wrote 'That I had ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... from the first the "Somers Town Nursery School," where the same kind of work is done. One of the reports says: "It is interesting to see the children sweeping or dusting a room, washing their dusters and dolls' clothes, polishing the furniture, their shoes, and anything which needs polishing. On Friday morning the 'silver' is cleaned, and the brilliant results give great pleasure and satisfaction to the little polishers. 'Have you done your work?' was the question addressed to a ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... caught in another avalanche of telegrams and had to spend a couple of hours at the Consulate-General polishing off and finishing business. Stopped in at the palace on the way back and saw General Jungbluth, who showed me the latest telegrams. I gathered up what newspapers I could beg or buy and stuffed them into a military pouch to take back. Had an early lunch, gathered up M. de Woeste ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... never been explicitly set forth till now. Every body knows that even in the fabrication of so small a thing as a needle, the process is facilitated by dividing it among a number of hands; as to one the eye, to another the point, to one the grinding, to another the polishing. In the same way, to render a sonnet pointed and sharp, to polish it and insure it against cutting the thread of its argument, the work should be performed by two or more. Every sonnet, in short, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... horses to be ready for a start directly after luncheon—a decision against which Suleyman protested unsuccessfully, declaring it would be too hot for riding—I overheard him telling the whole story of our visit, including the donation of the four mejidis, to Rashid, who was lazily engaged in polishing my horse's withers. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... our friends of that time?" parried Steinmetz, polishing his glasses with a silk handkerchief. "My memory is a ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... of copper coated with silver. The silver employed should be as pure as possible; the thickness of the plate is of little consequence, provided there be sufficient silver to bear the cleaning and polishing—is free from copper spots, is susceptible of a high polish, an exquisitely sensitive coating and a pleasing tone. These qualities are possessed to an eminent degree ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... force of the barbarians lay chiefly in their swords, with which they laid about them in a rude and inartificial manner, hacking and hewing the head and shoulders, he caused head-pieces entire of iron to be made for most of his men, smoothing and polishing the outside, that the enemy's swords, lighting upon them, might either slide off or be broken; and fitted also their shields with a little rim of brass, the wood itself not being sufficient to bear off the blows. Besides, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... wake came a girl who made me think, as I compared her to Miss Edith, of a beautiful yacht alongside a stately liner. Barbara Herndon was sunshine personified. Laughter went with her wherever she went, and a pair of Tongans, polishing brasses, immediately put their molars on view, as if they had understood what caused the smiles upon her pretty face as she came ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... enabled to send a powerful current of electricity continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to me gained in lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I commenced the grinding and polishing of the lens, a work of intense toil and exquisite delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the care required to be taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the lens, rendered the labor the severest and most harassing that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... heard someone enter the room; but he was too intent upon his work to look up, and he had just picked up the brush to begin polishing the buttons, now in a neat row, when a couple of hands were passed round him—one taking his jacket and button-stick, the other the brush, which was briskly applied, accompanied by a loud, hissing noise, such as ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... shafts of from 3 to 6 inches diameter; and they hired a strong Irishman to drive the wheel and assist at the heavy work. Their first job was the erection of a cullender, and their next a calico-polishing machine; but orders came in slowly, and James Lillie began to despair of success. His more hopeful partner strenuously urged him to perseverance, and so buoyed him up with hopes of orders, that he determined to go on a little longer. They then issued cards among the manufacturers, and ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... If this is not at hand, some clean sand may be ground in an agate mortar, and if possible sieved. Only material which passes the 100-mesh sieve should be used. It will be ground still finer in the process. For the final polishing, a little infusorial earth or even ...
— Laboratory Manual of Glass-Blowing • Francis C. Frary
... themselves have not been trained to realize that the teeth are a most dangerous source of infection when unclean. Does your dentist insist upon removing tartar and food particles beyond your reach, upon polishing and cleansing, or does he regard these as vanity touches, to be omitted if you are ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... same old codger. Haven't changed an inch in seven years. You've got to stay here a week, two weeks, a month. I've plenty of sick stock, and some of the boys have horses that need polishing." ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... fellow," Ieremia declared, pausing in the polishing of his spectacles. "He is a scoundrel and a blackguard. He should be struck by a dead pig, by a particularly ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... piers, roofed over, dim and cool inside, I stood one day looking out on the deck of an East Indian freighter, where two half-naked Malays were polishing the brasswork. One of them was a boy of ten. His small face was uncouth and primitive almost as some little ape's, but I saw him look up again and again with a sudden gleaming expectancy. I grew curious and waited. Now the looks came oftener, his every move was restless. And after a time another ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... poetical talent of one who possessed so much fancy, so much taste, and so fine an ear.[225] But his poems were principally composed in his youth; and afterwards, when his powers were more mature, his occupations did not allow even to his active mind the time necessary for polishing a language still more rugged in metre than it was in prose. His contemporary history, on the other hand, can hardly have conveyed more explicit, and certainly would have contained less faithful, information than his private ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... being carried out in all its searching details. Shirts were drying on elder-bushes, kettles boiling over gypsy fires, men shaving, blacking their boots, cleaning their guns, rubbing down their horses, greasing their saddles, polishing their stirrups and bits: on all sides a general cheery struggle against the prevailing dust, discomfort and disorder. Here and there a young soldier leaned against a garden paling to talk to a girl among the hollyhocks, or an older soldier initiated a group of children into some mystery of military ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... and will not grow more pleasing in your eyes I doubt, though the rest of your sex will think her handsome for these dozen of years. Turn therefore all your attention to her mind, which will daily grow brighter by polishing. Study some easy science together, and acquire a similarity of tastes while you enjoy a community of pleasures. You will by this means have many images in common, and be freed from the necessity of separating to find amusement. Nothing is so dangerous ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... of the street, an ex-Prussian soldier, who for a pittance and his daily "rum," slaved in the "Pharmacy" like a dog, polishing and cleaning until it was the smartest show ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... Moriah. And yonder is Pilgrim Victory! He seems to be polishing or sharpening his sword. Why, ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... kneeling in their shirt-sleeves with their spuds and their watering-cans in the midst of their flower-beds. Others sat in the sunshine at the openings of the tents tying up their queues, pipe-claying their belts, and polishing their arms, hardly bestowing a glance upon us as we passed, for patrols of cavalry were coming and going in every direction. The endless lines were formed into streets, with their names printed up upon boards. Thus we had passed ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to have fried chicken and strawberries—my favorite dinner!" said Belle when Molly was showing her just how she liked the table set. After dinner, cheerfully polishing glasses, she suddenly burst into song as she stood at the open pantry window, some ten feet from the side porch. The ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... iron. (2) The surface of the screwhead is coated with a very thin coating of shellac dissolved in alcohol and thoroughly dried, or a thin coating of collodion, which is also dried. The screw is placed in the ordinary polishing triangle and the flat face at a polished on a tin lap with diamantine and oil. In polishing such surfaces the thinnest possible coating of diamantine and oil is smeared on the lap—in fact, only enough to dim the surface of the tin. It is, of course, understood that it is necessary ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... if I know," said Sam frankly. The question struck him as a mean attack. He wondered how Widgery would have met it. Probably by smiling quietly and polishing his spectacles. Sam had no spectacles. He ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... carefully and then answered that they thought they could mend him so he would be as good as ever. So they set to work in one of the big yellow rooms of the castle and worked for three days and four nights, hammering and twisting and bending and soldering and polishing and pounding at the legs and body and head of the Tin Woodman, until at last he was straightened out into his old form, and his joints worked as well as ever. To be sure, there were several patches on him, but the tinsmiths did a good job, and as the Woodman was ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... a dejected face, stood revolving these thoughts, and polishing the Midshipman, partly in the tenderness of old acquaintance, and partly in the absence of his mind, a knocking at the shop-door communicated a frightful start to the frame of Rob the Grinder, seated on the counter, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... ever been perfect enough for such an exertion, it would have soared high enough also to have abstained from it. It may have been that Cicero knew well enough beforehand what the day was about to produce, so as to have prepared his reply. It may well have been that he himself undertook the polishing of his speech before it was given to the public in the words which we now read. We may, I think, take it for granted that Piso did make an attack upon him, and that Cicero answered him at once with words which crushed him, and which are not unfairly represented ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... wanted to go in spite of Mildred's uncertainty, so R. S. V. P.'s were sent P. D. Q. and old Billy got busy greasing harness and polishing the coach so that his equipage might be fit for the first lady of the land to go ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... strongly represented to the dealer the impossibility of selling his diamond at the price he hoped for, and the loss he would suffer in cutting it into different pieces, that at last he made him reduce the price to two millions, with the scrapings, which must necessarily be made in polishing, given in. The bargain was concluded on these terms. The interest upon the two millions was paid to the dealer until the principal could be given to him, and in the meanwhile two millions' worth of jewels were ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... efforts to present me with a copy of the precious edition of "The Sabine Farm." They profited by my advice, however, and postponed publication for two years, Field and his brother Roswell in the meantime working assiduously in making new paraphrases of Horace and in polishing the old ones. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... goodness gracious! such a poky little house, with the stairs going right up in the room, and such a tiny, stuffy bedroom! I tried to fancy mamma's scent bottles, and brushes, and combs, and the box for polishing her nails, transported to that room, and her in there with Rosalie dressing her hair. It made me laugh till I cried, and I think papa did actually cry, for he sat down upon the stairs and turned his head away, and when he looked up his eyes were all wet and red, with such a sorry ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... business at the northern end of the desert; in other words, that we should shortly be on the move again. And for once the prophets were right, for suddenly there was a great to-do in the camp; such a polishing of guns and a burnishing of stirrup-irons and bits and chains, such a cleaning of harness and saddlery ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... another would-be godfather for whom you, naturally, have no earthly use. And to-day my heart is filled with remorse and my head is filled with fears lest you should think your dear godchild is ungrateful, fickle, and flighty. I want to tell you how every detail of your life—from knob-polishing and bug-swallowing to poetry-writing is dear and precious to me. How I wish I could do the same! How I live in eager expectation of your letters; how I gloat and ponder over them when they come; and how deep is the gloom into which I am plunged when they do not come! Mr. ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... purified of such tricks. These alterations are characteristic of Locker's literary method. He was keenly critical of himself—"never," says Mr Birrell, "could mistake good verses for bad"—and was therefore always changing and polishing his work, adding here, pruning there. Thus only eight poems from the 1857 volume form part of the "London Lyrics" of 1893, and only five of these—"Bramble-Rise," "Piccadilly," "The Pilgrims of Pall Mall," "Circumstance," "The Widow's Mite"—have maintained their ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... polishing glasses behind the tiny bar. He was an elderly man with a pink clean-shaven face and the initials P. S. were embroidered on the collar of his starched jacket. There was an air of evident pride in his bearing as he listened to ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... there was no help for it, since they were virtually prisoners. The day passed slowly, and toward noon storm drew down on the harbor and snow eddied in their casement. With that, they fell to polishing their weapons; Brian procured a razor and a much-needed shave, and Cathbarr furbished up his huge ax until ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... homes, neither better nor worse. Yet, with all the disadvantages of ungenial homes, men may practice self-culture of manner as of intellect, and learn by good examples to cultivate a graceful and agreeable behavior towards others. Most men are like so many gems in the rough, which need polishing by contact with other and better natures, to bring out their full beauty and lustre. Some have but one side polished, sufficient only to show the delicate graining of the interior; but to bring out the full qualities of ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... calm, and the sun shone brightly. "We'll have fog to-night," observed Dumsby to Brand, pausing in the operation of polishing a reflector, in which his fat face was mirrored with the most indescribable and ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... annexation, and polishing savages off the face of creation there has been a great deal, and who can deny that humanity has been the gainer? It seems to those who look widely back over history, that all such works have been carried on ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the lower story uncovered in reality; but the driver and his tail were too drunk to observe this, and the former continued to lay on and laugh, while one of his people stood by in all the gravity of drunkenness, counting, as a first Lieutenant does, when a poor fellow is polishing at the gangway,— "Twenty—twenty—one twenty—two"—and so on, while the patient roared you, an it were any thing but a nightingales At length he broke away from the men who held him, after receiving a most sufficient ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... round my neck Colonel John Mohune's locket, and at first wore it next myself, but finding it black the skin, put it between shirt and body-jacket. And there by dint of wear it grew less black, and showed a little of the metal underneath, and at last I took to polishing it at odd times, until it came out quite white and shiny, like the pure silver that it was. Elzevir had seen this locket when he put me to bed the first time I came to the Why Not? and afterwards I told him whence I got it; but though we had it out more than once of an evening, we could ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... of clear glass and fit a cork or rubber stopper to it. Then wash the bottle thoroughly and dry it, finally polishing the inside with a piece of soft cloth or tissue paper. Place one ounce of cyanide of potassium into the bottle and pour in enough dry sawdust to cover the lumps of poison. Then wet some plaster of paris until it is the consistency of thick ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... Clem had formed other and more profitable connections. From a doer of odd jobs of wood-sawing, house-cleaning, and stove-polishing he had risen to the dignity of a market gardener. A small house and a large garden a block away from my place were now rented by him. Also he caught fish, snared rabbits, gathered the wild fruits in their seasons, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... thinking of two nations are so totally different, why should there be so painful an effort to polish a subject founded on the manners of the one, with the manners of the other? What is allowed to remain after this polishing process will always exhibit a striking incongruity with that which is new- modelled, and to change the whole is either impossible, or in nowise preferable to a new invention. The Grecian tragedians certainly allowed themselves a great latitude in changing the circumstances ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... the present century the method generally adopted for polishing furniture was by rubbing with beeswax and turpentine or with linseed-oil. That process, however, was never considered to be very satisfactory, which fact probably led to experiments being made for the discovery of an improvement. The first intimation of success in this direction ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead
... dazzled. Sam, the tall ostler, was polishing a curb-chain with sand; the lantern at his feet letting up spouts of candle-light through the holes with which its ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and glittered in all its accustomed cleanliness and order. Scrubbing and polishing were cheap amusements, and nobody grudged them to Waitstill. No tables in Riverboro were whiter, no tins more lustrous, no pewter brighter, no brick hearths ruddier than hers. The beans and brown bread and Indian pudding ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... missing, and the passage of time had but added to the remembered charm of the place. Even the chair into which he sank had a familiar feel, as if his back had long ago fitted to those simple, comfortable lines. The antique candelabra—how often had he watched his grandmother's fingers polishing ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... from the eruptive madness of primordial barbarism, the scepticism of classical civilisation is forever polishing and fortifying. Through the pearl-like glass of its inviolable security we are able to mock the tempest-driven eagles and the swirling glacial storms. We can amuse ourselves with the illusions from ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... ferruginous matter alone. Hand specimens fail to give a just idea of these brown burnished stones which glitter in the sun's rays. They occur only within the limits of the tidal waves; and as the rivulet slowly trickles down, the surf must supply the polishing power of the cataracts in the great rivers. In like manner, the rise and fall of the tide probably answer to the periodical inundations; and thus the same effects are produced under apparently different but really similar circumstances. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... to the door, and from that together they went in to their father's study. Ellen was left alone on the lawn. Something was the matter; for she stood with swimming eyes and a trembling lip, rubbing her stirrup, which really needed no polishing, and forgetting the tired horses, which would have had her sympathy at any other time. What was the matter? Only that Mr. John had forgotten the kiss he always gave her on going or coming. Ellen was jealous of it as a pledge of sistership, and could not want it; and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... term the small delicate rods of vitreous substance, with which the wonders of the art are achieved. But inside of the palace are some two hundred artisans at work,—cutting the smalts and glass into the minute fragments of which the mosaics are made, grinding and smoothing these fragments, polishing the completed works, and reproducing, with incredible patience and skill, the lights and shadows of the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... dusty surface of the glass Barrie saw her own figure dimly reflected, like a form moving stealthily in water beneath thin ice. It half frightened her, like seeing a spirit, and she brought the gliding ghost to life by polishing the glass. This gave her back suddenly the only friend she had, herself, and she was glad of the companionship. Close to the huddled furniture stood a large trunk, a Noah's Ark of a trunk. Perhaps it was old-fashioned, but compared to other luggage stored here ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was putting the finishing touches to a table which already looked like a big jewel. The doorman turned me over to the butler, and I passed with the butler on back to where several waiters were busy polishing and assorting table utensils. Without being asked whether I was hungry or not, I was placed at a table and given something to eat. Before I had finished eating, I heard the laughter and talk of the guests who were ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... restrained by some hidden power traceable to the influence of Helen and partly by his desire to retrieve himself in the estimation of the world, but mainly because of some hidden force in his own brain, and set to work each time filing and polishing with renewed care of word ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... and polished his little powerful spectacle-lenses. He blew his nose like a salute of one gun in the course of his polishing. When we blow our nose, we hush our pocket-handkerchief back into its home, and ignore it a little. The Baron didn't. He continued polishing on an unalloyed corner through the whole of a very perceptible ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... polishing her spirit measures, looked at him curiously. "You seem mighty pleased about something," she said at last, perhaps a little resentfully, as though feeling that her own rather, full-blown charms deserved ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... supposed to acquire the power of doing so by imitation; hence, no one sings, whistles, or makes other strange or musical sounds resembling those of earthenware under the circumstances above described during the smoothing, polishing, painting, or other processes of finishing. The being thus incited, they think, would surely strive to come out, and would break the vessel in so doing. In this we find a partial explanation of the native belief that ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... expert in panto-mimic action, that in the single moment of answering my request to have a pair of shoes cleaned which I have left up-stairs, she plies imaginary brushes, and goes completely through the motions of polishing the shoes up, and laying them at my feet. I smile at the brisk little woman in perfect satisfaction with her briskness; and the brisk little woman, amiably pleased with me because I am pleased ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... polishing his glasses, his face beaming, watching the water as if fascinated by it. It required no more exertion on Saxon's part to start him than had been required on his part to ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... fluctuating resolves, and at last of his strenuous studies. In a little while he perceived he had it all again; dim perhaps, like metal long laid aside, but in no way defective or injured, capable of re-polishing. And the hue of it was a deepening misery. Was it worth re-polishing? By a miracle he had been lifted out of a life that had ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... the surprise and delight of Yen, volunteered to remain and complete the day's work, urging the sick man to turn in until he felt better. Sam Yen gladly accepted the offer of his kindly disposed countryman, and Ah Moy hurriedly left for his own laundry to get, he said, a very superior polishing iron, promising to return in a few moments. When he found himself on Pennsylvania Avenue near Four-and-a-half Street he entered the tea, spice, and curio ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... until its rough unpleasant edges were all nicely smoothed away and it glittered and shone like the gem that it was. For Roger was an idealist. And so he would have liked to do here. What a gem could be made of Isadore with a little careful polishing. ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... But it took the labour of 250,000 men, who worked, if the story be true, night and day. Along the canal were seen several large encampments of troops, rather rough instruments, it is true, for polishing African savagery into usefulness, but perhaps the only means by which great things could have been done in so short a period as the reign of Mohammed Ali. An Italian fellow-passenger, who had resided in Egypt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... up briefly, it was a very unpleasant moment, and very delighted I was to come to the end of that interminable street, which led to an enormous field stretching away as far as the eye could see. There were rails lying all about here, which men were polishing and filing, &c. I had had quite enough, though, and I asked to be allowed to go back and rest. So we all three returned to ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... you that the pleasure of watching their formation fully repays one for the trouble, if for no other reason than the mere gratification of the senses. From the earliest times and by all races of men, the crystal has been admired and imitated, or improved by cutting and polishing into faces of various substances. I have also procured specimens of steel and iron which show the effect of crystallization, which was produced (perhaps) under known conditions, so that the conclusions which we arrive at from their study will have a fair chance of being logical, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... English agent were still in their rooms,—three pairs of polished shoes outside their several doors bearing silent witness to the fact,—and the only person stirring was a pleasant-faced negro woman with white apron and gay-colored bandana, who was polishing the parlor floor with a long brush, her little pickaninny astraddle on the ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in. In summer-time Rose-Red attended to the house, and every morning, before her mother awoke, placed by her bed a bouquet which had in it a rose from each of the rose-trees. In winter-time Snow-White set light to the fire, and put on the kettle, after polishing it until it was like gold for brightness. In the evening, when snow was falling, her mother would bid her bolt the door, and then, sitting by the hearth, the good widow would read aloud to them from a big book while the little girls were spinning. Close by them lay a lamb, and ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... forgetting their quarrel, stuck the revolvers in their belts and followed the general example. The Cripple hied him to the store, and after breaking down the door abstracted the only blacking-brush in the camp,—putting down a sovereign on the counter in exchange for it,—and set to polishing his high boots as if a fortune depended on their brightness. The Scholar bought Herr Gustav's white shirt for a fiver, threatening to murder its owner if he did not render it up. And Partridge, a good man from Norfolk, with a regrettable ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... to inform you that the man or woman who drinks water from that spring is swallowing millions of tiny flint knives, hard as diamond dust—indeed, diatomaceous earth is used commercially as a polishing powder." ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... placed upon a stone and the workmen would begin to polish it; at first it made no reflection at all, but when polished for awhile would give a distorted and perverted reflection; but in the process of polishing, that reflection would grow clearer and clearer, when finally a man could behold his face in it perfectly reflected. And so with us. When taken into the great spiritual laboratory of Christianity we are blocks in the rough, but in the polishing process of the ...
— The Spirit and the Word - A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational - Interpretation of the Word of Truth • Zachary Taylor Sweeney
... says, and he ain't a-goin' to put himself about, he says, for the likes of you. That's what he says! Ti ridde tol rol ro!" and here the youth indulged in a spitefully cheerful carol as he resumed the polishing ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Things are all piled up on me." Sandford applies a fresh layer of pumice to the swiftly moving polishing wheel, with practised accuracy. "Tell Harry I'm sorry; but business is ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... side, its breath breathed upon his cheek! With a sharp cry he fell to the earth insensible, and knew no more till, far in the noon of the next day, he opened his eyes and found himself in his bed,—the glorious sun streaming through his lattice, and the bandit Paolo by his side, engaged in polishing his carbine, and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... not perceptible in the circle of her guests. Present at a dinner little indicating the last, were Whitmonby, in lively trim for shuffling, dealing, cutting, trumping or drawing trumps; Westlake, polishing epigrams under his eyelids; Henry Wilmers, who timed an anecdote to strike as the passing hour without freezing the current; Sullivan Smith, smoked, cured and ready to flavour; Percy Dacier, pleasant listener, measured speaker; and young Arthur Rhodes, the neophyte of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dream of life. She had at last visited the great London moraine, especially that part of it called Grubb's Court, and had already dug up a few nuggets and diamonds, one of which latter she brought to her humble home in the back street, with the design of polishing it into a good servant-maid. Its name was Netta White. Mrs Stoutley had formerly been a spendthrift; now she was become covetous. She coveted the male diamond belonging to the same part of the moraine—once named the Spider, alias the Imp—but Captain ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... marble and all the processes for cutting and polishing. Minerals of all kinds, natural mineral paints and fertilizers, cement, luminants and waters. Asbestos, mica, coal, coal oil and all the machinery for refining and storing it. Displays for natural gas, petroleum; ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... filled the vast cavern and penetrated to many caverns beyond, where countless thousands of nomes were working at their unending tasks, hammering out gold and silver and other metals, or melting ores in great furnaces, or polishing glittering gems. The nomes trembled at the sound of the King's gong and whispered fearfully to one another that something unpleasant was sure to happen; but none ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... thought!' cried Jack. 'But, speaking of mental jewels, you should see the arrangements Geoff has made for polishing his. He has actually stuck in six large volumes, any one of which would be a remedy for sleeplessness. What are you going to study, Miss ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... down, some of whom wore peaked caps. A little man, old and grey, sat with the fragment of black rock on a low table before him, which Godfrey knew to be the same stone that he had already seen. By him lay graving tools, and he was engaged in polishing the stone, now covered with figures and writing, by help of a stick, a piece of rough cloth and oil. A young man with a curly beard walked into the little courtyard, and to him the old fellow ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... under the name of Cuttle-fish bone: an observant reader may have noticed scores of these plates in glasses labelled Os Sepiae. Reduced to powder, they were formerly used as an absorbent, but they are now chiefly sought after for the purpose of polishing the softer metals. It is however improper to call this plate bone, since, in composition, "it is exactly similar to shell, and consists of various membranes, hardened by carbonate of lime, (the principal material of shell,) without the smallest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... quick-lime, in order to prevent them from tarnishing; and it seems that articles made of polished steel are dipped in lime water, before they are sent into the retail market. But when steel has contracted rust, the method of cleaning and polishing it is to oil the rusty parts, and let it remain in that state two or three days. Then wipe it dry with clean rags, and polish with emery or pumice stone, or hard wood. After the oil is cleared off, a little fresh lime finely powdered ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... early morning. Already the heat in the kitchen was intense. Ma looked hot, but then she was stooping and polishing, and the flies were provoking. Rosebud, in linen overall, still looked cool. Her face was serious enough, which seemed to be the result of some long train of thought. Ma suddenly stopped working to look up, and waved a protesting ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... age of sixty-five, he hastened the end of his life by toiling all by himself day and night at his castings in metal, polishing them himself without calling in any assistance. He died, then, on the 18th of May, 1549, and was given burial by his dearest friend, the goldsmith Giuliano, in the Duomo, where he had executed so many rare works. And he was carried to the tomb by all the craftsmen of his city, which recognized ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... to be the complement of the other. Steele's writings have not the polish or delicate humor of Addison's, but they have more strength and pathos. Addison had the greater genius, and he was also more willing to spend time in polishing his prose and making it artistic. From the far greater interest now shown in Addison, the student should be impressed by the necessity of artistic finish as well as of ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... of using wax for polishing floors, etc., soluble glass is now employed to great advantage. For this purpose the floor is first well cleaned, and then the cracks well filled up with a cement of water-glass and powdered chalk or gypsum. Afterward, a water-glass of 60 to 65 , of the thickness ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... prayer book of Cranmer was set up again, after sundry alterations: it was altered too, in Edward's reign, yet when first made, it was duly declared to come from the 'Holy Ghost;' so it was after its second polishing under Elizabeth. To refuse the Queen's supremacy was death; it was death to continue in that religion, which, at her coronation she had sworn to firmly believe and defend. It was high treason to admit or harbour, or relieve a priest, and hosts of these ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... when the Green Imp got away. Johnny Caruthers had the satisfaction of lighting up the car's lamps—always a joy to him, and particularly so to-night, for even the oil taillight bore witness to his trimming and polishing till its red eye could gleam no brighter. As for the front lamps and the searchlight the Imp's progress would be as down an avenue of brilliance if its driver allowed them all full play ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... in expounding Isa. liv. 12, said, "The Holy One—blessed be He!—will bring precious stones and pearls, each measuring thirty cubits by thirty, and polishing them down to twenty cubits by ten, will place them in the gates of Jerusalem." A certain disciple contemptuously observed, "No one has ever yet seen a precious stone as large as a small bird's egg, and is it likely that such immense ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... Emperor was to hold a review, the soldiers were busily employed polishing their arms and putting everything in order, to conceal as far as possible the destitute condition to which they were reduced. The most imprudent had exchanged their winter clothing for provisions, many had worn out their shoes on the march, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... the cratur alane," said Macleod, as he busied himself polishing up some dim parts of his rifle. "It's no muckle pleesure we're like to hae in this het place. Let the puir thing enjoy his boastin' while ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... come yet, Captain Fishley?" asked an ancient maiden lady, who entered the store while I was polishing ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... Hazel, it's nearly out," she cried, and Miss Fletcher, who had remained behind still polishing her spectacles with hands that were not very steady, felt a little frightened leap of the heart. She wished the Quest ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... post, Wentworth made out two reports, one to McNabb and the other to Orcutt, which he dispatched to the railway by a Company Indian. Late in the afternoon, as he was polishing his instruments in the little cabin, the figure of Sven Larson appeared in the doorway. The engineer motioned him to enter and close the door behind him. "Where is Murchison?" he asked, glancing through the window toward ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... and occasionally one sees a detached Omaric stanza. It all depends upon the thought and the way it is to be expressed. One thing is certain, that the quatrain because of its very brevity demands more care and polishing than a longer piece of verse. The thought must not only be concise and clearly expressed but the four ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... up all interest in his stand to Jimmy Hunt and devoted himself wholly to his brass-polishing business. It outgrew his own time and strength before the New Year, and then he hired boys to work for him, and he spent his time superintending their work and extending his list of employers. He paid the boys as liberally as he could, but he would tolerate no loafing or careless ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... by the division of labor goes so far as to cause the degeneration(382) of the workman's personality, the human loss of the nation is greater than the material gain purchased by it. Thus the occupation of polishing metals or gilding, when continued for a long time without interruption, invariably ruins the health. What must be the aspect of the soul of a workman who, for forty years has done nothing but watch the moment when silver has reached the degree of fusion which ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... breakfast. The chill had been taken off, and by mid-day the sun was in its full power. Each sustained the other by a desperate cheerfulness. When they took their morning walk in the Luxembourg Gardens—what time the blue-aproned Jacques was polishing their waxed floors with his legs for broom-handles—they went into ecstasies over everything, drawing each other's attention to the sky, the trees, the water. And, indeed, of a sunshiny morning it was heartening to sit by the pond and watch ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... in them, people, who are at a distance without doors, would imagine the whole room to be on fire, which is pretty odd, considering there is no material so (as they pretend) unapt to kindle. The larix bears polishing excellently well, and the turners abroad much desire it: Vitruvius says 'tis so ponderous, that it will sink in the water: It also makes everlasting spouts, pent-houses, and featheridge, which needs neither pitch or painting to preserve them; and so excellent pales, posts, rails, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... on his hard exterior. His son, if he left one, might be a little less of the ploughman; his grandson, provided the female element were well chosen, might approach to refinement; three generations—a century at least—would be required for the slow toil of hewing, chiselling, and polishing a gentleman out of this ponderous block, now rough from the quarry of human nature. But, in the mean time, he evidently possessed in an unusual degree the sort of learning that refines other minds,—the critical acquaintance with the great poets and historians of antiquity, and apparently ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be dismissed without loss; for all such more or less obscure the meaning upon which they gather. The first step towards the polishing of most styles is to strike out—polish off—the useless words and phrases. It is wonderful with how many fewer words most things could be said that are said; while the degree of certainty and rapidity with which an idea ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... first did not meet any Reds face to face, she knew them only by the stories that Peter brought home to her when his day's work was done. But each new group that he was hounding became to Gladys an assemblage of incarnate fiends, and while she sat polishing the finger-nails of stout society ladies who were too sleepy to talk, Gladys' busy mind would be working over ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... others take pains and study to the care and knowledge of the same, so physicians judge which meat is wholesome, which noisome. Lawyers declare what is just, what unjust, and in all arts and sciences, they who professedly place their labour and study in the polishing and practising of the same, both use and ought to direct the judgments of others." Since therefore(970) the ministers of the church are those quibus ecclesiae cura incumbit vel maxime, since they do above and before the civil magistrate devote themselves to the ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... amusing episode is that of the Pharisee's drinking operations. We are shown the man polishing his cup, elaborately and carefully; for he lays great importance on the cleanness of his cup; but he forgets to clean the inside. Most people drink from the inside, but the Pharisee forgot it, dirty as it was, and left it untouched. Then he sets about ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... horizontal forehead, watery blue eyes, and a receding chin. Out of "office hours" he looked like a meek solicitor for a Sunday School magazine. One bright morning just as he had finished sweeping out the saloon and was polishing the brass rod on the front of the bar, Mrs. Burke walked in, and extended her hand to the astonished bar-keeper, whose chin dropped from sheer amazement. She introduced herself in the most cordial and sympathetic of ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... their work faithfully according to the editorial standards of their day; and they were well within the latitude allowed them by the terms of Clarendon's instructions when they occasionally omitted a passage, or when they exercised their somewhat prim and cautious taste in altering and polishing phrases that Clarendon had dashed down as quickly as his pen could move.[3] Later editors have restored the omitted passages and scrupulously reproduced Clarendon's own words. But no edition has yet reproduced his spelling. In the characters printed in this volume the attempt is ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... owner of the hut was herself hanging on the edge of life; she was a toothless, bent, and withered old remnant; but her vigor and vivacity were those of a witch. Her hands and eyes were ceaselessly active; she was forever busy, fingering a fish-net, or polishing her Normandy brasses, or stirring some dark liquid in an iron pot over the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... mineral, allied in composition to the sapphire, but containing a varying quantity of iron oxide; is found in large masses; is exceedingly hard, and largely used in polishing metals, plate-glass, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... my book right away," Lark was saying. She and Carol were in the dining-room madly polishing their Sunday shoes,—what time they were not performing the marriage ceremony of their sister ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... each doing its work with more than human ingenuity and precision, the enormous presses reminding her of elephants stamping out pieces of metal, the grinders which sang to her, the drilling machines which whirred to her, the polishing machines which danced for her, the power hammers which bowed to her. Yes, and better than all was the smile that each man gave her, smiles that came from the heart, for all the quiet respect ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... quartered here and in the adjacent farmhouses. General Adam, though he has attained his rank at a very early age, is far more fitted for it than many of our older generals, some of whom (I speak from experience) have few ideas beyond the fixing of a button or lappel, or polishing a belt, and who place the whole Ars recondita of military discipline in pipe-clay, heel-ball and the goose step. Fortunately for this army, the Duke of Wellington has too much good sense to be a martinet ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... meteor to the eyes of Jacob Behmen, and comes to stand to him for truth and faith; and, he believes, should stand for the same realities to every reader. But the first reader prefers as naturally the symbol of a mother and child, or a gardener and his bulb, or a jeweller polishing a gem. Either of these, or of a myriad more, are equally good to the person to whom they are significant. Only they must be held lightly, and be very willingly translated into the equivalent terms which others use. And the mystic must be steadily told,—All ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... day the swanlike daughter of Leda comes out on the battlements, and looks down at the tide of war. The greybeards wonder at her loveliness, and she stands by the side of the king. In his chamber of stained ivory lies her leman. He is polishing his dainty armour, and combing the scarlet plume. With squire and page, her husband passes from tent to tent. She can see his bright hair, and hears, or fancies that she hears, that clear cold voice. In the ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... finally by the fermentation of the still adhering slimy residuum; then the drying and saving by exposure to the sun on trays or on tarpaulins until all moisture is expelled; and the hulling which disintegrates the parchment from the twin berries; then winnowing, and finally the polishing. Do drinkers of the fragrant and exhilarating beverage realise the amount of labour and care involved before the crop is taken off and preserved from deterioration and decay? A few berries that may have become mildewed during the slow, tedious ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Hackett of Canton, Pennsylvania, is scarcely as formidable and menacing as its name, being distinctly friendly and fraternal in its general tone. Mr. Hackett's prose has obviously not received its final polishing, but it is so filled with aspiration, ambition, and enthusiasm for the cause of amateur journalism, that it evidently requires only such development as is obtainable from a closer study of grammar and rhetoric, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... usual scrubbing and shampooing. This, it seems, is the general practice in Finland, and is but another example of the unembarrassed habits of the people in this part of the world. The poorer families go into their bathing-rooms together—father, mother, and children—and take turns in polishing each other's backs. It would have been ridiculous to have shown any hesitation under the circumstances—in fact, an indignity to the honest simple-hearted, virtuous girl—and so we deliberately undressed also. When ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... "Francesca da Rimini" is done,—all but the polishing,—I have time to look around and see how I have been neglecting my friends during my state of "possession." Of course you wish to know my opinion of the bantling; I shall suppose you do, at all events. Well, then, I am better satisfied with "Francesca ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... and any vehicle going in the direction of the show grounds was practically commandeered by the tired but interested troops. They have a partiality, however, for 'M.T.' lorries. For weeks prior to the event, men would spend every available minute polishing chains, cleaning harness, painting vehicles, and grooming horses. Every unit has its admirers and supporters, and all events were ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... embossing press with a rapidity far exceeding that of the hand-work formerly executed by the gilders of books. But for choice books and select jobs, only the hands are employed, with such fillets, stamps, pallets, rolls, and polishing irons as may aid in the nice execution of the work. If a book is to be bound in what is called "morocco antique," it is to be "blind-tooled," i. e.: the hot iron wheels which impress the fillets ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... two things the Doctor seemed to dislike were writing medical papers and speaking in public; anything, in short, which might by any chance give an impression of putting himself forward, was distasteful to him. As for display of any sort, any external polishing, for the purpose of appearing prosperous and thus inviting prosperity, would have been to ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... platinum causes a slight crystallization of the surface which, if not removed, penetrates into the crucible. Gentle polishing of the surface destroys the crystalline structure and prevents further damage. If sea sand is used for this purpose, great care is necessary to keep it from the desk, since beakers are easily scratched by it, and subsequently crack ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... of receiving the Grecian beauties, in his time. Horace and Quintilian could mean no more than that Lucilius writ better than Ennius and Pacuvius, and on the same account we prefer Horace to Lucilius. Both of them imitated the old Greek comedy; and so did Ennius and Pacuvius before them. The polishing of the Latin tongue, in the succession of times, made the only difference; and Horace himself in two of his satires, written purposely on this subject, thinks the Romans of his age were too partial in their commendations of Lucilius, who writ not only loosely and muddily, ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... to find her bed occupied only by the big grey whelp. But she showed no more than momentary surprise and uneasiness, and within the minute was busily engaged in giving Finn his morning tubbing and polishing, after which she disposed herself with great consideration in a position which made nursing an easy delight for Finn, and enabled his assiduous foster-mother to watch the undulations of his fat back, out of the tail of her left eye, while ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... the world's people, save those scientific books which treat of propriety of diction. No idle or vain stories shall be rehearsed, no unnecessary labor shall be performed—not even the cooking of food, the ablution of the body, the cutting of the hair, beard, or nails, the blacking and polishing of shoes or boots. All these things must be performed on Saturday, or postponed till the subsequent week. All fruit, eaten upon the Sabbath, must be earned to the dwelling-house on Saturday. But the dormitories may be arranged, the cows milked, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... goat, which he indeed surprising once on a time in ambush, as it was coming out of a cavern, struck, aiming at it beneath the breast; but it fell supine on the rock. Its horns had grown sixteen palms from its head; and these the horn-polishing artist, having duly prepared, fitted together, and when he had well smoothed all, added a golden tip. And having bent the bow, he aptly lowered it, having inclined it against the ground; but his excellent companions held their ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... days which elapsed before the memorable 22nd of June passed very quickly, and we were all more or less busy making preparations for the festival. His Majesty would insist upon polishing up his regalia himself in order to do honour to the occasion, and spent hours over his crown with a piece of chamois leather and some whitening till, though somewhat battered by the rough usage it had sustained, it shone quite ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... on Metals for Telescopes.—I shall feel obliged if any of your correspondents can inform me where I can find a paper, called "Directions for making the best Composition for the Metals of reflecting Telescopes, and the Method of grinding, polishing, and giving the great Speculum the true parabolic figure," by ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... he became first a gardener's assistant, then a gentleman's servant; in this occupation he saved some money with which he apprenticed himself to french polishing. From apprentice to journeyman, from journeyman to business on his own account, were successive steps; he married, and that brought him among ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... in the garden almost all the day. It is alive with sunshine and spring; and I have been composing two scenes of you know what, and polishing the verses which the Page sings in the fourth act, under Sybilla's window, which she cannot hear, poor thing, because she has just ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that surprised animal such a curry-combing and polishing as she had not suffered in many a day. Sheila rode with Prudence on the rear seat of ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... the shoeshining stand on Ninety-sixth Street, looking over the Sunday papers. Very odd, in the adjoining chairs men are busily engaged polishing shoes that have nobody in them, not visibly, at any rate. Perhaps Sir Oliver is right after all. While we are not watching, the beaming Italian has inserted a new pair of laces for us. Long afterward, at bedtime, we find that he has threaded them in that ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... also as busy as a bee all the time, scrubbing the floors, cleaning the paint, and polishing the brass-work. When the boat was ready to return to Port Rock, she was in condition to receive her furniture. She was launched early in the morning, and Ethan proceeded at once to get up steam. Both of the boys were in the highest state of expectancy ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... before a savant of the Institut de France, Leon Foucault, had just invented means by which the polishing of object-glasses became very prompt and easy by replacing the metallic mirror by taking a piece of glass the size ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... out, Lord Virzal?" Olirzon asked. He had a piece of soft leather, now, and was polishing his ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... in a horse, we should first learn all we can about the disposition and temper of the animal both in and out of the stable. Given a sound foundation to work upon, that is to say, a placid generous tempered horse, we may confidently set to work in polishing up his manners as may be required, but with the sullen brutes I have described, it is a useless task. We find much the same thing in some human beings. George Moore, in his novel, Esther Waters, graphically depicts the sullen obstinacy of a low class of ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... traders. Plato, called the Divine by reason of the excellence of his wisdom, defrayed his traveling expenses in Egypt by the profits derived from the oil which he sold during his journey. Spinoza maintained himself by polishing glasses while he pursued his philosophical investigations. Linnaeus, the great botanist, prosecuted his studies while hammering leather and making shoes. Shakespeare was the successful manager of a theatre—perhaps priding himself more upon his practical ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... and died for an idea, as we do. Yet all the time, a time ages long, the utmost help they had found for the bare and unaided hand was the serrated edge of a splintered flint, or the chance-found fragment beside a stream that nature, in a thousand or a million years of polishing, had shaped into the rude semblance of a hammer or a pestle. All men have in their time burned and scraped and fashioned all they needed with an astonishing faculty of making it answer their needs. They ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... felt sadly cramped and almost stifled without being the wiser for all the trouble he had taken. The Frenchmen were there; but first Tom Marline came below, and then Hartland, and then the black; and the Frenchmen sat on the lockers cutting out beef bones into various shapes and polishing them. ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston |
