"Tassel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... upon moraines or crumbling ledges, wherever it can obtain a foothold, to an elevation of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet, where it dwarfs to a mass of crumpled, prostrate branches, covered with slender, upright shoots, each tipped with a short, close-packed tassel of leaves. The bark is smooth and purplish, in some places almost white. The fertile cones grow in rigid clusters upon the upper branches, dark chocolate in color while young, and bear beautiful pearly seeds about ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... his cap-tassel, which fell over by his whisker, and continued: "Well, I am very sorry. In fact, I had something for him here."—Then drawing nearer, "you see, he applied to me for relief, no, I do him injustice, not that, but he began to intimate, you understand. Well, being ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... us scouts, I thought all strangers to me, put up at an old gentleman's house. I took him for a Catholic priest. His head was shaved and he had on a loose gown like a lady's dress, and a large cord and tassel tied around his waist, from which dangled a large bunch of keys. He treated us very kindly and hospitably, so far as words and politeness went, but we had to eat our own rations and sleep on ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... from a nap, and setting in order his dress, and singed hair, bore no other signs of injury beyond a scratch on the left cheek, and the loss of his scarlet woollen cap. The Norwegian, however, has to thank Heaven for a narrow escape, since the whole charge of his gun struck the tassel of his cap, and changed that memento of spousal devotion into its ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... velvet, which he seldom wore about college, though it was very becoming to him, its long skirts falling nearly to his feet, while its ample folds were gathered about his waist, and secured with cord and tassel. His feet were thrust into neat slippers, and his collar rolled over a flowing black cravat a la Corsaire. His long hair, which was just now longer than usual, was evenly parted in the middle, like a girl's, and, combed out straight, fell ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... kitchen to the fellows' table, and to wait in the hall until that body had dined. His very dress marked the inferiority of the "poor student" to his happier classmates. It was a black gown of coarse stuff without sleeves, and a plain black cloth cap without a tassel. We can conceive nothing more odious and ill-judged than these distinctions, which attached the idea of degradation to poverty, and placed the indigent youth of merit below the worthless minion of fortune. They were calculated to wound and irritate the noble mind, and to ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... on the Cushion pile in the corner, her chin resting on his shoulder and her left hand playing idly with a long gold tassel. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... which means capital of the Buriats, were two typical Mongols with pigtails and clad in skins. One of them was wearing an official tassel attached to his skin hood, but no official button to show his rank. To-day saw a flock of larks, a hawk and a magpie. From daylight till dark, during which time we travelled a distance of perhaps 300 miles, there was no vestige of either ...
— Through Siberia and Manchuria By Rail • Oliver George Ready
... corn, the elm, and the maple all produce seed, but have no flower." No, that is not correct. If you look closely you will find in the spring very small flowers on the elm and on the maple, while the ear and the tassel are really the blossoms of the corn plant. Every plant that produces seed has flowers, although they may sometimes ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... clamorous, they kept jumping around me at the distance of a few yards, only one little cur, about ten inches long, having spirit enough to make a direct assault. He dashed valiantly at the leather tassel which in the Dakota fashion was trailing behind the heel of my moccasin, and kept his hold, growling and snarling all the while, though every step I made almost jerked him over on his back. As I knew that the eyes of the whole village were on the watch to see if I showed any sign of apprehension, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... see him. He began to expect almost painfully the moment when she would look up, though what there was to expect—! He thought of what she would see when she discovered him, and wondered where the tassel of his cap might be hanging—it sometimes occluded one eye. It was of course quite impossible to put up a hand and investigate. He was near trembling with excitement. His paces, acts which are usually ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... stone dead in the lists, he will be drawn forth of them by the heels, and without further ceremony knitted up to the gallows, as convicted of the murder; and when he hath swung there like a loose tassel for an hour or so, I think thou wilt hardly take it in hand to cure his ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Sleepy Hollow," Irving thus describes the hero (?), Ichabod Crane, and the heroine, Katrina Van Tassel: ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... the Morning." I wrote yesterday to Mitchell, the actor and manager at New York, to get and send me a comic wig, light flaxen, with a small whisker halfway down the cheek; over this I mean to wear two night-caps, one with a tassel and one of flannel; a flannel wrapper, drab tights and slippers, will ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... burghers of Rotterdam. As to the shape of the phenomenon, it was even still more reprehensible. Being little or nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside down. And this similitude was regarded as by no means lessened when, upon nearer inspection, there was perceived a large tassel depending from its apex, and, around the upper rim or base of the cone, a circle of little instruments, resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a continual tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But still worse. Suspended ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... yes," cried the professor, putting on his fez again, and making a vicious dab at the tassel, which was tickling his neck, but subsided quietly between his shoulders after it had done swinging. "He has something to say to everything. Too much talk. It wouldn't do. The Baggara are as keen as their swords: they'd ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... you," assented the Prince, fingering the scarlet tassel of the cushion whereon he sat. "I reckoned confidently that you would come to visit me when I sent Hiram to you. Yes—I have heard the story that is on your tongue: one of Themistocles's busybodies has brought a rumour that a certain ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... peering uncertainly. The man wore his hat, from which slanted a slender heron's plume; his shoulders were square; his thighs slim and graceful. Against the light, one caught the outline of the sash's tassel and the fringe of ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... see the face of the child, its humorous anger, its wilful triumph, and also the enraged look of the Bailly as he raked the stream with his long stick, tied with a sort of tassel of office. Presently he saw the child turn at the call of a woman in the Place du Vier Prison, who appeared to apologise to the Bailly, busy now drying his recovered hat by whipping it through the air. The lad on the hill recognised the woman as the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... than yesterday, while we were on the river, and as you were pointing out to Miss Merton the forts in the Highlands, that I thought you would make one of the handsomest couples in the state—and, moreover, I told her—bless me, how this corn grows! The plants will be in tassel in a few days, and the crop must turn out most beneficent—truly, truly—there is a providence in all things; for, at first, I was for putting the corn on yonder hill-side, and the potatoes here; but old Hiram was led by some ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... young man in the room, but Sara Lee had not noticed him. He was a tall, very blond young man, in a dark-blue Belgian uniform with a quaint cap which allowed a gilt tassel to drop over his forehead. He sat on a sofa, curling up the ends of a very small mustache, his legs, in cavalry boots, crossed and extending a ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... each man with two light sculls, and they sit lightly on thwarts on the same level with the gunwale of the caique. Their costume is beautiful; the head covered with the crimson tarbouche, and the long silk tassel dangling over the shoulders; a loose vest of striped silk and cotton, fine as gauze, with wide open collar, and loose flowing sleeves; a brilliant-colored shawl envelops the waist, and huge folds of Turkish trousers extend to the knee; the leg is bare, and a yellow slipper finishes ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... appeared twice its natural dimensions. The throat was bare to the collar-bones. A huge wig covered the head, falling over the shoulders; while the whole was encircled by a great wreath of pink calico roses, the back of which, just under the nape of the neck, was fastened by a glittering pinchbeck tassel. The arms were nude, their natural growth of dark hair being plastered over with white chalk, which had a singularly ghastly effect; a short-skirted, low-necked gold frock, cut like a little girl's, ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... the queen of flowers and as the finest expression of sentiment. But here comes a flaunting thing with no desirable perfume, looking as if it were cut with scissors out of tissue-paper, but capable of taking infinite varieties of color, and growing as big as a curtain tassel, that literally captures the world, and spreads all over the globe, like the Canada thistle. The florists have no eye for anything else, and the biggest floral prizes are awarded for the production of its eccentricities. Is the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... little lamps, fed by mouldy oil; and all the way up that waltz rang in Nobili's ear. It mounted to his brain like fumes of new wine tapped from the skin. A green door of faded baize faced him on the upper landing, and another bell—a red tassel fastened to a bit of whipcord. He rang it hastily. This time a servant came promptly. He carried in his hand ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... won't go to Mrs Sawyer's to-night?" said Miss Lyons, who had thrown herself at full length upon a couch, and was idly teazing the baby with the tassel of her muff. "How provoking you are! You might as well be dead as married! It's well for your husband that I'm not in your place. Why, every one's talking about it, my child, how you are cooped up here, and Willis at the club-house night after night. Morgan told me ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... said Rodney, "the Buddah seated! An enormous head! The smoking-cap and the tassel ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... become involved in controversy with Georgia on account of a series of acts which that State had passed extending its jurisdiction over the Cherokee Indians in violation of the national treaties with this tribe. In Corn Tassel's case, the appellant from the Georgia court to the United States Supreme Court was hanged in defiance of a writ of error from the Court. In Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia, the Court itself held that it had no jurisdiction. ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... which no gentleman can lend his countenance. They are a shabby and mangy compromise for mustachios, and are principally sported by the genus of clerks, who, having strong hirsute predilections, small salaries, and sober-minded masters, hang a tassel on the chin instead of a vallance on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Yes, numb: that was the worst of it! The violence of the reaction had been too great, and she could hardly understand what he was saying. Instead, she noticed that the tassel of the window-blind was torn off again (oh, those children!), and vaguely wondered if his luggage were safe on the waiting taxi. One heard ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... beseeching look. Did he also altogether scorn her? That was now the inquiry which her eyes were called upon to make. No; she could not say that he did. It seemed to her that his energies were chiefly occupied in pulling to pieces the tassel ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope
... nose against. It had in fact, as he was now aware, filled all the approaches, hovered in the court as he passed, hung on the staircase as he mounted, sounded in the grave rumble of the old bell, as little electric as possible, of which Chad, at the door, had pulled the ancient but neatly-kept tassel; it formed in short the clearest medium of its particular kind that he had ever breathed. He would have answered for it at the end of a quarter of an hour that some of the glass cases contained swords and epaulettes of ancient colonels and generals; medals and orders once pinned over hearts that ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... on his new acquaintance quite often. It soon became evident that Krafft lived in what might be called decent poverty. The one fine rig-out in which he made his public appearances was most carefully preserved. Indoors he always promptly assumed a dressing-gown, a skull cap with a gold tassel, and his great porcelain pipe. His meals he cooked for himself. Never did he leave his house until about three o'clock. Then, spick and span, exquisitely appointed, he sauntered forth swinging his malacca cane. After a promenade of several hours he returned again to his dressing-gown, his porcelain ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... further inquiries. From Daisy's point of view, he seemed to be standing motionless, but in reality he was quite unconsciously, though very deliberately, pulling the tassel of the ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... his shoulders and painstakingly smoothed the hair tassel which dangled from the browband. The Spaniard had owned a fine eye for effect when he chose jet black trappings for Surry, who was white to ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... their story-tellers invented various tales, in which this idea is symbolized under the form of a special gift from the Great Spirit. The Odjibwa-Algonquins, who call it Mon-da-min, that is, the Spirit's grain or berry, have a pretty story of this kind, in which the stalk in full tassel is represented as descending from the sky, under the guise of a handsome youth, in answer to the prayers of a young man at his fast of virility, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the trees, Of cedar-web and green fir tassel; Low did the pointed pine tops rustle, The camp fire blush'd ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... sold antiquities, selling new ones when the supply of the old happened to fail. Nothing about him, however, smacked of the vulgar exploiter of strangers. He wore a red felt fez from which hung a long blue silk tassel; under the narrow edge of an inner linen cap showed his temples, evidently recently shaved. His olive complexion, his black eyebrows, his hooked nose, his eyes like those of a bird of prey, his big moustaches, his chin almost divided into two parts ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... small worsted tassel of Judith's blue sweater free from its tangle with her shoe lace, then she poked her dimpled ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... and the high wainscoting against which, the old mahogany came out so well; and he liked the mahogany itself, which was in quaint and graceful shapes. The dimity curtains, too, with their ball and tassel fringe, were of such a fresh clear white. They had never been dirty, they never could be dirty, the young doctor thought; some things must always be fresh and clean; like that girl's dresses. He was sitting in his favourite chair; a chair that stimulated ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... there was no sign, but he noticed that the tassel at the end of the window blind cord was ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... yet unspoiled for you, you wait, expectant— you are like the children who haunt your own steps for chance bits—a comb that may have slipped, a gold tassel, unravelled, plucked from your scarf, twirled by your slight fingers into ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle
... caped cassock was black, with purple buttons and a purple cincture. He noticed that his shoes shone with gold buckles; he glanced at his breast, but no cross hung there. He took off his biretta, nervously, lest some one should notice, and perceived that it was black with a purple tassel. He was dressed then, it seemed, in the costume of a Domestic Prelate. He ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... de sassafras tassel, an' de young shoot o' de co'n, An' de young gal er-singing in de loom, Dey's somefin' 'licious in 'em f'om de day 'at dey is bo'n, An' dis darky's sort o' took ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... appearance not unlike an American wheat or oat harvest in early summer. Bigger fields of head-high sugarcane at intervals, the upper two feet green, the blades below yellow and dry. Some young corn, some of it tasselling, some that will not be in tassel before the last of {156} January. Some fields of peanuts. Here and there a damp low-ground and a sluggish river. Boats on the rivers: small freight boats of a primitive type and long canoes hewed out ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... wrists, like a coat. A handsome scarf of the same materials, which hangs over the shoulders, and extends to the feet, is always worn with the scarlet and black gowns. A square black cloth cap, with silk tassel, completes the costume. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... Doctor. I'll try my best to take care. Why, of course I will,—for John's sake." She looked up into his face from the tassel she was twisting around her finger, touching the floor with her ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane, As a little wind comes in. The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd Scooped out and dry, where a spider, Folded in its legs as in a bed, Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... but almost in the action his face recovered itself. He wore a gray wool night-cap, and its tassel hung down over one ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... of their presence, to arrange flowers there with a smiling and pensive countenance. She had other little playful public pastimes: she would get her kitten from the house, and induce it to sit on the table while she diverted it with the tassel of the blind, and she would kiss it on its sweet little sooty head, or she would write letters in the window, or play Patience there, and then suddenly become aware that there was no end of ladies and gentlemen looking at her. Sometimes ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... sometimes Notchy, for his whole bald head was notched with scars. His real name was Rembajlo, but no one knew his coat of arms; he called himself the Warden, because years ago he had held that office in the castle. And he still wore a great bunch of keys at his girdle, on a band with a silver tassel, though he had nothing to open with them, for the gates of the castle stood gaping wide. However he had found two folding doors, which he had repaired and set up at his own expense, and he amused himself daily with unlocking ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... Cambridge, where fellow commoners are not in general considered as over full of learning. At Oxford an empty bottle is called a gentleman commoner for the same reason. They pay at Cambridge 250 l. a year for the privilege of wearing a gold or silver tassel to their caps. The younger branches of the nobility have the privilege of wearing a hat, and from thence are denominated HAT ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... a level with the high narrow mantelpiece, upon which glittered a row of small tin canisters. Suddenly he turned to the corner to the right of the range, where, next to an oak cupboard, a velvet Turkish smoking cap depended from a nail. He put on the cap, of which the long tassel curved down to his ear. Then he faced her again, putting his hands behind him, and raising himself at intervals on his small, well-polished toes. She lifted her two hands simultaneously to her head, and began to draw pins from her hat, which pins she placed one after another between her lips. Then ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... red band; after that a sort of bag that ended in a cardboard polygon covered with complicated braiding, from which hung, at the end of a long thin cord, small twisted gold threads in the manner of a tassel. The cap was new; its ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... into a path that led up home from the river, and they stopped to rest on a cliff that sank in a solid black wall straight under them. The sharp edge of a steep corn-field ran near, and, stripped of blade and tassel, the stalks and hooded ears looked in the coming dusk a little like monks at prayer. In the sunlight across the river the corn stood thin and frail. Over there a drought was on it; and when drifting thistle-plumes marked the noontide of the year, each yellow stalk had withered blades ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... on which the first stands and the man who supports the other are both marked with the tassel symbol of Plate LX. There is a certain rude resemblance between the supplementary head of this beast and the pendant in front of the belt of Fig. 52. Four of these beasts supply rain to the earth with Tlaloc in Plate XXVI of the MS. Troano. The infant ...
— Studies in Central American Picture-Writing • Edward S. Holden
... first introduce the child to Mr. Corn, the tassel, waving proudly and majestically in the breezes, and seeming to say: "I am master of all I survey." The little fellow is filled with wonderment as he learns how the clouds give up their drops of water to quench his thirst and how the sun smiles upon him to yellow his beard; and how the wonderful ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... know his manner of driving. The boy who sits in front of him and below him on the champion's seat I do not know, but he shines like a star in the cloud of dust and steam." Then a young man who stood near to Conall Carna, wearing a short, red cloak with a blue hood to it, and a tassel at the point of ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... rich man's son at Niagara Falls. I came in from the lecture to the hotel, and as I approached the desk of the clerk there stood a millionaire's son from New York. He was an indescribable specimen of anthropologic potency. He had a skull-cap on one side of his head, with a gold tassel in the top of it, and a gold-headed cane under his arm with more in it than in his head. It is a very difficult thing to describe that young man. He wore an eye-glass that he could not see through, patent-leather boots that he could not walk ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... him at times!—has white calves, for he wrapped surgical bandages round his leg-cloths to preserve them, a snowy souvenir at his latter end of the cotton cap at the other, which protrudes below his helmet and is left behind in its turn by a saucy red tassel. Poterloo has been walking about for a month in the boots of a German soldier, nearly new, and with horseshoes on the heels. Caron entrusted them to Poterloo when he was sent back on account of his arm. Caron had taken them himself from a Bavarian machine-gunner, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... from the Koran and the Mahdi's sayings, was upheld by his Mulazimin. It flew, spread out, flaunting in the wind, acclaimed by his followers. The flag was about two yards square, and was supported on a 20-feet bamboo pole, ornamented at top with a silver bowl and spandrel, as well as a tassel. The force marching with it must have numbered 20,000 armed men, besides servants and followers. His son, Osman, known as Sheikh Ed Din, and the nominal commander-in-chief of the dervish armies, led into battle a division of the Jehadieh (riflemen) and ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... the Rose that blows about us—"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow: At once the silken Tassel of my Purse Tear, and its ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam
... bird," miahua being the term applied to the silk or tassel of the maize ear when in the milk. I have not found its ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... straight rowed, deep-grained ears. Remove the tips and butts. Shell each ear separately and plant in separate rows, marked and numbered from one to ten. As soon as the corn in these rows begins to tassel go through them every few days and remove the tassel from every stalk that is not forming an ear; so that the pollen or tassel dust of the barren stalk may not fall on the silks ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... flowed forth to them in kindness. And they, from their small and high perches in the clerestories of the wood cathedral, peered down sidelong at the ragged Princess as she flitted below them on the carpet of the moss and tassel. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... above the abdomen which meets the first at the back; between the two the body is covered in front by a network which is held there by the bands, and at the back there are merely two large cords, each having a tassel.[55] ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... in my own little room with the prim black walnut bedroom suit, the prize-books in a row on the corner shelf, the worn rug made from the minister's calf that I shot by mistake, and my father's sword, with its faded tassel, over my bed. By some odd chance all my dreams that night were of those boyish days, and it was with sincere surprise that I stared on waking at my long moustache, in the toilet mirror—we were not so universally ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... think I will call him Jock." The others assented, and the puppy was solemnly informed of the fact, and received a chicken-bone in honor of the occasion. Then the three friends ate their dinner, and very merry they were over it. Hildegarde crowned Pink with the pine-tassel wreath, and declared that she looked ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... the children entered the yard a little man came in at the gate. And this little man had a red face, and a very imposing red nose which he always held cocked up in the air. He wore a square cap of no particular color with a tassel in front, and a long-tailed, loose, gray linen-coat. He always kept his feet turned out in an exaggerated first position which made his short legs look as if they were fastened to his body in the wrong way. He had striped ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... defined oratory the other day," said Galt, "as the fringe with which the inhabitants of the Southern States still delighted to trim their politics—so I should call the gentleman of to-day 'a political tassel.' He's ornamental and he hangs by ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... coat; and with his hair tucked up under his Montero-cap, which he had furbished up for the occasion, marched three paces distant from his master; a whiff of military pride had puffed out his shirt at the wrist; and upon that, in a black leather thong clipt into a tassel beyond the knot, hung the Corporal's stick. My uncle Toby carried his cane like ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... exclaimed with a start, and then, raven-like, "nothing more." I played with the tassel of the window-curtain and wondered how I should ever get on without this aunt, the dearest, bravest and handsomest woman in all the world—to me. She was thirty-six years old, just ten years older than myself, for by a happy coincidence our birthdays fell ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... permitted themselves such candours; to all appearance their discussion had its usual equable quality, and I am certain that Arnold was not even aware of the tension upon his nerves. He fidgeted with the tassel of his ceinture, and she watched his moving fingers. Presently she spoke quietly, in a ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... his uncle; "but not worth much, either for timber, ornament, or shade. You wouldn't get much relief from the heat under the poor shadow of their tassel-like foliage." ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... newspaper. Next came a large cut-glass inkstand, with a long piece of string fastened to the lid. There was a bit of broken glass and a sort of flexible cardboard, reduced to shreds. Lastly, there was a piece of bright scarlet silk, ending in a tassel of the ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... this careful mother has completed a beautiful little teepee of the skin of a buffalo calf, worked with red porcupine quills in a row of rings just below the smoke-flaps and on each side of the front opening. In the center of each ring is a tassel of red and white horse-hair. The tip of each smoke-flap is decorated with the same material, ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... crossed a ferry on the Ashley River, and rode down the sand of Charlestown neck. And my most vivid remembrance is of the great trunks towering half a hundred feet in the air, with a tassel of leaves at the top, which my father said were palmettos. Something lay heavy on his mind. For I had grown to know his moods by a sort of silent understanding. And when the roofs and spires of the town shone over ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... first run with the hounds, his chubby cheek scratched from forehead to jaw, and the bloodstained pad of a cub fox in his little gloved hand. She saw him sauntering into her room the last day of the 1880 match at Lord's, with a battered top-hat, a blackened eye, and a cane with a light-blue tassel. She saw him deadly pale with tightened lips that afternoon after he had escaped from her, half cured of laryngitis, and stolen out shooting by himself, and she remembered his words: "Well, Mother, I couldn't stand it any longer; it ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of resentment lingered in his tone. The mirth died out of the girl's eyes. She returned his bow quietly, leaned forward and touched the colt with the tassel of her whip. The ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... four walls of breathing death that were now closing around them there was one slender possibility of escape. It was not a hope. No. It was just a futile little tassel on the fringe of life. Still it was to be played with to the last. For that again is the law, applying equally to this bishop and to the little hunted furry things that ran through the grass by his ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... school-master, whose conspicuous bones clattered at any mention of ghosts, encountered the Headless Horseman pounding by night through the little Dutch village. It was after a quilting bee at Farmer Van Tassel's, where his daughter Katrina and what would come with her in the shape of fat farm-lands and well-stocked barns, aroused Ichabod's affections to the boiling point. He had a rival, however, "Brom Bones," a young black-headed sprig, who watched Ichabod's advances ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... of a tired-lookin' woman that set on a high stool sellin' the jimcracks. She had took off her hat an' things, an' she had on a little red jacket all spangled up, an' a red cap, like the Turks all wear, with a big gold tassel on it, an' she'd made herself blacker round the eyes, an' redder in the cheeks, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... A heavy black tassel swung back and forth with the motion of the uneven road just ahead of the horses' heads, and Landers sat watching it idly. He even caught himself counting the vibrations, as though it were a pendulum, dividing the beats into minutes. Very ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... had dressed herself in the habit of a Turkish slave, being the garb of my little Turk which I had at Naples, as I have said; she had her neck and arms bare, was bareheaded, and her hair braided in a long tassel hanging down her back; but the jade could neither hold her countenance or her chattering tongue, so as to ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... instance, in Philadelphia, we find a Miss Chambers adorned as follows: "On this evening, my dress was white brocade silk, trimmed with silver, and white silk high-heeled shoes, embroidered with silver, and a light-blue sash with silver and tassel, tied at the left side. My watch was suspended at the right, and my hair was in its natural curls. Surmounting all was a small white hat and white ostrich feather, confined by brilliant ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... mouth-piece to three-fourths of its length, is covered with silk, which is confined at each extremity by gold thread, often intertwined with colored silks, or by a tube of gilt or silver; and at the lower extremity of the covering is a tassel of silk. The covering was originally designed to be moistened with water in order to cool the pipe, and consequently the smoke by evaporation; but this is only done when the pipe is old or not handsome. These stick pipes are used by many persons, particularly in winter; in summer the smoke is not ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... expression. They were dressed in white trousers and shirts, yellow silk sashes round their waists, and a sort of blue uniform jackets, blue Gascon caps, with the peaks, from each of which depended a large bullion tassel, hanging down on one side of their heads. The whole party had apparently made up their minds that resistance was vain, for their pistols and cutlasses, some of them bloody, had all been laid on ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... something under her apron. The two boys flung themselves upon Pelle and closed his eyes, while Marie inserted something in his mouth. "Guess now!" she cried, "guess now!" It was a porcelain pipe with a green silken tassel. On the bowl of the pipe, which was Ellen's Christmas gift, was a representation of a ten-kroner note. The children had inserted a screw of tobacco. "Now you'll be able to smoke properly," said Marie, pursing her lips together ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... ground, and triumph as she is driven ignominiously from the room; but can you be present when those curtains are drawn, when that awful helmet of proof has been tied beneath the chin, when the small remnants of the bishop's prowess shall be cowed by the tassel above his head? Can you then intrude yourself when the wife wishes 'to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... big and how black they were!) Walter thought he must look like the robbers that his uncle John, who had been across the seas, used to tell about. Then, Pietro had such big, fierce whiskers, too, and always wore a bright scarlet cap, with a long gilt tassel, and altogether, for a cook, he looked very picturesque—(Aunt Fanny knows that's a long word, but you must look it out in the dictionary.) When Pietro got angry with any of the waiters, I promise you he'd make ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... by like minutes," continues Nancy, stopping by the side window and twirling the curtain tassel absently. "I scan the surrounding country to see if anything compares with Beulah, and nothing does. No such river, no such trees, no such well, no such old oaken bucket, and above all no such Yellow House. All the other houses I see are but as huts compared with the Yellow House ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and thick-set. He usually wears a grey cloth jacket, his head being encircled in a high woollen cap tapering to a tassel at the top, while his feet, wrapped up in rags, are then covered with big shoes. In general, his whole appearance, with his pointed beard, bears a striking resemblance to the familiar representations of "gnomes," as these denizens of the subterranean world are pictured to us in ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... cavalry, two by two, over the floor. They must pass the open terror of the door and gain the enemy encamped under the wash-stand. The mounted band is very grand, playing allegro and leading the infantry on at the double quick. The tassel of the hearth-rug has flung down the bass-drum, and he and his dapple-grey horse lie overtripped, slipped out of line, with the little lead drumsticks ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... the names of 'Pussy-cat's tails,' or 'Baa-lamb's tails;' and a more interesting flower for examination as we pass onwards we can scarcely have, for its structure is very peculiar and beautiful. We will gather a good bunch of these pretty pendent tassel-like clusters; and see! as we break off the stems, what a shower of gold-dust is scattered over us, and flies in all directions through the air! So abundant is this yellow pollen beneath the scales of the catkins, that we shall find, if we place them in our moss-basket, that the table below ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... for heat"—he explains pompously—for he loves to tackle the difficult—even adjectively. His shiny bald pate is scarce covered by a Belgian fatigue cap, whose tassel bobs in the old man's eyes, and when he carried his long treasured gold to the bank, he refused to take its equivalent in notes. It was necessary to have recourse to the principal cashier, who assured him that if France ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... the boat. A man and boy began propelling the long sweeps or oars. He watched the proceeding in infantile wonder and especially remembered how the water dropped in sparkling crystals from the oar blades. The boy had on a red cap or fez with a tassel. That boy, that cap and that oar with the sparkling dripping water from the blade were to him the brightest pictures and greatest wonders ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... sir, fled the country," the voice would say. And it would continue: "A captain of one of our ships told me lately that he recognized Pedrito the Guerrillero, arrayed in purple slippers and a velvet smoking-cap with a gold tassel, keeping a disorderly house in one of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... I am a stodgy old fogey. When the war is over I am going to buy a velvet coat and a little red pork-pie cap, with a green tassel. Is that old Odin I ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... soothing kiss and milky rill deny To the sweet pouting lip, and glistening eye!— Ah! what avails the cradle's damask roof, The eider bolster, and embroider'd woof!— Oft hears the gilded couch unpity'd plains, 390 And many a tear the tassel'd cushion stains! No voice so sweet attunes his cares to rest, So soft no pillow, as his Mother's breast!— —Thus charm'd to sweet repose, when twilight hours Shed their soft influence on celestial bowers, 395 The Cherub, Innocence, with ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... the black velvet dress-coat lined with white satin, the "gorgeous gold flowers on a splendidly embroidered waistcoat," the jewelled rings worn outside the white gloves, the evening cane of ivory inlaid with gold and adorned with a tassel of black silk. "We were none of us fools," said one of his most brilliant contemporaries, "and each man talked his best; but we all agreed that the cleverest fellow in the party was the young Jew in the green velvet ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... to do this very long, for the old lady, rapping her cane upon the rock, summoned to her assistance a funny old servant, as quaint and as curious as herself, a dwarf of kindly, smiling face, dressed in a gray blouse, with wooden shoes upon his feet, and a scarlet cap with a long tassel on ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... schools. The country in those days was spotted with them. Some were called colleges, some academies, one was called an 'Ecole' of something or other. Each one I went to had a different badge, a different coloured tassel, a different set of rules and subjects. Barring the last one, which was down in Essex, near Maldon, they were simply swindles. A mile from our house was a board-school, but it would not have been keeping up our position to send me there. I learned ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... sitting on a bleached trunk among the dry kye stranded on the shore, plucked slowly the spills of a pine tassel, staring down between his knees. "You've seen how they have worked, miss, for every ounce that's in 'em. But I don't know how they'll fight if they don't have a real captain—a single head to plan—the right man to lead off. Latisan's that! Half of 'em came north because ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... they were everywhere at once and gazed through and through. He wore his national dress, with the short cloak over one shoulder; but the little boy, who stood at the table, had been fantastically arrayed in a sort of semi-Albanian garb, a red cap with a long tassel, a dark, gold-embroidered velvet jacket sitting close to his body, and a white kilt over his legs, bare except for buskins stiff with gold. The poor little fellow looked pale in spite of his tawny hue, his enormous black eyes were heavy and weary, and he seemed to be trying to keep ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... talked about God she took you on her lap and you played with the gold tassel on her watch chain. Her face was solemn and tender. She spoke softly. She was afraid that God might hear her talking about him ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... quite gone," said a third; "there's all the brim and half a tassel left, besides the wreck of ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... embroidery; brocade, brocatelle[obs3], galloon, lace, fringe, trapping, border, edging, trimming; hanging, tapestry, arras; millinery, ermine; drap d'or[Fr]. wreath, festoon, garland, chaplet, flower, nosegay, bouquet, posy, "daisies pied and violets blue" tassel[L.L.L.], knot; shoulder knot, apaulette[obs3], epaulet, aigulet[obs3], frog; star, rosette, bow; feather, plume, pompom[obs3], panache, aigrette. finery, frippery, gewgaw, gimcrack, tinsel, spangle, clinquant[obs3], pinchbeck, paste; excess of ornament &c. (vulgarity) 851; gaud, pride. [ornamentation ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... have lost our way, and the night is come. "Help us, for the love of Christ!" I could see now that the driver was a burly, red-faced, cleanshaven Norman peasant, wearing a white cotton cap, with a tassel over his forehead, who stared at me, and at Minima dragging herself weariedly to my side, as if we had both dropped from the clouds. He crossed himself hurriedly, and glanced at the grove of dark, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... I'm not tired! I've saved the fare and bought this swanky little cane instead. Look! Isn't it dinky?" protested Irene, proudly exhibiting her newly purchased treasure. "It has a leather strap and a tassel and a knob that one ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... not till he had reached Notre-Dame, that he placed over his shoulders the grand coronation mantle. This was of crimson velvet, studded with golden bees, lined with white satin, and fastened with a gold cord and tassel. The weight of it was at least eighty pounds, and, although it was held up by four grand dignitaries, bore him down by its weight. Therefore, on returning to the chateau, he freed himself as soon as possible from all this rich and uncomfortable apparel; ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... of the dressing-room—the small wiry figure in rose-silk pajamas. The mustache and imperial were carefully waxed as always, day and night. On the little feet were high-heeled slippers. On the head was a rose-silk Neapolitan nightcap with gay tassel. The nightcap hid the bald spot from which the lofty toupee had been removed. A grotesque little figure, but not grotesque to her. Through the mask of the vain, boastful little face she saw the general watching ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... weariness. Sandy patted his knee encouragingly, and the tired animal seemed suddenly to make up its mind. Ignoring the water, it came straight to Sandy, uttered a harsh whine, catching at the leather tassel on the cowman's worn leather chaparejos, tugging feebly. As Sandy stooped to pat its head, powdered with the alkali dust that covered its coat, the collie released its hold and collapsed on one side, panting, utterly exhausted, with glazing ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... it," said Emilie, gently withholding the tassel of the bell; "but if you would grant me five minutes—one minute—you might perhaps save yourself ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... question, and hastened to reply, "pretty, don't begin to express it. Just imagine the least little bit of a thing, with the whitest face, the bluest eyes and the yellowest curls, dressed in a light blue silk wrapper, all lined with white satin, and tied with a tassel as big as my fist; wouldn't such a creature look well in the kitchen, telling Hannah it was time to get dinner, and seeing if Tom was ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... Rosario, taking in her hand the bell-rope, the tassel of which hung over the head of the bed. "All you have to do is to stretch out your hand. The writing-table is placed so that you will have the light from the left. See, in this basket you can throw the ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... rolled from the table, or was swept off inadvertently by the detective's hand, and how it came to be caught by this old tassel and held there in spite of the many shakings it must have received, did not concern me at this momentous instant. The talisman of this old family was found. I had but to discover what it held concealed to understand what had baffled Mr. Moore and made the mystery he had endeavored to penetrate ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... we find this venerable and eventful pile rising to importance, and resuming its old belligerent character, is during the revolutionary war. It was at that time owned by Jacob Van Tassel, or Van Texel, as the name was originally spelled, after the place in Holland which gave birth to this heroic line. He was strong-built, long-limbed, and as stout in soul as in body; a fit successor to the warrior sachem of yore, and, like him, delighting ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... the living room, I for one anticipating Mama if not in the throes of a stroke at least in a faint. But she was standing upright before the open fire, an unsheathed cavalry saber in her hand. It was clearly a family relic, for from its guard dangled the golden tassel of the United States Army and on its naked blade were little spots of rust, but it looked dangerous enough as she warned us off with a sweep of it. In her other hand I recognized the bulky manuscript of George Thario's First Symphony ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... golden fillet surmounted with the symbol of a crescent moon. Instead of the golden rods, however, each of them held in her left hand a growing stalk of maize, from the sheathed cob of which hung the bright tassel of its bloom. On her right wrist, moreover, a milk-white dove was fastened by a wire, both corn and dove being tokens of that fertility which, under various guises, was the real object of worship of these people. The sight ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... at some other period, may have walked. Despite his dimensions, he was agile and graceful in his sweeping salaams; when he spoke he emphasized every word with an appropriate sweep of the arm, and his eyebrows arched and his eyes bulged in superlative, ecstatic moments. The tassel of his tarboosh, a little red inverted flowerpot capping the summit, gyrated violently in moments of excitement. Altogether he was a mighty person. Perceiving this, the five great ones from the far south paid court to him, addressed him "Your Excellency this" and "Your Excellency that"; ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... forty-five of which were ever struck off, and of which even the British Museum does not contain a specimen like this, in gold; a brass medal, three or four inches in diameter, of a Roman Emperor; together with buckles, bracelets, amulets, and I know not what besides. There was a green silk tassel from the fringe of Queen Mary's bed at Holyrood Palace. There were illuminated missals, antique Latin Bibles, and (what may seem of especial interest to the historian) a Secret-Book of Queen Elizabeth, written, for aught I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... weapon. Had Kelly been a novice, this stratagem alone would have soon vanquished him; his address, however, was fully equal to that of his antagonist. The staff dropped instantly from his grasp, but a stout thong of black polished leather, with a shining tassel at the end of it, had bound it securely to his massive wrist; the cudgel, therefore, only dangled from his arm, and did not, as the other expected, fall to the ground, or put Denis to the necessity of stooping ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... the tassel, and the shaped seam suggests a pattern; up-stitches are needed for binding the web, and before she is aware of it, the worker finds herself adorning, embroidering; and the craft enters the outskirts ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... just as fast after the ugly girls as the pretty ones, and you didn't have to abide by the result. One little girl got so excited that she fell into the river, and it was Andramark who pulled her out, and beat her on the back till she stopped choking. It may be well to remember that she was named Tassel Top, a figure taken from the Indian-corn ear when it ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... thought to be the shadowing of intense thought. Indeed, so dark and threatening did this lowering of the eye become, at times, that the fair hair which broke out in ringlets from beneath a black velvet sea-cap, from whose top depended a tassel of gold, could no longer impart to his countenance the gentleness which it sometimes was seen to express. As though he disdained concealment, and wished to announce the nature of the power he wielded, he wore his pistols openly in a leathern belt, that was made to cross a frock of blue, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper |
