"Anvil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which attached themselves, have everywhere ranked among the luxuries of a refined cultivation. It is the most brilliant of stones, and the hardest known body. Pliny says it is so hard a substance, that, if one should be laid on an anvil and struck with a hammer, look out for the hammer! [Mem. If the reader have a particularly fine diamond, never mind Pliny's story: the risk is something, and Pliny cannot be reached for an explanation, should his experiment fail.] By its own dust only can the diamond be cut and polished; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... middle height, but not tall. He spoke very fair old-fashioned English, with the Yorkshire tone and turn. His walk was rather plodding, and his movements slow and stiff; but in communion with his violin they were free enough, and the more delicate for the strength that was in them; at the anvil they were as supple as powerful. On his face dwelt an expression that was not to be read by the indifferent—a waiting in the midst of work, as of a man to whom the sense of the temporary was always present, but present with the constant reminder that, just therefore, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... forge, dirty up your pinafores, and cry when Bully led you off. Him and me ain't friends no more, so's you could notice. Seven years now since I hit him for cussin' me for somethin' that wa'n't my fault! But, by gee whiz, old Bully Presby could go some! We tipped an anvil over that day, and wrecked a bellows before they pulled us off each other. I've always wondered, since then which of us is the ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast taught! Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought; Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Each burning ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... for those who had the interest of the colony at heart. Every district of the Upper Province had contributed its portion of labour, talent, and ingenuity, to furnish forth the show. The products of the soil, the anvil, and the loom, met the eye at every turn. The genius of the mechanic was displayed in the effective articles of machinery, invented to assist the toils and shorten the labour of human hands, and were many and excellent in their kind. Improvements in old implements, and others entirely new, ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... declaring that the smiths should get no eric, great or small, for the death of their monster. The smiths thereupon armed themselves with their hammers, and tongs, and fire-poles, and great bars of unwrought brass, and Culain himself seized an anvil withal to lay waste the ranks of the Red Branch. The Ultonians on their side ran to the walls and plucked down their spears from the pegs, and they raised their shields and balanced their long spears, and swords flashed and screeched as they rushed to light out of ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... not, he hath given Arts, arms, and skill we know not, or if ever knew, Have quite forgot. Your hands are thickened up With toils of field and shop, where whirring wheels resound, And hammers clink. The anvil and the plough Belong to you; the very ox construes your speech, And turns him to obey you. All this toil We deem a slavery too heavy to be borne, And which our tribes revolt at. Oft we stand To view the reeking smith, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... of Union: shall we light The fires of hell to weld anew the chain, On that red anvil where ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... there. At best, music is a "concord of sweet sounds"—heroic, tender, exciting, etc.; but the elemental passions and emotions are almost all it can define, or even suggest. Certain music is called "characteristic"—anvil choruses, for example, where hammers or triangles or tin whistles are used, but that is not music in its best estate, and musical purpose is best understood after a composer has labelled it, whether the ultra-artistic are ready ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... lying in the fire, to the length of ten or twelve inches, and so far it is hot, very hot, exceeding hot, brother. And now you see me, prala, snatch the bar of iron, and place the heated end of it upon the covantza, or anvil, and forthwith I commence cooring the sastra as hard as if I had been just engaged by a master at the rate of dui caulor, or two shillings a day, brother; and when I have beaten the iron till it is nearly cool, and my arm tired, I place ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... spark nail new; but in older German we find also spanneu, splinterneu, chip new, splinter new; which shows the origin of our spick and span (new), i.e., spike and chip new. French has tout battant neuf, beating new, i.e., fresh from the anvil. ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... shielded with infinite care, in the centre there lay a set of smith's tools, crudely fashioned and well worn, tongs and a heavy hammer and a small anvil. ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... pieces, and sometimes would take up those pieces, and hurle them about the room, and into the other room; and when it did not hurle the glasse at their heads, it did strike upon the tables, as if many smiths, with their greatest hammers, had been laying on as upon an anvil; sometimes it thumpt against the walls as if it would beat a hole through; then upon their heads, such stamping, as if the roof of the house were beating down upon their heads; and having done thus, during the space (as ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... gave them—Yea, a man shall be A wonder for his glorious chivalry, First in all wisdom, of a prudent mind, Yet none the less him too his fate shall find Unfenced by these, a man 'mongst other men. Yea, and will Fortune pick out, now and then, The noblest for the anvil of her blows; Great names are few, and yet, indeed, who knows What greater souls have fallen 'neath the stroke Of careless fate? Purblind are most of folk, The happy are the masters of the earth Which ever give small heed to hapless worth; So goes the world, and this we ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... peacefully basking in the sun; a few saddle horses were standing with dejected air, hitched to various tying-posts. A buckboard and team was standing outside his own door. The sound of the smith's hammer falling upon the anvil sounded plaintively upon the calmness of the sleepy village. In spite of the sensational raid of the night before, Foss River displayed no ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... of choice, he has now on the anvil another scheme, full of difficulty and desperate hazard, which totally alters the commercial relation of two kingdoms, and, what end soever it shall have, may bequeath a legacy of heartburning and discontent to one of the countries, perhaps to both, to be perpetuated to the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... which their families were pinched and almost starved, did not come to the armies. Vast stores of provision and supplies were blocked on the roads, while speculators' ventures passed over them. This, the soldiers in the trench and the laborer at the anvil saw equally. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... of plans laid glowing On the anvil of thy heart; Times thou'st raised thy hand for throwing In life's battle many a dart? How each plan unstricken lingered Till the mouldful heat was gone? How each dart was faintly fingered, Resting in the end unthrown; ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... these severe proceedings should be taken, if there was to be any fair and reasonable chance for those reforms which have since been laboriously hammered out, which had been for very many months upon the anvil, and to which we looked, as we look now, for a real pacification. It was not the first time that this arbitrary power—for it is that, I never disguise it—was used. It was used some years ago—I forget how many. I was talking the other day to an officer ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... such a convenient spot laid bare to the tender mercies of the whipster. But, since Nature has resumed her rights, it is to be hoped that this patient creature does not suffer to extremities,—and that to the savages who still belabor his poor carcass with their blows (considering the sort of anvil they are laid upon,) he might in some sort, if he could speak, exclaim, with the philosopher, "Lay on! you beat but upon the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... through the Schwarzwald, I said to myself: That little fire which glows star-like across the dark-growing moor, where the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace thy lost horse-shoe,—is it a detached, separated speck, cut off from the whole Universe; or indissolubly joined to the whole? Thou fool, that smithy-fire was primarily kindled at the Sun; is fed by air that ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... from that moment, uneasy, and impatient to get out of the ship. In carrying his purpose into effect, however, he did not lose his propensity to thieving, for he seized hold of, and endeavoured to carry off, the smith's anvil: but, finding it infinitely too heavy for his strength, he laid hold of the large hammer, threw it on the ice; and, following it himself, deliberately laid it on his sledge, and drove off. As this was an article that could not be spared, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... of the ancient brick church. Many blacksmiths worked at Jamestown (there was one among the first group of settlers). In the Jamestown collection are many tools which they left behind, including pliers, pincers, chisels, punches, hammers, and a small anvil. ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... when, abreast of Cape Nome, a storm struck their tiny craft and cast her up on the beach. The gale lasted for several days, and the men made use of the time prospecting in the vicinity of the Snake River, which now runs through the city. At the mouth of Anvil Creek, good colours were found at a depth of one foot, the dirt averaging from fifty cents to one dollar the pan. Satisfied that they had made an important discovery, the men returned as soon as the weather would permit to their permanent ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... broken down and the ball of molten slag and charcoal is taken out and hammered, and about 3 lbs. of good iron are obtained. With this they make ploughshares, mattocks, axes and sickles. They also move about from village to village with an anvil, a hammer and tongs, and building a small furnace under a tree, make and repair iron implements ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... Mistress Burthen! Ye will be after breaking my heart, ye will; and me waiting for you these long years, and now at last come all the way over from old Ireland to find ye as hard and obdurate as the blacksmith's anvil in the corner of Saint Patrick's street, in Ballybruree," were the first words that caught my ear. "Shure you will be afther relenting and not laving me a disconsolate widower, to go back to ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... vault, or to circles, as was formerly supposed. This conception is childish. The peoples of antiquity had no notion of the size of the universe, and their error is almost excusable. The distance separating Heaven from the Infernal Regions has been measured, according to Hesiod, by Vulcan's anvil, which fell from the skies to the Earth in nine days and nine nights, and it would have taken as long again to continue its journey from the surface of the Earth to the ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... practice of making one's own tools cannot be too strongly recommended. It affords a way out of many an emergency, and where time is not too valuable, a saving will be realized. A few bars of fine tool steel, a hammer, and a small anvil, are all that are required, aside from fire and water. The steel should be heated to a low red, and shaped with as little hammering as possible; it may then be allowed to cool slowly, when it may be filed or ground to give it the required ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... said to have carried a horse on his shoulders. According to Guyot-Daubes there was, in the last century, a Major Barsaba who could seize the limb of a horse and fracture its bone. There was a tale of his lifting an iron anvil, in a blacksmith's forge, and ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... began. Then the Artist shouldered his knapsack and departed; the lads trudged through the road to school; the women went about the house with untiring energy; the male hands were already making the anvil musical in the rustic smithy, or dragging stock to the slaughter, or busy with the thousand and one affairs that comprise the sum and substance of life in a self-sustaining community. We were assured that were war to be declared between the outer world and Ingram House, lying in ambush in the ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... high tree-tops, the garish street light would have kept it dim. The trees were silent and stirless, as quiet as the graves beneath them—more quiet; in fact; for there issued from a grated hole among the tombs the sound of an anvil, deep down and muffled, but unmistakably ringing, as if Governor Winthrop were forging chains in his vault. Then came a rush, a deadened roar, and an emanation of dank gaseous breath, such ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... very doubtful and very much annoyed; eyeing the fast falling drops as if her impatience could dry them up. The little smithy was black as such a place should be; nothing looked like a seat but the anvil, and that was hardly safe to take ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... flax-spindle heard in its cottages, in those old days,—"much of the linen called Hollands is made in Julich, and only bleached, stamped and sold, by the Dutch," says Busching. A Country, in our days, which is shrouded at short intervals with the due canopy of coal-smoke, and loud with sounds of the anvil ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... in full chorus one of the psalms, interrupted by blows of the hammer—an infernal deed beating time to celestial songs. One might have supposed himself near a smithy, except that the blows were dull, and manifested to the ear that the anvil was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... much practised desire of striking when the iron was hot, Mrs. Agar, like many a wiser person, began, therefore, to bang about in all directions, hitting not only the iron but the anvil, her own knuckles and the susceptibilities of any one standing in the neighbourhood. She could not leave things to Mr. Glynde, but must needs see Dora herself. She had in her mind the nucleus of a simple if scurrilous scheme which will ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... which looked like a pyramid with the top flattened, clapped it on the floor, and the first black began to manipulate Humpy as a blacksmith would a horse he was about to shoe, dragging him to the little anvil with one hand, using the hammer-handle to poke him into position with ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... on that, Pompadour meditates great things this Year,—Invasions of England; stronger German Armies; better German Plans, and slashings home upon Hanover itself, or the vital point;—and flatters herself, and her poor Louis, that there is on the anvil, for 1759, such a French Campaign as will perhaps astonish Pitt and another insolent King. Very fixed, fell and feminine is the Pompadour's humor in this matter. Nor is the Czarina's less so; but more, if possible; unappeasable except ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... express must often speak of what he does not understand; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task which Scaliger compares to the labours of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always present; that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... Bill to St. Catherines.—Pass close south of the Shambles and steer for Anvil Point, thence hug the coast, following ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... but five boys of that age who had become full-fledged puddlers. Of these young iron workers, I suppose there were few that "doubled in brass." But why should not an iron worker be a musician? The anvil, symbol of his trade, is a musical instrument and is heard in the anvil chorus from Trovatore. In our rolling mill we did not have an anvil on which the "bloom" was beaten by a trip-hammer as is done in the Old Country. The "squeezer" which combines ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... red-hot iron, when it glimmered on the anvil, 'Wherefore glowest thou longer than the firebrand?'— 'I was born in the dark mine, and the brand in the pleasant greenwood.' Kindness fadeth away, but ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... improbable so to find him in the evening, he determined to postpone his task. But in doing so he felt that he should be at a loss. The eager words were hot now within his memory, having been sharpened against the anvil of his thoughts by his colloquy with Mary Lawrie. To-morrow they might have cooled. His purpose might be as strong; but a man when he wishes to use burning words should use them while the words are ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... four years of battling with superior numbers, the British leader at last revealed the full majesty of his powers now that the omens were favourable. In six weeks he marched more than five hundred miles, crossed six rivers, and, using the Navarrese revolt as the anvil, dealt the hammer-stroke of Vittoria. It cost Napoleon 151 pieces of cannon, nearly all the stores piled up for his Peninsular ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... by the Archbishop of Canterbury to choose a new king, it is Merlin's art which discovers to them a sword imbedded in a great rock in the churchyard of St. Paul's bearing the inscription: "Whoso pulleth this sword out of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England"; and it is by the same supernatural aid that the stripling Arthur, whose birth is unknown, fulfils the task which all had essayed in vain. By the friendly influence of Merlin, Arthur receives his famous sword Excalibur from ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... instead of finding herself by the river on which the marble town was built, she came to the little old mill near her own home. There was Alfred hard at work, for he had hired himself out as a miller's boy. Her mother was weeping beneath the willow by the river, and her father was hammering at his anvil. How pleasant his great, glowing fire looked to Rosamond, after her ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... experience, the portals of which are alone opened to those who apply to them the key of truth: this key is of very simple structure, has no complicated intricacy of wards, and is easily formed on the anvil of social intercourse, merely by not doing unto others that which you would not wish they should do ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... that glory of the chivalric ages; will it not be gloriously delightful to see once more "the light of other days" upon us? To see those battlements decked with the banners of the house of Mumbles, to hear the clarion ring, to listen to the strains of martial music, to see the lounge and thrust and anvil blow, knights unhorsed, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... high over the forecastle and falling like a cataract into the waist, engulfing the men there in a well of green wave and foam; while, at the same moment, the squall ahead struck her on the port bow, the vessel, between the two opposing forces, being like a piece of iron 'twixt hammer and anvil. The concussion was tremendous, knocking everybody off their feet just as if the ship ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... in a tempest. The sharp crack of rifle-shots showed that the snipers were busy on both sides, and once I stood in a deep pool, with the water up to my knees, listening to what sounded like the tap-tap-tap of invisible blacksmiths playing a tattoo on an anvil. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... According to the tradition, it was safer for him to strike on his head than on his shins. Certainly he was not badly injured, and if reduced to extremity he might have let out his head for use as a blacksmith's anvil. ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... become condensed, but slightly expanded from its bulk when annealed and soft. Here an increase of hardness is accompanied by a decrease of density. The gradual development of a network of cracks over the face of a chilled anvil orbit while being used in tilt hammers was mentioned. Such minute cleavages became more marked as the chill is worn down by work and from grinding. Traces of the same occurrence are observable over the surface of much worn chilled rolls used in sheet mills. In such cases ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... most in this part of the mine was an alcove hewn from solid rock near the junction, in which was a complete smithy. It had forge, anvil, and bellows, and was presided over by a blacksmith named Job Taskar, as ugly a looking fellow, Derrick thought, as he had ever seen. Here the mules were shod, tools were sharpened, and broken iron-work was repaired. It was a busy place, ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... that he had been at the quiet homestead before the mill was set a-running, the chestnut-trees shaken, the pigeons fired into, a new bell of greater compass put upon the brindle cow, the blacksmith's anvil at the corner of the road set a-dinging, fresh weather-cocks clapped upon the barn, corn-crib, stable, and out-house, the sheep let out of the little barn, all the boats of the neighborhood launched upon the pond. With night, darkness closed upon wild frolic; bed-time ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... piece of flat rock on the floor of this recess, which Zackey used as his anvil, and in front of which he kneeled. At his side was a candle, stuck against the wall, where it poured a flood of light on objects in its immediate neighbourhood, and threw the boy's magnified shadow ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... and the necessary work aboard the vessels. Drake took especial interest in trying the powers of the pinnaces, trimming them in every conceivable way, so as to learn their capacity under any circumstance. The smiths set up their forge, "being furnished out of England with anvil, iron, and coals" (surely Drake never forgot anything), which stood the expedition "in great stead," for, no doubt, there was much iron-work that needed repair. The country swarmed with conies, hogs, deer, and fowl, ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... many farm implements, brooms, baskets, harrows, sleds and carts; tailoring, making all kinds of underwear, hosiery, gloves and mittens; linen furnishings, for table and bed, together with many other articles of household use. Often, the forge and the anvil, with tools for rough iron working, were added to the equipment of the farm. In those days, farming required a knowledge of the use of tools; the square, the level, the plumb-bob; the hammer, the saw and the plane; were as necessary ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... placed outside the door for the accommodation of customers waiting for a horse to be shod or a plow to be laid. An onlooker, not yet so proficient as to attain his ambition of admission to the play, had mounted the anvil, and from this coign of vantage beheld all the outspread landscape of the "hands." More than once his indiscreet, inadvertent betrayal of some incident of his survey of the cards menaced him with ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... sad experiment with the "Wonderful Specialist," I did not want to go home and listen to the Anvil Chorus of "It Can't Be Done!" and "I Told You So!" I had no desire to be the object of laughter as well as pity. So I tried to get a job in that same city. I went from office to office—but nobody had a job for ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... Madrono Hollow knew and could swear to; but there were other strange rumors afloat, of which the blacksmith was an able expounder. "You see, gentlemen," he said to the crowd gathered around his anvil, "I ain't got no theory of this affair, I only give a few facts as have come to my knowledge. Culpepper and Jack meets quite accidental like in Bob's saloon. Jack goes up to Culpepper and says, 'A word with you.' Culpepper bows and steps aside in this way, Jack standing about HERE." ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... proper method of eating fresh crab. It turned out to be quite an art, but one that they mastered quickly. Soon all three of them were munching succulent back-fin crab meat drenched in fresh butter. The wooden block served as an anvil, and the round hardwood piece as a hammer for cracking claws. The paring knife was used for trimming and for scooping out delicious bits of meat. The fork was utilized to persuade small tidbits to leave their shell cages. ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... over on the plains I saw a sight! Ragged hills of ice were thrown up, as if they'd been heaved out by the breaking earth, jutting here and there like wedges—like the teeth of a world. Alors, on one crag, shaped as an anvil, I saw what struck me like a blow, and I felt the blood shoot out of my heart and leave it dry. I was for a minute like a pump with no water in its throat to work the piston and fetch the stream up. I got sick and numb. There on that anvil of snow and ice I saw a big white bear, one such as you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... their sovereign not only to maintain invincible navies and formidable armies, but likewise to give subsidies to all the powers of Europe. He knew that a treaty of this kind was actually upon the anvil between his Britannic majesty and the czarina, and he began to be apprehensive of seeing an army of Russians in the Netherlands. His fears from this quarter were not without foundation. In the month of November, the earl of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... and hurled myself against him; then at the very moment my horse struck his with a tremendous shock, I brought down my iron whip-handle with all the force that was in me upon his head. The blow rang as if I had struck upon an anvil, while at the same moment he, without swerving, clutched my cloak with both hands. I could feel that they were bony, hard hands, armed with long, crooked, sharp talons like an eagle's, which pierced through my cloak into my flesh. Dropping my whip, ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... unwilling to admit that he can be practical. If Mr. Burritt should prove as good a statesman as a theorist, he would be an exception to most who belong to the aerial school. As a writer he stands deservedly high. In his "Sparks from the Anvil," and "Voice from the Forge," are to be found as fine pieces as have been produced by any writer of the day. His "Drunkard's Wife" is the most splendid thing of the kind in the language. His stature ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... there for centuries, and those birds were the souls of his children and descendants, each of whom was sent there after death, and they were all fed from heaven each day. On the next island there was a great roaring as of bellows and a sound of smiths' hammers, as if striking all together on an anvil, every sound seeming to come from the strokes of a dozen men. "Are they near?" asked one big voice. "Silence!" said another; and they were evidently watching for the boat. When it rowed away, one of the smiths flung after them a vast mass of red-hot iron, which he had grasped ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... on. Some singing, some crying, some praying, and others swearing. The people of color who were in there were slaves, there without crime, but for safe keeping, while the whites were some of the most abandoned characters living. The keeper took me up to the anvil block and fastened a chain about my leg, which I had to drag after me both day and night during three months. My labor was sawing stone; my food was coarse corn bread and beef shanks and cows heads with pot liquor, and a very scanty ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... I saw round bars formed by a knotched hammer and anvil. There I saw a bar of about half an inch, or more, square cut with shears worked by water, and then beaten hot into a thinner bar. The hammers all worked, as they were, by water, acting upon small bodies, moved very quick, as ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Then she went on, hobbling as best she could, and the King walked by her side with his hand on her neck. In this way they came to a small village, and here the nag turned up a by-road and halted outside the blacksmith's forge. The smith's Lad stood within, clinking at the anvil, the smuttiest Lad ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... good anvil, let him deal sound blows on the irons for the pier, repeated and strong, and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... and night, with an energy and a concentration he was capable of, to the learning and theory of his profession, and to the science of railroad building. He wrote some papers at this time for the "Plow, the Loom and the Anvil," upon the strength of materials, and especially upon bridge-building, which attracted considerable attention, and were copied into the English "Practical Magazine." They served at any rate to raise Philip in the opinion of his friends ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... of increase: kine that low, When milk unto their calves they owe; The hammer on the anvil's brow, The pleasant swishing of ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... they will not go far," returned Gallito and rubbed his hands. His reply had been quick and sharp as the beat of a hammer on an anvil; but now he spoke more softly: "But will she go at all, my friend? You, like myself, have ever played for high stakes. Then you know and I know that this is a world where a man may never look ahead and calculate and ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... cry—a cry of agony it seemed to him. He bent low, and made his way back into the plantation, plunging through the undergrowth until he reached a narrow and little frequented footpath. He was deaf to all sounds, for the thumping in his ears had become now like a sledge-hammer beating upon an anvil. He was not sure that he saw anything. His feet fled over the ground mechanically. Only when he reached the borders of the wood, and crossed the meadow leading to the main road, he drew himself a little more upright. He must remember, he told ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hold neck-rod in head is set, anchor the skull by the rod to the core-board in proper relation to the body. To do this, run the rod through a hole drilled through the board, clinch rod down forward and back with a hammer on anvil or vise, and fasten with staples, or drill a small hole through core-board each side of rod and tie the rod down with a strong loop of wire twisted down with ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... acquaintance when his mind is occupied with important business, I forthwith set about my work. Selecting a piece of iron which I thought would serve my purpose, I placed it in the fire, and plying the bellows in a furious manner, soon made it hot; then seizing it with the tongs, I laid it on my anvil, and began to beat it with my hammer, according to the rules of my art. The dingle resounded with my strokes. Belle sat still, and occasionally smiled, but suddenly started up, and retreated towards ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... human ear (left ear, seen from the front, natural size), a shell of ear, b external passage, c tympanum, d tympanic cavity, e Eustachian tube, f, g, h the three bones of the ear (f hammer, g anvil, h stirrup), i utricle, k the three semi-circular canals, l the sacculus, m cochlea, n ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... Guy de Maupassant, it does not seem to be words at all which touch us. It seems to be things—things living or dead, things in motion or at rest. Words are there indeed; they must be there—but they are so hammered on the anvil of his hard purpose that they have become porous and transparent. Their one role now is to get themselves out of the way; or rather to turn themselves into thin air and clean water, through which the reality beyond can come at us with ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... favour on the inferior clergy's side, who with a profound duty to her Majesty, are perfectly pleased with the present turn of affairs. Besides, curious people will be apt to enquire into the dates of some promotions, to call to mind what designs were then upon the anvil, and from thence make malicious deductions. Perhaps they will observe the manner of voting on the bishops' bench, and compare it with what shall pass in the upper house of convocation. There is, however, one comfort, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... tongs, and the red sparks radiated in showers as the hammer thumped dully on the soft metal—thumps sharply punctuated by the clean ring of steel as the polished face of the tool bounced merrily upon the chilled surface of the anvil. ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... become white during the winter months; add to these the various changes produced in the forms of mankind, by their early modes of exertion; or by the diseases occasioned by their habits of life; both of which became hereditary, and that through many generations. Those who labour at the anvil, the oar, or the loom, as well as those who carry sedan-chairs, or who have been educated to dance upon the rope, are distinguishable by the shape of their limbs; and the diseases occasioned by intoxication deform the countenance with leprous eruptions, or the body with ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... he was twenty years old, when he fell in love with the fair daughter of a painter. The story goes that the father would not permit his daughter to marry any man that was not an artist, and the blacksmith abandoned his anvil for the easel. He had a genius for art, and soon painted better than his masters. He won his bride, and achieved a great reputation in his new art. The picture of The Misers, which you saw at Windsor Castle, was executed ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... world, and the Archbishop of Canterbury came to him and sought advice concerning a worthy King for Britain. And Merlin, thinking of Arthur, prepared by enchantment a test whereby the rightful King of Britain should be known. In front of the cathedral there appeared a great block of marble with an anvil upon it, and into the anvil was thrust a great, bright sword that shone full as brilliantly as the stars themselves; and on the handle of the sword was a legend saying that whosoever could draw the sword from the anvil was the rightful King ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... full.... Up, up, brain-biter! We work too late to-night—up, open the husks. Oh, smite and pulse On their anvil heads: The smithy is full, There are shoes to be made For the hoofs of the steeds Of ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... dream for wicked Rhyme Where nothing but their Lodging is sublime. Observe their twenty faces, how they strain To void forth Nonsense from their costive Brain. Who (when they've murder'd so much costly time, Beat the vext Anvil with continual chime, And labour'd hard to hammer statutable Rhyme) Create a BRITISH PRINCE; as hard a task, As would a Cowley or a Milton ask, To build a Poem of the vastest price, A DAVIDEIS, or ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... arsenal opened at her command and a whole park of artillery was ready to speak at the wave of her baton. An organ was built to order, and a drum more portentous than the Gilmore affair was manufactured. The firemen met to pound the anvils in the "anvil chorus" and Camilla herself drilled them in the work. And at the head of it all was the one woman, mistress of the whole kingdom, and with the resources of a State at command. As if this was not enough she personally assumed the entire expense and was responsible for the ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... perhaps some contradiction, are acknowledged. But meandering thoughts and ill-digested narratives, though tedious, are not criminal. When these new materials have dried in the noon-day sun for a year and a day, the writer then, or at the expiration of the Horatian period, may bring them back to his anvil to be re-hammered. May they then prove as true as they now seem new, is the wish of the admirer of Thomas Hariot, the first historian of Virginia, the friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, the companion of Henry Percy, and the Benefactor ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... the row about, Torchy?" says he. "And who is that with you?" He gets answers from the anvil chorus. ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... its lens for near and for far sight? What is this action called? 23. Why do children born deaf become dumb? 24. Where do we find the key-board of hearing? Why do we call it the cochlea? 25. Draw a picture showing the position of the drum, "hammer," "anvil," "stirrup," and cochlea. 26. What has happened in your inner ear when something in your ear goes "pop"? 27. Why does a cold sometimes make you deaf? 28. Why do we have wax in the outer ear? What is the German proverb about cleaning the ear? 29. What is our "sixth ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... tower of the Louvre, with its bass. The royal chime of the palace scatters on all sides, and without relaxation, resplendent trills, upon which fall, at regular intervals, the heavy strokes from the belfry of Notre-Dame, which makes them sparkle like the anvil under the hammer. At intervals you behold the passage of sounds of all forms which come from the triple peal of Saint-Germaine des Pres. Then, again, from time to time, this mass of sublime noises opens and gives passage to the beats of the Ave Maria, which ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Settlement had indeed tried to root out the lovely pests, but little did our Caleb care! If he had ever trod his ancestral acres either for pleasure or profit he might in time have "stomped out" the whiteweed, so the neighbors said, for he had the family foot, the size of an anvil; but he much preferred a sedentary life, and the whiteweed went on seeding itself ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... made in Eugene, Oregon. Simply explained it could be likened to two pages in a book. One page is perpendicular while the other page is off the perpendicular about 7 degrees. The first page which is the anvil is fixed save for adjustments for nuts of varying size. The other page or hammer riding up and down through an inch and one quarter of travel is fixed to a crank below. Both of these pages or plates are heavy cast iron plates that are fluted and cause the nut to be cracked against ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... injuries, should now retire and rebel; if they should occupy the castles of the mountains and sea-coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double attack, and placed as it were between the hammer and the anvil, must resign themselves to hopeless and inevitable servitude." [136] We must not forget, that a priest here prefers his country to his religion; and that the Moslems, whose alliance he seeks, were still numerous and powerful in the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... for the effecting of some purpose which he considers or has considered for his advantage—when we see living tools which are as admirably fitted for the work required of them, as is the carpenter's plane for planing, or the blacksmith's hammer and anvil for the hammering of iron, or the tailor's needle for sewing, what conclusion shall we ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... voice of praise and local prayer from the numerous aspirants to clerkships and civil service employ; but I am compelled to deny that I ever heard the sound of mallet and chisel, of mortar, pestle, and trowel, the ringing sound of hammer on anvil, or roar of forge, which, to my practical mind, would have had a far sweeter sound. There is virgin land in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone yet untilled; there are buildings in the town yet unfinished; there are roads for commerce ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... village forge came out in all its bright importance. The lusty bellows roared Ha ha! to the clear fire, which roared in turn, and bade the shining sparks dance gayly to the merry clinking of the hammers on the anvil. The gleaming iron, in its emulation, sparkled too, and shed its red-hot gems around profusely. The strong smith and his men dealt such strokes upon their work, as made even the melancholy night rejoice, and brought a glow into its ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... achievement effected a whole lifetime later by the immortal Columbus—an achievement which formed the connecting link between the Old World and the New; yet the explorations instituted by Prince Henry of Portugal were in truth the anvil upon which that link ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... instruments, by being repeatedly heated in a forge, the heat of which is urged by a pair of double bellows of a very simple construction, being made of two goats' skins; the tubes from which unite, before they enter the forge, and supply a constant and very regular blast. The hammer, forceps, and anvil, are all very simple, and the workmanship (particularly in the formation of knives and spears) is not destitute of merit. The iron, indeed, is hard and brittle, and requires much labour before it can be ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... she has always found supple to her will, as a personal insult to herself. Very painful explanations, approaching at last to violence, have taken place. Thuillier, placed between the hammer and the anvil, has been unable to stop the affair; on the contrary, he has, without intending it, made matters worse, till they have now arrived at such a point that Mademoiselle Brigitte is packing her trunks to leave ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the door, and he followed her. Coming along the Hawkbill road, about an eighth of a mile distant, they saw a body of horsemen, their heads and shoulders dressed in white. His revolver slipped from his fingers and rang on a fallen anvil. He picked it up mechanically, still staring into the moonlight. Again he wondered if he were afraid, as he was that ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... of the Fans deserves especial notice for its excellence. The anvil is a big piece of iron which is embedded firmly in the ground. Its upper surface is flat, and pointed at both ends. The hammers are solid cones of iron, the upper part of the cones prolonged so as to give a good grip, and the blows are given directly downwards, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... fancying all the while that bluster is manliness. No, sir. You may make shoes, you may run engines, you may carry coals; you may blow the huntsman's horn, hurl the base-ball, follow the plough, smite the anvil; your face may be brown, your veins knotted, your hands grimed; and yet you may be a hero. And, on the other hand, you may write verses and be a clown. It is not necessary to feed on ambrosia in order to become divine; nor shall one be ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... helped every one his neighbor, and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil." ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... bindery stood the blacksmith shop, where MacKittrick, the historian-blacksmith, plied the bellows and smote the anvil. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Bamborough had to deal with metal of a harder grain than the majority of us. Claude de Chauxville was for the moment forced to assume the humble role of anvil because he had no choice. Maggie Delafield was passive for the time being, because that which would make her active was no more than a tiny seedling in her heart. The girl bid fair to be one of those women who develop late, who ripen ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... on the anvil, see God's goods across the counter, put God's wealth in circulation, teach God's children in the school,—so shall the dust of your labor build itself into a little sanctuary where you and God may ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... light almost took the boy off his feet. It pounded his oilskin, stung his face. The enormous iron dock groaned and clanged under the mad bastinado. The long arms of the shoring stanchions smote the walls in a kind of terrific anvil chorus to the blaring orchestra of the tempest. The joints of the three huge pontoons sounded as if they were being rent asunder every moment. One minute the great structure would rise dizzily, high into the black blast, ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... Blackheath, and promised to give a decisive answer in the morning. O'Mooney saw that this man was too great a fool to be a knave; his perturbation was evidently the perturbation of a dupe, not of an accomplice: Queasy was made to "be an anvil, not a hammer." In the midst of his own disappointment, our good-natured Hibernian really pitied this ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... incessantly gave forth a succession of reports too rapid to be reckoned. These sounds, although unremitting, were clear and distinct, the one from the other. I can find no better comparison for them than the strokes of a hammer falling on an anvil. Had the ancients heard a similar noise, I can readily conceive whence arose the idea of their imagining a forge in the centre of Etna, with the ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... they did, the cheering and inspiring ring of iron on anvil awakening the echoes of ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... exquisite altarpiece, "The Ascension," is also his work. There are several other fine paintings here—one of them said to be the best performance of Quintin Matsys, who, under the inspiration of love, deserted the anvil for the pallet; and another by his father-in-law, Flors, supposed to be the identical picture upon which the ci devant blacksmith painted a bee, with such skill as to obtain the old artist's cordial consent to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... blocks, and they, in their turn, will probably give way to sleepers of steel. The joints are now made by means of fish-plates, and the most vulnerable part of the rail, the end, is no longer laid on an anvil for a purpose of being smashed to pieces, but the ends of the rails are now almost always over a void, and thereby are not more affected by wear than is any other part of the rail. The speed is now from 50 to 60 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... Lafayette Square I saw the arrangements of scaffolding for the fireworks and benches for the audience. General Banks urged me to remain over the 4th of March, to participate in the ceremonies, which he explained would include the performance of the "Anvil Chorus" by all the bands of his army, and during the performance the church-bells were to be rung, and cannons were to be fired by electricity. I regarded all such ceremonies as out of place at a time when it seemed to me every hour and every minute were due to the war. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... prospect of love lost; as in the highest natures it might have been. Rather it was the man's pride which suffered: the pride of a high spirit which found itself helpless between the hammer and the anvil, in a position so false that hereafter men might say of the unfortunate that he had bartered his mistress for his life. He had not! But he had perforce to stand by; he had to be passive under stress of circumstances, and ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... strong, solid and self-sufficient on the outside. But inside, like every Court, it was a den of quibble, quarrel, envy, and the hatred which, tinctured with fear, knocks an anvil-chorus ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... blacksmith shop, adjoining his living-room. Forge. Door to living-room above forge. Bellows down stage below forge. Bench with vise at left. Big double doors. Trusses. Tub of water back of anvil. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... world-long battle between the persecutors and the persecuted, the victory is all on the side of the latter. So it has been ever since, though often the victors have died in the conflict. 'The Church is an anvil which has worn out many hammers,' and the story of the first collision is, in essentials, the story ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... down. Suddenly that broad back swayed hither and thither. It was swaying on one leg; Basil, somehow, had hold of the other. Burrows' huge fists and those of the footman were battering Basil's sunken head like an anvil, but nothing could get the giant's ankle out of his sudden and savage grip. While his own head was forced slowly down in darkness and great pain, the right leg of his captor was being forced in the air. Burrows swung to and ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... ten-forty when he came down from McCloskey's office, and for perhaps twenty minutes he had been seen lounging at the lunch-counter in the station end of the Crow's Nest. At about eleven one witness had seen him striking at the anvil in Hepburn's shop, the town marshal being the town blacksmith in the intervals ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... flattery;—but amidst their pungency, and sometimes their truth, the circumstance that a man of genius could reperuse this slight effusion at two different periods of his life, was a sufficient authority, at least for an author, to return it once more to the anvil." ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... not those that seem worthy of credit, but teach other doctrines, disturb thee. Stand firm and immoveable, as an anvil when ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... holds it to its mouth. Logic has a serpent in her hand, and is veiled, with Zeno Eleate at her feet reading. Arithmetic holds the table of the Abacus, and under her sits Abraham, its inventor. Music has musical instruments, with Tubal Cain beneath, beating with two hammers upon an anvil, with his ears listening to the sound. Geometry has the quadrant and sextant, with Euclid beneath. Astrology has the sphere of the heavens in her hands, and Atlas under her feet. On the other side sit the seven theological sciences, each one having beneath it a person of ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... bellows, blast on blast, The sooty smithy jars, And fire-sparks, rising far and fast, Are fading with the stars. All day for us the smith shall stand Beside that flashing forge; All day for us his heavy hand The groaning anvil scourge. ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... of Anvil Mountain, the motor boat ran up to a little wharf, almost completely hidden in greenery, and there Cecil and the boy landed. Stuart did not fail to observe that the motor boat engineer needed no directions as to the place of landing. Evidently ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler |
