"Barb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mounted on a fine black war horse, who had carried his master victoriously through many charges before today. Raymond's horse was much lighter in build, a wiry little barb with a distinct Arab strain, fearless in battle, and fleet as the wind, but without the weight or solidity of Gaston's noble charger. Indeed, Gaston had found some fault with the creature's lack of weight for withstanding ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... — N. sharpness &c. adj.; acuity, acumination[obs3]; spinosity[obs3]. point, spike, spine, spicule[Biol], spiculum[obs3]; needle, hypodermic needle, tack, nail, pin; prick, prickle; spur, rowel, barb; spit, cusp; horn, antler; snag; tag thorn, bristle; Adam's needle[obs3], bear grass [U.S.], tine, yucca. nib, tooth, tusk; spoke, cog, ratchet. crag, crest, arete[Fr], cone peak, sugar loaf, pike, aiguille[obs3]; spire, pyramid, steeple. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... their barb'rous offspring left behind, The dregs of armies, they of all mankind; Blended with Britons, who before were here, Of whom the Welch ha' ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... hand came in contact with a sharp object that he recognized on the instant. It was the barb on a ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... 80 Proudly he tramped, as conscious of his charge, And turned around his eye-balls, bright and large, And shook the frothy boss, as in disdain; And tossed the flakes, indignant, off his mane; And, with high-swelling veins, exulting pressed Proudly against the barb his heaving breast. The fate of empires glowing in his thought, Thus armed, the tented field Valdivia sought. On the left side his poised shield he bore, With quaint devices richly blazoned o'er; 90 Above the plumes, upon his helmet's ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... never been able to divorce art from morals; and as the literary dominance of New England was at that time absolute, Poe was buried under a mass of uncharitable criticism. It should not be forgotten that he had struck the poisoned barb of his satire deep into many a New England sage, and it was, perhaps, only human nature to strike back. So it came to pass that Poe was pointed out, not as a man of genius, but as a horrible example and degrading influence ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... it was hardly well; for Lord Grazian, when he had read the letter, in his first outburst of anger, had him bound and scourged to the full value of a woman's kiss. But the arrow had not missed its mark; it clung fast by the barb ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... to see that he remains so. He went out of existence with the blanket Indian and the buffalo. He is dead, and he must not be resurrected. He was a picturesque evil of those early days, but civilization has no use for him, and it has killed him, as the railroads and the barb-wire fence have killed the cowboy. He does not belong here; he does not fit in; he is not wanted. We want men who can breed good cattle, who can build manufactories and open banks; storekeepers who can undersell those of other cities; and professional men who know their business. We do not want ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... depths, joined by foaming, rock-broken rapids. The bank was lined with great boulders through which a day-time path wound a difficult way. Jerry wasted no time in trying to follow it, but skirted far around through a waist-high cornfield. A barb-wire fence held him prisoner long enough to allow Dave to break cover first on the opposite shore and send a vigorous but quavery "hello" ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... extreme disinclination for industry of any legitimate sort was well known to all the party, Mr. Hurd's innocently expressed but barb-pointed question brought a general smile, and Pelgram permitted himself the luxury of a ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... attains a weight of over 100 lb.) a heavy wooden hook was always used by the natives in preference to a steel hook of European manufacture. I saw that it was impossible to convince him, so dropped the subject; and showed him other gear of mine—flying-fish tackle, barb-less pearl-shell hooks for bonito, etc., etc He "bosh-ed" nearly everything, and wound up by saying that he wondered why people of sense accepted the dicta of natives in sporting ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... you the trouble." She stared into his face solemnly and slowly opened her mouth. From beneath her tongue, a barb slowly protruded until its point projected several inches from ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... far both armies to Belinda yield; 65 Now to the Baron fate inclines the field. His warlike Amazon her host invades, Th' imperial consort of the crown of Spades. The Club's black Tyrant first her victim dy'd, Spite of his haughty mien, and barb'rous pride: 70 What boots the regal circle on his head, His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread; That long behind he trails his pompous robe, And, of all monarchs, only ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... the counter in animated controversy with a man on the outside who had evidently asserted or quoted (the quotation is the usual weapon: it has a double barb and can be wielded with comparative safety) something of ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... and green caftan floating in the wind, on his nearer approach showed to be a Saracen cavalier. "In the desert," saith an Eastern proverb, "no man meets a friend." The Crusader was totally indifferent whether the infidel, who now approached on his gallant barb as if borne on the wings of an eagle, came as friend or foe—perhaps, as a vowed champion of the Cross, he might rather have preferred the latter. He disengaged his lance from his saddle, seized it with the right hand, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... scarcely noted how the boy crouched and quivered in his place, as an animal about to spring. This indecision was a goad, a barb. Yet he was helpless! The memory of Ume's whispered words came back: "He, too, has power of the gods. . . . Believe, sir, that you, as I, are subject to his will." How could it be permitted of the gods ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... practice under a new mode of government. But now were introduced new regulations: the tribune was selected for his military qualities and experience: none was appointed to this important office, "nisi barb plen" The centurion's truncheon, [Footnote: Vitis: and it deserves to be mentioned, that this staff, or cudgel, which was the official engine and cognizance of the Centurion's dignity, was meant ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... my forearm. The barb had pierced through the flesh, until about half of the shaft appeared on the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... observe the different stages of a bird mite, intermediate in its form between the Acarus and Sarcoptes, or Itch mite. On March 6th, Mr. C. Cooke called my attention to certain little mites which were situated on the narrow groove between the main stem of the barb and the outer edge of the barbules of the feathers of the Downy Woodpecker, and subsequently we found the other forms in the down under the feathers. These long worm-like mites were evidently the young of a singular Sarcoptes-like mite, as they were found on the same ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... a clever, willful child, full of the childish passion for imitation and mockery. And she proceeded to "take off" the grand Miss Burroughs—enough like Josephine to give the satire point and barb. He could see Josephine resolved to be affable and equal, to make this doubtless bedazzled stray from the "lower classes" feel comfortable in those palatial surroundings. She imitated Josephine's walk, her way of looking, her ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... consists of a "socket," "shank," and "mouth." The shank, which is made of the most pliable iron, is about two feet long; the socket is about six inches long, and swells from the shank to nearly two inches in diameter; and the mouth is of a barbed shape, each barb or wither being eight inches long and six broad, with a smaller barb reversed in the inside. The object of the barb, of course, is to prevent the harpoon being drawn out of the whale after it has ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... The Holy City, too! Willie stayed out by the barb-wire fence; he didn't dast to go in. When I come out I found him ready to cry. That desperado has sure got the heart of a woman. I reckon he'd commit a murder for that phonograph—he's ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... name, though it was fixed like the barb of an arrow in his heart, and fastened the closer the more exquisite she seemed. The strife between love and anguish robbed him of speech. But Amanda's sweet lips only moved the faster, while she made him sit down ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... bodies splashed the sea about us. A piece of mother-of-pearl about six inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide was the lure for him. Carefully cut and polished to resemble the body of a fish, there was attached to it on the concave side a barb of shell or bone about an inch or an inch and a half in length, fastened by faufee fiber, with a few hog's bristles inserted. The line was drove through the hole where the barb was fastened and, being braided along the inner side of the pearl shank, was ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... known species (5/4. 'Coup d'Oeil sur l'Ordre des Pigeons' par Prince C.L. Bonaparte, Paris 1855. This author makes 288 species, ranked under 85 genera.) for a beak so small and conical as that of the short-faced tumbler; for one so broad and short as that of the barb; for one so long, straight, and narrow, with its enormous wattles, as that of the English carrier; for an expanded upraised tail like that of the fantail; or for an oesophagus like that of the pouter. I do not for a moment pretend that the domestic ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... contracts—would, in all probability, rather approve than otherwise of indiscriminate truth-telling. Irritation is the root of all evil; and there is nothing more irritating than to hear the truth about one's self. It is bad enough, in all conscience, to be insulted, but the truth of an insult is the barb that prevents its retraction. 'Truth hurts' has all the pathos of understatement. It not only hurts, but infuriates. It has no more right to go naked in public than any one else. Indeed, it has less right; for truth-telling is natural to mankind—as ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... in landing his fish, which proved to be a fair-sized specimen. Then Mr. Gordon tried again. In a short time he had a strike, and with a quick motion of the wrist succeeded in fastening the barb of the hook in the jaw of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... in the dim room was afforded by the big lamp at the Squire's elbow. He spread the sheet on the table in the lamp's circle of radiance. "Boys, The Hornet is out and it looks as if it has a barb in its stinger," he stated, and then paused while he fixed his spectacles upon ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... canst oppose to each malignant hour Ethereal presence:—I am but a voice; 340 My life is but the life of winds and tides, No more than winds and tides can I avail:— But thou canst.—Be thou therefore in the van Of circumstance; yea, seize the arrow's barb Before the tense string murmur.—To the earth! For there thou wilt find Saturn, and his woes. Meantime I will keep watch on thy bright sun, And of thy seasons be a careful nurse."— Ere half this region-whisper had come down, Hyperion arose, and on the stars 350 ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... a restless indian queen, (Pale Marian, with her braided hair) And many a barb'rous form, is seen, To chide the man ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... Here I am, back again—just at the point from which I started!.... How am I to get free from that heathen Siren? Plagues on her! I shall end by falling in love with her.... I don't know that I have not got a barb of the blind boy in me already. I felt absurdly glad the other day when that fool told me he dare not accept her modest offer. Ha! ha! A delicious joke it would have been to have seen Orestes bowing down to stocks and stones, and Hypatia installed in the ruins of the Serapeium, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... declining sun had left them among the foothills, wandering from one to another, in the vain hope that each summit might show the silvery gleam of a windmill, or even that outpost of civilization, the barb-wire fence. And now the stars looked down indifferently, myriads of them, upon the travelers still plodding wearily through a land magically transformed by moonlight to a silvery loveliness that blotted out all the garish ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... of the ordinary pot is a sort of spearhead of wood or iron from 8 to 12 inches long. This has one large barb and is set upright in the middle of the center frame. The bait is placed on this spearhead. Several large stones or bricks are lashed to the bottom of the pot, on the inside, in order to furnish weight enough to hold the pot at ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb
... fine, and as soon as breakfast was over, they took the wheels down to the turtle-pond, and Ready having speared one of the largest by means of a pike with a barb to it, which he had made on purpose, they hauled it on shore, slung it under the wheels, and took it up to the house. Having killed the turtle, and cut it up, Juno, under the directions of Ready, chose such portions as were ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... might have happened if the widow hadn't kept her head. She leaned over the for'ard rail of the after cockpit and squeezed a rubber bag that was close to Jonadab's starboard arm. It was j'ined to the fog whistle, I cal'late, 'cause from under our bows sounded a beller like a bull afoul of a barb-wire fence. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Servia seen bodies of women frozen to death, bodies of babies starved to death, seen men in Belgium swinging from trees; along the Yzer for three months I saw the bodies of men I'd known sticking out of the mud, or hung up on the barb wire, ...
— The Deserter • Richard Harding Davis
... uncle—just this time. Pshaw! I don't believe you're half-trying to argue. Why, when Boyar bucked you off that time and ran into the barb-wire, then he didn't need doctoring for that awful cut on his shoulder, because he ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... thrown, both hold on to the line, which is wound around their arms so as to cause as much friction as possible, in order to exhaust the animal speedily. The spear-head is of walrus tusk, and is about three inches long and three-quarters of an inch thick, with an iron barb that is kept very sharp. The line is attached to the middle of the spear-head, the near end being slanted, so that when the line is tightened it lies cross-wise in the wound, like a harpoon, and it ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... sets in sharp contrast what God had done with Jesus, and what Israel had done, and the barb of his arrow lies in the last words, 'whom ye crucified.' And this bold champion of Jesus, this undaunted arraigner of a nation's crimes, was the man who, a few weeks before, had quailed before a maid-servant's saucy tongue! What made the change? Will anything but the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... and acting calmer than he felt. His barb had gone home, but unless he proceeded carefully so would Edipon's knife—into his stomach. This was obviously a ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... The barb had been broken by the rock against which it struck so hard, though the shaft, long, polished and feathered, showed that it had been made by an artist. But he did not know enough about arrows to tell whether it was that of a Sioux or of a ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... carrying on their backs when I met them in the forest. I was much struck with the cleverness of some of their fish-traps; these were long cone-like objects tapering to a point, the insides being lined with the extraordinary barb-covered stems of a rattan or climbing palm, and the thorns or barbs placed (pointing inwards) in such a way that the fish could get in easily ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... lightly." She married the Baron von Droszdick. We have a letter wherein Beethoven says: "Farewell, my dearest Therese; I wish you all the good and charm that life can offer. Think of me kindly, and forget my follies." She had a cousin Mathilde—later the Baroness Gleichenstein—who also left a barb in the well-smitten and accessible target of his heart. Even Hummel, the pianist, was his successful rival in a love affair ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Professors of the art of healing came To tend them and to cure them through the night. But they for all their skill could do no more, So numerous and so dangerous were the wounds, The cuts, and clefts, and scars so large and deep, But to apply to them the potent charms Of witchcraft, incantations, and barb spells, As sorcerers use, to stanch the blood and stay The life that else would through the wounds escape:— Of every charm of witchcraft, every spell, Of every incantation that was used To heal Cuchullin's wounds, a full fair half Over the Ford was westward sent to heal Ferdiah's ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... Her temper became unequal, her health decayed daily, her manners grew moping, melancholy, and uncertain. Her father, guessing partly at the cause of these appearances, made a point of banishing Dame Gourlay from the castle; but the arrow was shot, and was rankling barb-deep in the side of ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... secret and virtue of the lamp! I believed his death to be certain; but find that he enjoys the fruit of my labour and study! I will, however, prevent his enjoying it long, or perish in the attempt." He was not a great while deliberating on what he should do, but the next morning mounted a barb, set forwards, and never stopped but to refresh himself and horse, till he arrived at the capital of China. He alighted, took up his lodging in a khan, and stayed there the remainder of the day and the night, to refresh himself after so ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... not immediately speak, but with the head of her dying boy upon her heart she sat in mute and unbroken agony, every pang of her departing orphan throwing a deeper shade of affliction over her countenance, and a keener barb of ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... stung me to the quick. I it was who said to my mother, "Caress him not, or I shall think you love him better than me." I it was who widened, from my veriest childhood, the breach between Gerald and yourself. I it was who gave to the childish reproach a venom, and to the childish quarrel a barb. Was this love? Yes, it was love; but I could not endure that ye should love one another as ye loved me. It delighted me when one confided to my ear a complaint against the other, and said, "Aubrey, this blow could not have come ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... running loose into barb-wire fences had to be caught, but it didn't need a squadron of men and a forty-acre lot to do it in. Might have known he'd give us the slip if he could—biggest rascal in Europe!" And so on. Chamberlain, usually rather a silent man, blew himself ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... is not likely that an enemy, badly wounded with a poisoned arrow, will survive; for the head is set on loosely, in order that, when the arrow is withdrawn, the poisoned barb may remain in the wound. How opposed are these cruel stratagems of war to the precepts of the gospel of peace, which are "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... "Thar he is, Barb; thar he is," he said, not loudly. Miss Alathea and the Colonel, following close behind, were a restraint ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... Cardinals' hats, who dare not take the Eucharist without a Pretaster, who is all absorbed in profane Greek texts, in cunning jewel-work, in political manoeuvres and domestic intrigues, who comes caracoling in crimson and velvet upon his proud Neapolitan barb, with his bareheaded Cardinals and his hundred glittering horsemen. He the representative of the meek Christ who rode upon an ass, and said, 'Sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow me'! Nay," ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... said Higgins. "The same all over the world! A fence makes them see red. Barb wire is to 'em like a new steel trap to a wolf. Wonder if it was one of ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... Joyce. "Through barb-wire fences, over ploughed fields and into blackberry briers. That is how we got so scratched and torn. But we caught the chickens, and brought them back, with feathers flying, and with them squawking at ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the pike pole again, cautiously hooked the barb into the dead man's clothing, and, assisted by the men, pulled him aft to the poop, where the professor had preceded, and was examining his ankle. There was a big, red wale around it, in the middle of which was a huge blood ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... wire and who had his abundant reward. Blessings on him! though one is sometimes inclined to add cursings too. It is dangerous stuff to handle. Heavy gloves should always be worn. The flesh is so torn by the ragged barb that the wound is most irritating and hard to heal. When my fence was first erected it was a common thing to find antelope hung up in it, tangled in it, and cut to pieces. Once we found a mustang horse with its head practically ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... to barb and point the public distress, which otherwise seemed previously to have reached its utmost height. The courier had brought a large budget of letters to private individuals throughout Klosterheim; many of these were written by children unacquainted ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Thorir, as he was about to get down the steps, so that it went through him at once. Now the spear-head was both long and broad, and Ogmund the Evil ran on to Thorir and pushed him on to Grettir's thrust, so that all went up to the barb-ends; then the spear stood out through Thorir's back and into Ogmund's breast, and they both tumbled dead off the spear; then of the others each rushed down the steps as he came forth; Grettir set on each ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... knows the fair and friendly moon The band that Marion leads— The glitter of their rifles, The scampering of their steeds. 'Tis life to guide the fiery barb Across the moonlight plain; 'Tis life to feel the night-wind That lifts the tossing mane. A moment in the British camp— A moment—and away Back to the pathless forest, Before the ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... heart; while over the life of an innocent babe he hung a cloud as dark as was ever woven out of the world's misfortune, and sent another life to wander in painted shame outside life's eden of purity, the barb of conscious guilt to be driven deeper and deeper into her soul by the scorn of a pitiless world. All because young Beatty could not stand ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... It is not enough to avoid the tempting bait displayed on every side. So thick are the hooks and snares that merely to swim along, intent on his own business, is likely to result sooner or later in his being impaled on some cruel barb. Not enough has been said, either, of the hundreds of American lads who shipped before the mast, made their voyages around Cape Horn and through all the Seven Seas, resisted the temptations of the sailors' quarters in ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... as if one eye Upon the other were a Spye;... H'had seen three Governments Run down, And had a Hand in ev'ry one, Was for 'em, and against 'em all. But Barb'rous when they came to fall:... By giving aim from side, to side, He never fail'd to save his Tide, But got the start of ev'ry State, And at a Change, ne'r came too late.... Our State-Artificer foresaw, Which way the World began to draw:... He therefore wisely cast about, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... here since the flood. He's a good blacksmith, only he never finishes a job. If he is making a gate, he stops at the last rivet and Hanson has to drive it home. If he is shoeing a horse, he forgets a nail. If he is making a fish hook, he omits the barb. It is the same with his land deals; he buys land and, for the time being, forgets he owns it so far as selling again is concerned. Then he buys some more whenever he has the ready cash. It is all working for him,—so he says. He owns more ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... road; and a body of English was holding Venette, a mile and a half below it. A kind of bow-and-arrow arrangement, you see; the causeway the arrow, the boulevard at the feather-end of it, Marguy at the barb, Venette at one end of the bow, ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... and with marvelous amplification, the story with which the letter of his agent had already made him familiar. This time he had received a genuine wound, with poison upon the barb of the arrow that had pierced him. He crushed the paper in his hand and ascended to his room. All Wall street would see it, comment upon it, and laugh over it. Balfour would read it and smile. New York and all the country would gossip about it. Mrs. Dillingham would peruse ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... confirming sincere minds. Does not this other appearance explain itself? The brief spasm of cowardice and denial had changed into penitence when the Lord looked, and the bitter tears that fell were not only because of the denial, but because of the wound of that sharp arrow, the poisoned barb of which we are happy if we have not felt the thought—'He will never know how ashamed and miserable I am; and His last look was reproach, and I shall never see His face any more.' To respond to, and to satisfy, love, to clear and to steady ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Don't worry about me, Mrs. Pindar,—I get twenty five dollars a week at the Shale Works making barb wire to trip up the Huns with,—enough to get nice clothes—(she glances down at her dress) and buy good food, and have a good time ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Somali country on the Habr Gerhajis range of the Goolies mountains. The tree grows to the height of twenty feet. The poison is obtained by boiling the root in water, until it attains the consistency of an inspissated juice. When cool the barb of the arrow is anointed with the juice, which, is regarded as a virulent poison, and it renders a wound tainted therewith incurable. Dr. Arnott was informed that death usually took place within an hour; that the hairs and nails dropped off after ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... tenaciously and persistently advocating the view he happened to have taken on any question. There were men of very strong individuality among us, and these gave as good as they got. I can recall these scenes, but I cannot recall a single word he said that involved a personal wound or left a barb. When it was all over he was the same loving brother, and not an atom of bitterness was left behind. By us, the brethren of the English Presbyterian Mission, he was looked up to as a revered father, just ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... at 'tree,' 'dodge,' and 'squat;' he could play 'log-lump' with 'wind,' and 'baulk' with 'back-track' so well that he scarcely needed any other tricks. He had not yet tried it, but he knew just how to play 'barb-wire,' which is a new trick of the brilliant order; he had made a special study of 'sand,' which burns up all scent, and he was deeply versed in 'change-off,' 'fence,' and 'double,' as well as 'hole-up,' ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... weapon; the beast probably made its way to the morass for water; but, by Mithras![3] the lad's arrow killed the brute; the barb passed through the ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... fifty feet high. Hauling Pilgrim into the willows, we set out over a low, cultivated bottom, whose edges were being lapped by the rising river, to the detriment of the springing corn; then scrambling up the terrace on which the Chesapeake & Ohio railway runs, we crawled under a barb-wire fence, and ascended through a pasture, our right of way contested for a moment by a gigantic Berkshire boar, which was not easily vanquished. When at last we gained the top, by dint of clambering over rail-fences ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... get them hammered out flat they hang them on a barb wire fence. In the evening they take home anything the cows has left in an old wheelbarro. I guess by that time there dirty enuff to wash agen cause there always washin and you dont ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... I lands him where he's safely put to bed. I wake nex' day, 'n' holy smoke! I'm pri- soner with the German. Me mouth is like an ashpan, there's hot fish- bolts in me head, 'N' through the barb-wire peerin' is me foreigh cobber 'Erman. "Ve capdure each lasd nighd," sez he "you home haf bring me, boss." For bravery in takin' me, he got ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... affection lost Barb every deadly dart; Love unrepaid, and Faith betrayed, Did these ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... learned was, that there are certain portions of Australia between the mountains and the coast, particularly in Queensland, that are not adapted to sheep, though they make excellent pasturage for cattle. In these localities there is a grass that has a barb on its edges, and when once it becomes attached to the wool of the sheep, it steadily works its way inward until it pierces the skin of the animal, and eventually causes its death. Cattle are not affected by this grass, as it does not penetrate ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... vast idea fills my soul. I see them—yes, I see them now before me: The monstrous, ugly, barb'rous sons of whores. But ha! what form majestick strikes our eyes? [1]So perfect, that it seems to have been drawn By all the gods in council: so fair she is, That surely at her birth the council paused, And then at length cry'd out, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... sous; though both are equally bound to obey the laws of economy. A daughter of Este, who is worth six millions, has the right to wear a broad-brimmed hat and plume, to flourish her whip, press the flanks of her barb, and ride like an amazon decked in gold lace, with a lackey behind her, into the presence of a poet and say: "I love poetry; and I would fain expiate Leonora's cruelty to Tasso!" but a daughter of the people would cover herself with ridicule by imitating her. To ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... thoroughly rubbed into the spot where the barb of the thorn had pierced the flesh of the animal, Domino seemed to understand what their object was. He gave several little whinnies, even as he moved uneasily when his master's hand touched the ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... envied him The Silent Lover. His Nymph's Reply to the Passionate Shepherd, if it be his, as Izaak Walton without suspicion assumes, and, if it did not compel comparison with Marlowe's more exquisite melody, would assure his place among the poets of the age. He was able to barb a fierce sarcasm with courtly grace. How his fancy could swoop down and strike, and pierce as it flashed, may be felt in each ringing ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... fence tacked to spindly cottonwood trees marked the line of an irregular homestead; and the Ranger swung into a gate extemporized from barb wire on two adjustable posts. Behind the gate, stood a log shack; on the windows, cheap lace curtains; behind the lace curtains, a vague movement of peeping faces and a querulous termagant voice: "I ain't a goin' to have you mixed up in no scrap; ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... are Darts; some are only pointed at one end, others are barb'd, some with wood, others with Stings of rays, and some with Sharks' Teeth, etc.; these last are stuck fast on with Gum. They throw the Darts with only one hand, in the doing of which they make use of a piece of wood about 3 feet ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... whose fair cheeks destructive Cupids wait, And with unerring shafts distribute fate; Whose snowy breasts, whose animated eyes, Each youth admires, though each admirer dies; Whilst you deride their pangs in barb'rous play, } Unpitying see them weep, and hear them pray, } And unrelenting sport ten thousand lives away; } For you, ye fair, I quit the gloomy plains; Where sable night in all her horrour reigns; No fragrant bowers, no delightful glades, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... of that?" said Mr Button. "You might job it into a fish, but he'd be aff it in two ticks; it's the barb that holds them." ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... chain! I ne'er will seek for liberty again!"— But oh! what fury seem'd his eyes to fill! No bard that ever quaff'd Castalia's rill Could match his frenzy, when his shafts of fire With magic plumed, and barb'd with hot desire, Short of their sacred aim, innoxious fell, Extinguish'd by the pure ethereal spell. Camilla; or the Amazons in arms From ancient Thermodon, to fierce alarms Inured; or Julius in Pharsalia's field, When his dread onset forced the foe to ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Mrs. Tabitha Grimes, with a premeditated acerbity apparent even in the threading of her needle, into the eye of which she thrust the thread as if piercing the flesh of an enemy with a barb; "yes;" she pulled the thread through with a motion as if she enjoyed its rasping against the steel. "Rachel Bond started into this work quite as brash as Harry Glen started into the war. Her enthusiasm died out ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... locomotive has drowned the howl of the coyote; the barb-wire fence has narrowed the range of the cow-puncher; but no material evidence of prosperity can obliterate our contribution to Nebraska's ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... sad picture truly. The pen is sharp and cuts like a knife,—but it is the surgeon's knife, not the poisoned barb of a foreigner's taunt. This is the hopeful and promising aspect of these delineations and denunciations of the laboring man's condition. That low, damp, ill-ventilated, contracted room in which he pens his family at night, was, quite likely, constructed in the days of Good Queen Bess, or when ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... vie with the poppy's hue, Eyes that shame the violet's blue, Hearts that beat with love so true, Sylvia, sweet, I come to you! Barb'ra, sweet, I come ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... made like an arrow, but with only one barb, which turns on a steel pivot. The point of the harpoon blade is ground as sharp as a razor on one side and blunt on the other. The shaft is about thirty inches long and made of the best soft iron so that it is practically ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... the whip, tried to gallop off again. But the emperor put spurs to his horse, and the two dashed on together. Neck and neck they ran; the countess lashing her Arabian until he made wild leaps into the air, the emperor urging his Barb with whip and spur, until his flanks were white with foam. At last he came so near, that he made a grasp at her rein and caught it, exclaiming, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... descent and entered upon the broad domain of the Hacienda de San Francisco, the boundary of which, to my amazement, I found indicated by a very familiar American barb-wire fence. ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... Type should please us all, That's not too thin, and not too tall, Nor much awry, nor over small, And, if but ROMAN, asks no better— May die in darkness:—I, for one, Disdain to tell the barb'rous Hun That Persians but adore the sun Till taught to ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... "De fus' barb wire us ever seen, us scairt of it. Us thunk lightnin' be sho' to strike it. It sho' keep de ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... to that, Caroline, any time. Only I want you to be sure those you call friends are real ones and that the truths they tell ain't like the bait on a fishhook, put on for bait and just thick enough to cover the barb." ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... fringed away into a grand rolling pastureland, walled in by the red cliffs, the slopes of Buckskin, and further isolated by the Canyon. Here was a range of twenty-four hundred square miles without a foot of barb-wire, a pasture fenced in by natural forces, with the splendid feature that the buffalo could browse on the plain in winter, and go up into the cool foothills of ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... circumstances, or he must fall. Nobody, therefore, need ever expect to receive sympathy from me in recounting the social pangs or slights of poverty. You never can be slighted, if you do not slight yourself. People may attempt to do it, but their shafts have no barb. You turn it all into natural history. It is a psychological phenomenon, a study, something to be analyzed, classified, reasoned from, and bent to your own convenience, but not to be taken to heart. It amuses you; it interests you; it adds to your stock of facts; ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... laborious slave. [11] Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: [12] the Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the memory of the purest race: the males are sold ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... drooping vigour and exhausted stores. When lo! a bright cerulean form appears, Proteus her sire divine. With pity press'd, Me sole the daughter of the deep address'd; What time, with hunger pined, my absent mates Roam the wide isle in search of rural cates, Bait the barb'd steel, and from the fishy flood Appease the afflictive ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... must know the scale and also where the North is. This is always indicated by an arrow pointing either to the magnetic North or the true North. If to the magnetic North the needle will have but one barb away from the true North. The angle between the magnetic and the true North ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... be the rip'ning beam, that shines Fair FLORENCE, on thy purple vines! And ever pure the fanning gale That pants in Arno's myrtle vale! Here, when the barb'rous northern race, Dire foes to every muse, and grace, Had doom'd the banish'd arts to roam The lovely wand'rers found a home; And shed round Leo's triple crown Unfading rays of bright renown. Who e'er has felt his bosom glow With knowledge, or the wish to know; ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... the schooner said, as he picked up a lance not unlike a whale lance, "and we don't want much weight in the boat because it might pull the barb out of the fish if he ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... against this driving hunger within himself, which forces him helpless into her power. Like the fish that cannot resist the fly of the fisherman, even when experience has taught him to fear the hidden barb, he struggles and fights for his life to escape as he realises too late the net into which ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... the cavalry did not budge. Count de Moret had been killed; terror was everywhere taking possession of the men. The duke was engaged with the king's light horse; he had just received two bullets in his mouth. His horse, "a small barb, extremely swift," came down with him and he fell wounded in seventeen places, alone, without a single squire to help him. A sergeant of a company of the guards saw him fall, and carried him into the road; some soldiers who were present ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of flying at a great height in a compact flock, and tumbling in the air head over heels. The runt is a bird of great size, with long, massive beak and large feet; some of the sub-breeds of runts have very long necks, others very long wings and tails, others singularly short tails. The barb is allied to the carrier, but, instead of a long beak, has a very short and broad one. The pouter has a much elongated body, wings, and legs; and its enormously developed crop, which it glories in inflating, may well excite astonishment and even laughter. ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... Stone The Soldier of Fortune The Gramaphone at Fond-Du-Lac The Land of Beyond Sunshine The Idealist Athabaska Dick Cheer The Return The Junior God The Nostomaniac Ambition To Sunnydale The Blind and the Dead The Atavist The Sceptic The Rover Barb-Wire Bill "?" Just Think! The Lunger The Mountain and the Lake The Headliner and the Breadliner Death in the Arctic Dreams Are Best The Quitter The Cow-Juice Cure While the Bannock Bakes The Lost Master Little Moccasins The Wanderlust The Trapper's Christmas Eve The ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... loud and long, mocking the young knight's disappointment; so after he had again prayed the maiden in vain to accompany him, he left the refectory in silence, sprang upon his barb, and rode on to the wood, resolving to wait there till Diliana ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... missive weapon of offence, and whether ancient or modern, in the rudest form among savages or refined by art, is always a slender stick, armed at one end, and occasionally feathered at the other. The natives of Tropical Africa feather the metal barb. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... how many hands high the horse is?" sais I. "Well, on an average, say fifteen, perhaps oftener less than more. It's the old Norman horse of two centuries ago, a compound of the Flemish stock and the Barb, introduced into the Low Countries by the Spaniards. Havin' been transported to Canada at that early period, it has remained unchanged, and now may be called a distinct breed, differing widely in many respects ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... head so hard that it entered the wood up to the arrow-shaft. The earl looked that way, and asked if they knew who had shot; and at the same moment another arrow flew between his hand and his side, and into the stuffing of the chief's stool, so that the barb stood far out on the other side. Then said the earl to a man called Fin,—but some say he was of Fin (Laplander) race, and was a superior archer,—"Shoot that tall man by the mast." Fin shot; and ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... curse on thy barb'rous art, And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye; May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, Nor ever pleasure ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... solid except close to the shores, and soon made two or three holes for a hook and line, the thickness of the ice in the middle being from six to seven feet. The Esquimaux fishhook is generally composed of a piece of ivory, having a hook of pointed iron, without a barb, let into it. The ivory they consider useful in attracting the salmon, but they also bait the hook with a piece of blubber well cleared of its oil by chewing, and securely tied on with a thread of sinew, so as to cover nearly the whole of the hook. A small piece ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Hie to the castle, some of ye, and bring What aid you can. Saddle the barb, and speed For the leech to the city—quick! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... at sea. That is the dart which awakes my love. God! What a treasure to possess! Would he who could gain such a prize crave other riches his whole life long? For my part I could swear that I should desire nothing else; I would not give up even the barb and the notch for all the gold of Antioch. And if I prize so highly these two things, who could estimate the value of what remains? That is so fair and full of charm, so dear and precious, that I yearn and long to gaze again upon her brow, which ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... vary from five to six feet in length; the point should be shod with a steel tip, having a socket into which the wooden handle is fitted, and made fast by small screws passing through holes in the sides of the metal, and then into the wood itself. The wood, for about a foot above the barb, should be about three quarters of an inch in diameter, and from thence gradually taper to about a quarter of an inch in thickness until the end of ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... though now clad in very different garb! He it was who sat that black barb so royally; the King's plumed hat was in his left hand, while the right held that of Mrs Jane. It was at Will Jackson's words of thanks that she was smiling with such delight; it was he before whom Colonel Lane bent bare-headed to his saddlebow. The awkward lout who had never ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... for its weakness and momentary duration, that gives us the liveliest idea of beauty and elegance. Among animals, the greyhound is more beautiful than the mastiff, and the delicacy of a jennet, a barb, or an Arabian horse, is much more amiable than the strength and stability of some horses of war or carriage. I need here say little of the fair sex, where I believe the point will be easily allowed me. The beauty of women is considerably owing to their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... complimenting me upon my writings. "You see," said I to him, "the consequences of being a woman of intellect, and I would recommend you, if there is occasion, to dissuade any females of your family from attempting it." I endeavoured to keep up my spirits by boldness, but I felt the barb in my heart. ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... the poor old bear staggered down the valley. His eyes were glazed and he could not tell where the trees and barb-wire fences were until he butted his nose against them. The gout in his maimed foot throbbed horribly, and all the loose bullets in his system seemed to have assembled in his chest and taken the place of his once stout heart. But he had a fixed purpose in his mind, and on he ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... felt much pain. And when the man said that he did feel pain, he said, "Then both you yourself will be saved and your sight will not be injured." And he made this declaration because he inferred that the barb of the weapon had penetrated to a point not far from the skin. Accordingly he cut off that part of the shaft which shewed outside and threw it away, and cutting open the skin at the back of the head, at the place where ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... staggered up, rubbed his cramped knees, lumbered to the wire fence, held the strands apart for her. She unconsciously smiled at him as she went through. Her skirt caught on a barb; he carefully ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... boat reached the scene of action first. Krake stood up in the bow to be ready. He held in his hand a curious wooden spear with a loose barb tipped with the tusk of a walrus. It had been procured from one of the Greenland Skraelingers. A rope ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... decrease in price in the United States of many articles within the past ten years largely consumed by the agricultural community." And among these "many articles" "largely consumed," are "mowing machines, barb fence-wire, horseshoes, forks, wire-cloth, slop-buckets, wheelbarrows, and putty." No wonder dyspepsia is the national disease in America. Fancy "consuming" French staples, pie-plates (though they sound almost edible), and putty!!! The ostrich is supposed to be capable of digesting such ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... looked! those two horsemen; the ease, lightness, spirit of the one, with the fine-limbed and fiery steed that literally "bounded beneath him as a barb"—seemingly as gay, as ardent, and as haughty as the boyrider. And the manly, and almost herculean form of the elder Beaufort, which, from the buoyancy of its movements, and the supple grace that belongs to the perfect ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... replied with imperturbable dignity, but still retaining my hold upon the rail. "When this person so far loses his sense of proportion as to contend with an irrational object, devoid of faculties, let the barb be cast. After that introduction dealing with the four seasons, the twelve gong-strokes of the day are reviewed in a like fashion. These in turn give place to the days of the month, then the moons of the year, and finally the years ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... deeper perhaps than Oliver, but neither answered. There really did not seem to be anything for them to say. She moved gently toward the door—the ideal hostess. And as she moved she talked and every word she said was a light little feathered barb that fell on them softly as snowflakes and ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... is as thick as one's little finger, has a curvature about as large as that of a man's hand when half closed, and is from six to eight inches in length, with a formidable barb. This fierce-looking grappling-iron is furnished with three or four feet of chain, a precaution which is absolutely necessary; for a voracious shark will sometimes gobble the bait so deep into his stomach, that he would snap through the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... who had spent his life in the solitudes of the mountain and was probably more familiar with the trails than any other man. He wore a single piece of skin thrown over his shoulders and carried a big poisoned elephant spear with a barb of iron that remains in the elephant when driven in by the weight of the heavy wooden shaft. The barb was now covered with a protective binding of leaves. He led the way, silent and mild-eyed and very naked, and the curious little skin-tight cap that he wore made him ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... "you took him for a screw! The history of this fine fellow would take up too much time just now; let it suffice to say that Roustan is a thoroughbred barb from the Atlas mountains, and a Barbary horse is as good as an Arab. This one of mine will gallop up the mountain roads without turning a hair, and will never miss his footing in a canter along the brink of a precipice. ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Tintagel Tristan languished, for there trickled a poisonous blood from his wound. The doctors found that the Morholt had thrust into him a poisoned barb, and as their potions and their theriac could never heal him they left him in God's hands. So hateful a stench came from his wound that all his dearest friends fled him, all save King Mark, Gorvenal and Dinas of Lidan. They always ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... Spouse of thine? that fairest Hee? The barb'rous people said, of late, to mee. A Pen I tooke, and in a Tablet drew Whatsoe're, O Christ, in thy blest orbe I view. Roses, and Gold I paint, Gems, Groves, Corne-land, Green Gardens, Lakes, and Stars with nimble hand; Would you needs learne, what ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... Supper being at last ready, the three prepared to do justice to it, while Agnes waited upon them. A golden flood of buttered eggs was poured upon the dish in front of the Friar, a cherry pie stood before Dorothy, while Mistress Winter, her sleeves rolled up, and her widow's barb [Note 2] laid aside because of the heat, was energetically attacking ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... probably overflow and you will get splashed and so will the bathroom floor when your wet body moves rapidly from the tub to the toilet. I've imagined making an enema bag from a two gallon plastic bucket with a small plastic hose barb glued into a hole drilled in the bottom or lower edge. If I were in the business of manufacturing enema bags I'd make them hold at ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... his marvelous mastery of German lyric tones, expressed a wide range of poetic inspiration; but he loved particularly to conceive of himself as an apostle of liberty, an outpost of the revolutionary army, and none so well as he could tip the barb with biting sarcasm and satire. Heine's personality was full of seemingly inconsistent traits. He was both fanciful and rational, serious and flippant, tender and cynical, reverent and impious; and he could be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... books as he believed to be the production of some powerful intellect. He has seen people slowly rise up to them, like carp in a pond when food is thrown into it; some of which carp snatch suddenly at a morsel, and swallow it; others touch it gently with their barb, pass deliberately by, and leave it; others wriggle and rub against it more disdainfully; others, in sober truth, know not what to make of it, swim round and round it, eye it on the sunny side, eye ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... than meets the eye," muttered the partisan, and drawing the arrows from the earth he examined them by the light of the fire. Robert stood by, silent, but his eyes fell on fresh marks with a knife, near the barb on each weapon, and the great pulse in his throat leaped. The yellow flame threw out in distinct relief what the knife had cut there, and he saw on each arrow the rude but unmistakable ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the gang were told off to land the salmon, and they had to work smartly and deftly. They kept by the side of the spears-man, and the moment he struck a fish they grabbed at it with their hands. When the spear had a barb there was less chance of the fish's being lost; but often this was not the case, and probably not more than two-thirds of the salmon speared were got safely to the bank. The takes of course varied; sometimes, indeed, the ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... a disagreeable place. Barb's much less strong-minded sister had at least a good share of her practical nicety. The little board path to the door was clean and white still, with possibly a trifle less brilliant effect. The room and its old inhabitants were very comfortable and tidy the patchwork counterpane as gay as ever. ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... thee with so much art Is but a barb'rous skill; 'Tis like the poisoning of a dart, Too apt before ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... and yet enraged amidst all his sorrow, Godolphin returned to Rome. Lucilla's letter rankled in his heart like the barb of a broken arrow; but the stern resolve with which she had refused to see him appeared to the pride that belongs to manhood a harsh and unfeeling insult. He knew not that poor Lucilla's eyes had watched him from the walls of the convent, and that while, for his sake more than her own, she ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... feacher of this dooel with the little gun boat which displeases me, however. Old Butler's got Noo Orleans at the time, an' among other things he's editin' the papers. I reads in one of 'em a month later about me sinkin' that scow. It says I'm a barb'rous villain, the story does, an' shoots up the boat after it surrenders, an' old Butler allows he'll hang me a whole lot the moment ever he gets them remarkable eyes onto me. I don't care none at the time much, only I resents this yere ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... he saw The crimson drops out-welling from the wound; Shudder'd the warlike Menelaus' self; But when not buried in his flesh he saw The barb and ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... somethin' stimulating, somethin' fur-reachin', somethin' that you can tell where it stops. I want a drink that feels like a yard of barb-wire goin' down." ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... in front she scours along, She's bringing the field to trouble; She's tailing them off, she's running strong, She shakes her head and pulls double. Now Minstrel falters and Exile flags, The Barb finds the pace too hot, And Toryboy loiters, and Playboy lags, And the BOLT ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... I've bent, I've tried all, I declare, I've perfumed it with sweetest of sighs; 'Tis feather'd with ringlets my mother might wear, And the barb gleams with light from young eyes; But it falls without touching—I'll break it, I vow, For there's Hymen beginning to pout; He's complaining his torch burns so dull and so low, That Zephyr might puff it ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... pearl-oyster shells, to serve as armour. Their sumpitans are most exactly bored, and look like Turkish tobacco-pipes. The inner end of the sumpit, or arrow, is run through a piece of pith fitting exactly to the tube, so that there is little friction as they are blown out of the tube by the mouth. The barb is dipped in a mixture, of which the chief ingredient is the sap of the upas tree; and, to increase its virulence, lime-juice is sometimes added. The poison, by its exposure to the air, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... Maui, for he would never let them see his hook, yet they knew it was shaped differently from theirs. It was more complicated and had a double barb, while the common fish-hook had but one. But his brothers could never catch him at ...
— Legends of Wailuku • Charlotte Hapai
... Of a moment of hope in the deluge of rain; And the shout of the free heart may rapt'rously swell, While the tyrant is gath'ring his power again. Though the balm of the leech may soften the smart, It never can turn the swift barb from its aim; And thus the resolve of the true freeman's heart May not keep back his fall, though it free it from shame. Though the hearts of those heroes all well could accord With freedom's most ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... clear as the day he faced death at the head of the Chute. And swift as a hot barb a fear leaped into him as his eyes met the eyes of the girl. She was terribly changed. Her face was white with a whiteness that startled him. It was thin. Her eyes were great, slumbering pools of violet, almost black in the lamp glow, and her hair—piled ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... army, Arthur," said Mr Temple, hesitating about extracting the hook, which was buried in the boy's leg, for he felt that he would have to make a deep cut to get it out—it being impossible to draw it back on account of the barb. "How would it be with you if the surgeon had to take ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... thorns, called by the Arabs "kittul." This tree does not grow higher than twenty-five feet, but it spreads to a very wide flat-topped head, the branches are thick, the wood immensely strong and hard, while the thorns resemble fish-hooks minus the barb. This impenetrable asylum was the loved resort of elephants, and it was from this particular station that they made their nocturnal raids upon the cultivated district more than 20 miles distant in a ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker |
