"Dagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or about the same. To wear no ruffles, cuffs, loose collar, nor other thing than a ruff at the collar, and that only a yard and a half long. To wear no doublets * * * enriched with any manner of silver or silke. * * * To wear no sword, dagger, nor other weapon but a knife; nor a ring, jewel of gold, nor silver, nor silke in ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... agitations have strange springs and ridiculous causes. What ruin did our last Duke of Burgundy run into, for the quarrel of a cart-load of sheep-skins?... See why that man doth hazard both his honour and life on the fortune of his rapier and dagger; let him tell you whence the cause of that confusion ariseth, he cannot without blushing; so vain and frivolous ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... rather an amiable and proper sort of person. True, she sets her lovers by the ears, and feels gratified when they cut each other's throats: she even challenges a court dame, who has taken the precedence of her, to an encounter with sword and dagger, en chemise, according to the prevailing mode amongst the raffines, or professed duellists of the time; and she writes seductive billets-doux in Spanish, and gives wicked little suppers to the handsome cavalier on whom ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... woman. The mid-day sun is shining on the armour in the gallery, making mimic suns on bossed sword-hilts and the angles of polished breast-plates. Yes, there are sharp weapons in the gallery. There is a dagger in that cabinet; she knows it well. And as a dragon-fly wheels in its flight to alight for an instant on a leaf, she darts to the cabinet, takes out the dagger, and thrusts it into her pocket. In three ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... of the apparel of Marmion, but when it came to an equally detailed account of the apparel of his pages and yeomen the mind could bear it no longer. The only thing to be said about that critic is that he had never been a little boy. He foolishly imagined that Scott valued the plume and dagger of Marmion for Marmion's sake. Not being himself romantic, he could not understand that Scott valued the plume because it was a plume, and the dagger because it was a dagger. Like a child, he loved weapons with a manual materialistic ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... in 1898, married again. This union was happier than the former one. His second wife, however, died in 1905. There were no children from this union. He acquired gonorrhoea and syphilis in 1899. In 1907 he prepared an elaborate attempt at suicide, purchased a dagger for this purpose, and set June 13th for the date. He was, however, arrested shortly before this and thus his plan was frustrated. He stated that it was not disgust of life that drove him to do this. He simply had a desire to see whether he had the nerve to execute such an act. On February ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... snatched up his great iron club, and aiming a swinging blow at King Arthur's head, swept the crest off his helmet. Then the King flew at him, and they wrestled and wrestled till they fell, and as they struggled on the ground King Arthur again and again smote the giant with his dagger, and they rolled and tumbled down the hill till they reached the sea-beach at its foot, where Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere were waiting their lord's return. Rushing to his aid, the two knights at once set their master free, for they found that the giant, in whose ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... wholly to evil, and being also by nature somewhat choleric, I waited till the magistrates had gone to dinner; and when I was alone, and observed that none of their officers were watching me, in the fire of my anger, I left the palace, ran to my shop, seized a dagger and rushed to the house of my enemies, who were at home and shop together. I found them at table; and Gherardo, who had been the cause of the quarrel, flung himself upon me. I stabbed him in the breast, piercing doublet and jerkin through and through to the shirt, without however grazing his ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Mr. Beauclerc made a sort of a start and a kick out with his foot, and seemed taken with a tremble all over, for while you count three, and he fell back in the bed with his eyes open, and Mr. Archer drew a thin long dagger out of the dead man's breast, for dead ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... follow, and the vision flies. This bold ferocious spirit, madly strong, Supporter of his country e'en to wrong, Impetuous to extremes, now longs to dart The point of vengeance into Christiern's heart: A whetted dagger in his hand display'd } He waves in air, and, o'er and o'er survey'd, } Smiles grimly at the visionary ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... Onesikritus that he was wont to call the Iliad a complete manual of the military art, and that he always carried with him Aristotle's recension of Homer's poems, which is called 'the casket copy,' and placed it under his pillow together with his dagger. Being without books when in the interior of Asia, he ordered Harpalus to send him some. Harpalus sent him the histories of Philistus, several plays of Euripides, Sophokles, and AEschylus, and the dithyrambic hymns of ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... the four bravoes. But if their consternation was great at thus losing the destined instruments of their designs, how extravagant was their joy when the proud Abellino dared openly to declare to Venice that he still inhabited the Republic, and that he still wore a dagger ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... their coming near, but was fired upon by Allee Mahomed. He missed him, but Fuzl Allee discharged his blunderbuss at him, and he fell; but in falling, he wounded Hyder Khan slightly with his sword. Hyder Khan then threw away his fire-arms and sprang into the buggy with his naked dagger in his right hand and the minister in his left. The minister seized him round the waist, forced him back out of the buggy on the left, and fell upon him. Tuffuzzul Hoseyn then quitted his hold of the horse and rushed to his comrade's assistance, but the ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... Defarge carried under her rough robe. Carelessly worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way, and her dark hair looked rich under her coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her bosom, was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who had habitually walked in her girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged, on the brown sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... to hear him curse the prince as a traitorous friend, and dwell on his own loyal service by way of contrast, and so keep turning the dagger in the wound with the thought that no one but himself was ever so repaid for such honesty of love. But, no! Claudio has no bitterness in him, no reproachings; he speaks of the whole matter as if it had happened months and months before, as indeed it had; ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... rumors already of a plot to prostitute the law. In Unalaska a man warned Dextry, with terror in his eye, to beware of it; that beneath the cloak of Justice was a drawn dagger whetted for us fellows who own the rich diggings. I don't think there's any truth in it, but ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... nearly obsolete saying means, literally, loses a sixpenny dagger for the sake of a halfpenny thong. "Spoken," says Kelly, "when people lose a considerable thing for not being at ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... to form the deep trenches before the burrows by scratching the earth violently backwards with the hind claws. Now these straight, sharp, dagger-shaped claws, and especially the middle one, are so long that the vizcacha is able to perform all this rough work without the bristles coming into contact with the ground, and so getting worn by the friction. The Tehuelcho Indians in Patagonia comb ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... o'clock last Thursday evening," said the woman, "I went to the rooms of Captain Fraser-Freer, in Adelphi Terrace. An argument arose. I seized from his table an Indian dagger that was lying there—I stabbed him ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... Fardorougha, which followed every spoonful that entered his mouth, scintillated like that of a cat when rubbed down the back, though from a directly opposite feeling. He turned and twisted on the chair, and looked from his wife to his son, then turned up his eyes, and appeared to feel as if a dagger entered his heart with every additional dig of Bartle's spoon into the flummery. The son and wife smiled at each other; for they could enjoy those petty sufferings of Fardorougha with ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the saddle to glance back at Bellegarde, black and formless against an empty sky; and he dared not look again, for the thought of her that lay awake in the Marshal's Tower, so near at hand as yet, was like a dagger. With set teeth he followed in the wake of his taciturn companion. The bishop never spoke save to ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... patched and hostile that he had very much the air of a gaudy scarecrow. His ruined cloak was tilted by a long sword; his disordered thatch was crowned by a battered cap grotesquely adorned with a cock's feather. In his leathern belt a small vellum bound book of verses kept company with a dagger. For all his whimsical appearance the king's keen eyes could note a something gallant in the carriage of the scamp, could spy out qualities of manhood beneath the battered bravery. He poised for a moment on the threshold ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... or as he is still called by the common people, the Tyrant, was killed at Barquesimeto, after having been abandoned by his own men. At the moment when he fell, he plunged a dagger into the bosom of his only daughter, "that she might not have to blush before the Spaniards at the name of the daughter of a traitor." The soul of the tyrant (such is the belief of the natives) wanders in the savannahs, like a flame that flies ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... more than half the morning. They were so troubled in mind that they missed high Mass, and only went to the military service. In three days the year 1819 would come to an end. In three days a terrible drama would begin, a bourgeois tragedy, without poison, or dagger, or the spilling of blood; but—as regards the actors in it—more cruel than all the fabled horrors in the family ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... Bar had the best of it. For once its members had not been like the blades of a pair of scissors; had not even seemed to cut each other, while only cutting that which came between. For once its members were a band of brothers, concentrated into one sharp, keen dagger, with which they had stabbed Freedom to the heart. That triumphant Bar stroked its bearded chin, and parted its silky mustache; hem'd its wisest hem; haw'd ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... the Golden City was a smoking, twisted ruin. Four of the six men in it were blasted, blackened crisps. Another staggered to his feet, struggled to reach a weapon and could not lift it, and twitched a dagger from his belt and fell forward; and Tommy could see ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... which he wanted, and which, for some good reason, it was necessary to postpone conferring upon him. A nobleman came to him one day and informed him of the necessity of this delay. He broke into a fit of passion, drew his dagger, rushed toward the nobleman, and attempted to stab him. He commenced his imperious and haughty course of procedure even before his marriage, and continued it afterward, growing more and more violent as his ambition increased with an increase of power. Mary felt these cruel acts of selfishness ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... shall prevent it!" cried the tyrant, drawing his dagger, and plunging it over her shoulder into the bosom of the ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... too handy with such a weapon," said the boy, coolly. "It is evident your adeptness with a dagger comes from your mother's side. Your face is dark and treacherous, and you look well at home in this land of ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... battle of Hastings, the Saxons used the short, weak weapon common to all primitive people. The conquered Saxon, deprived of all arms such as the boar-spear, the sword, the ax, and the dagger, naturally turned to the bow because he could make this himself, and he copied the Norman ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... cut by the native help and stored against its need. The grass sometimes grew two feet in height, and at cutting was wrapped tightly and tied in "hands" about two inches in diameter. For fastening to the roofing lath, green blades of the Spanish dagger were used, which, after being roasted over a fire to toughen the fibre, were split into thongs and bound the hands securely in a solid mass, layer upon layer like shingles. Crude as it may appear, this was a most serviceable roof, being ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... Who play'd in turn, but with a gentle pat, His wee friend sparing with a merry laugh, Not punishing his faults by half. In short, he scrupled much the harm, Should he with points his ferule arm. The sparrow, less discreet than he, With dagger beak made very free. Sir Cat, a person wise and staid, Excused the warmth with which he play'd: For 'tis full half of friendship's art To take no joke in serious part. Familiar since they saw the light, Mere habit kept their friendship good; Fair play had ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... delighted and so surprised to see his ladylove so beautiful, and so well-prepared for the encounter, that he lost his strength and sense, and had not force enough left to draw his dagger, and try whether it could penetrate her cuirass. Of kissing, and cuddling, and playing with her breasts, he could do plenty; but for the ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... sure enough, he did! He was so drowsy, And fogs so veiled the sun, That, whetting up a huge, broad-bladed dagger, He slew them, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... bands of white, red, and green of equal width with a broad, vertical, red band on the hoist side; the national emblem (a khanjar dagger in its sheath superimposed on two crossed swords in scabbards) in white is centered at the top of the ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Heemskirk better. It was given to him to taste a transcendental, an incredible perfection of vengeance; to strike a deadly blow into that hated person's heart, and to watch him afterwards walking about with the dagger in his breast. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... insensibly ashore. On grounding, the force with which he struck the ground with his fins is not to be expressed, neither can I describe the agility with which the Indians strove to dispatch him, lest the surf should set him again afloat, which they at length accomplished with the help of a dagger lent them by Mr Randal. They then cut him into pieces, which were distributed among all who stood by. This fish, though of the flat kind, was very thick, and had a large hideous mouth, being fourteen or fifteen feet broad, but not quite so much ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... JOHNSON. 'The appearance of a player, with whom I have drunk tea, counteracts the imagination that he is the character he represents. Nay, you know, nobody imagines that he is the character he represents. They say, "See Garrick! how he looks to night! See how he'll clutch the dagger!" That is ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... exasperation that he promptly shouted out and made Mrs. Chao withdraw. He then exerted himself for a time to console (his senior) by using kindly accents. But suddenly some one came to announce that the two coffins had been completed. This announcement pierced, like a dagger, dowager lady Chia to the heart; and while weeping with despair more intense, she broke forth ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... greatcoat might nowadays, was covered with a thick cloak or mantle, in deference to the severity of the weather; the thighs were similarly protected by linked mail, and the hose and boots defended by unworked plates of thin steel. In his girdle was a dagger, and from the saddle depended, on one side, a huge two-handed sword, on the ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... path of the back fire. Kent watched it and hardly breathed, but Val was shielding her face from the searing heat with her arms, and so did not see what happened then. A burning branch like a long, flaming dagger flew straight with the wind and lighted true as if flung by the hand of an enemy. A long, neatly tapered stack received it fairly, and Kent's cry brought Val's arms down, and her scared eyes ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... wretchedness. It had been a favourite doctrine with him that friendship and patriotism are altogether worthless; and in his last agony, Diogenes asking him whether he needed a friend, "Will a friend release me from this pain?" he inquired. Diogenes handed him a dagger, saying, "This will." "I want to be free from pain, but not from life." Into such degradation had philosophy, as represented by the Cynical school, fallen, that it may be doubted whether it is right to include a man like Antisthenes ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Huguenots were renewed, and the old scenes of treachery, assassination, and war were acted over again. The cause of religion was lost sight of in the labyrinth of contentions, jealousies, and plots. Intrigues and factions were endless. Nearly all the leaders, on both sides, perished by the sword or the dagger. The Prince of Conde, the Duke of Guise, and his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, were assassinated. Shortly after, died the chief mover of all the troubles, Catharine de Medicis, a woman of talents and persuasive eloquence, but of most unprincipled ambition, perfidious, cruel, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... taken two scones, or rolls, in his pocket for dinner, and ridden over to the Eildon Hills. He had seen a rainbow touch one of them, and there he hoped he would find the treasure that always lies at the tail of the rainbow. But he got very soon tired of digging for it with his little dirk, or dagger. It blunted the dagger, and he found nothing. Perhaps he had not marked quite the right place, he thought. But he looked at the teeth of the sheep, and they were yellow; so he had no doubt that there was a gold-mine under the grass, if ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang
... towards the retiring Captain with the air of Burke producing the dagger. His humour, I perceive, reads poor enough when written down, but when assisted by his comical impassible face, and solemn drawling delivery, I never heard anything ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... (Twelfth cake), dressed like a boy, in a fine long coat, biggin bib, muckender, and a little dagger; his usher bearing a great cake, with ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... crude weapon with which, apparently, the murder had been committed. It was a dagger consisting of a sharpened nail file, about three inches long, driven into a roughly rounded piece of wood. This wooden handle was a little more than four inches in length and two inches thick. Hastings, ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... of setting this colossal stage for death, the entire peasant population had been mobilized to assist the soldiers. In self-defense Belgium was thus obliged to drive the dagger deep into her own bosom. It seemed indeed as if she suffered as much at her own hands, as at the hands of the enemy. To arrest the advancing scourge she impressed into her service dynamite, fire and flood. ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... become chill and moist. The boat tilted sharply, and a dash of spray leaped the bow and, changing back to water, ran down the leeward side of the cockpit. A drop of rain splashed on his bared forearm, and then another and another. Through the dark, serried clouds came a dagger thrust of fire, to be followed by a distant detonation which bore his heart back to the shuddering fields ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... replied the Chamberlain, "thy brother will be Sultan of Damascus and thou Sultan of Baghdad; so take heart of grace and get ready thy case." Zau al-Makan accepted this and the Chamberlain presented him with a suit of royal raiment and a dagger[FN326] of state, which the Wazir Dandan had brought with him; then leaving him he bade the tent pitchers choose a spot of rising ground and set up thereon a spacious pavilion, wherein the Sultan might sit ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... an attire so whimsical and uncommon, however, a pair of small and richly-mounted pistols were at the stranger's girdle; and the haft, of a curiously-carved Asiatic dagger was seen projecting, rather ostentatiously, from between the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... engineers! If only Benito were here to advise her! Benito, her beloved brother, in whose path the gallows loomed. It was that picture which had caused her to yield to McTurpin. Even darker, now, was the picture of her own future. A gambler's wife! Her hand sought a jewelled dagger which she always carried in her coiffure. Her fingers closed about the hilt with a certain solace. After ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... conceivable case that a twenty pound note, enclosed to Timoleon's address, through the newspaper office, might go far to soothe that great patriot's feelings, and even to turn aside his avenging dagger. These sort of people were not the sort to frighten a British Ministry. One laughs at the probable conversation between an old hunting squire coming up to comfort the First Lord of the Treasury, on the ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... rebuilt church of S. John the Baptist of Volciana on the Carso, with the date 1429. The round tower dates from after the incursion of the Turks into the Carso in 1470, built under Pietro da Mula, 1474. On the Porta della Campana the length of the dagger which was allowed is marked, and the town still preserves one of the "Bocche de' leoni" which were used for secret denunciations. The communal palace was built in 1270, one year before Parenzo gave herself to Venice. Games of cards and dice were allowed under its portico and in the loggia, where ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... now began to throw stones, and one man, especially, threatened the captain with his dagger. In defence he fired. As the barrel was only loaded with small shot it killed no one. The other barrel had a ball in it, with which a man was killed. By this time the marines had begun to fire, and the captain turned round, either to order ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... that his younger brother had come to Paris in pursuit of him, accusing him of having stolen their father's hoard, and demanding his share with his dagger ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... to pay. The usurper rolls along like a god, surrounded by his guards. He dazzles the crowd—all very fine; but look beneath his splendid trappings and you see a shirt of mail, and beneath that a heart cowering in terror of an air-drawn dagger. Whom did the memory of Austerlitz most keenly sting? The beaten emperor? or the mighty Napoleon, dying like an untended ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... As all the old punishments was. We're a-getting too flabby, that's flat. The gallows, the stocks, and the pillory kept rebel rascals in hor, But now every jumped-up JACK CADE, or WAT TYLER can give us his jor Hot-and-hot, without fear of brave WALWORTH's sharp dagger, or even a shower Of stones, rotten heggs, and dead cats. Yah! The People has far too much power With their wotes, and free speech, and such fudge. Ah! if GLADSTONE, and ASQUITH, and BURNS, And a tidy few more of their sort, in the pillory just took their turns, Like that rapscallion, DANIEL ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... but he strikes home at these shrinking, quivering, innocent, tender bosoms; and then goes out upon the great arteries of cities, where the current of life pulsates, and holds his head erect, and calls on his fellows to laud him and admire him, for the chivalric act he hath done, in striking his dagger through one heart into another tender and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... debate, but not for long. In 1852 appeared the admirable cartoon in which Cobden—suddenly come very much to the fore in Punch's pages—is represented as Queen Eleanor, who advances on Disraeli, a grotesque "Fair Rosamond," with a poison-bowl of "Free Trade" in one hand and the dagger of "Resignation" in the other. Disraeli accepted the former, and Punch and the Free Traders rejoiced. But in their triumph they did not spare the feelings of the convert, whom they had dubbed "The Political Chameleon;" but at least ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Taxmar he might be all the worse off. The only sure way to win the respect of these barbarians was by efficiency as a soldier. Taxmar upon request gave his steward the military outfit of the Mayas—bow and arrows, wicker-work shield, and war-club, with a dagger of obsidian, a volcanic stone very hard and capable of being made very keen of edge, but brittle. Jeronimo when a boy had been an expert archer, and his old skill soon returned. He also remembered warlike devices and ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... curious to read in Suetonius of the many grimaces the wretch made before he could determine to kill himself; he made up his mind to do so only when he heard the tramping of the horsemen whom the Senate had sent to arrest him. He then put the dagger into his throat, aided in giving the last thrust by his freedman Epaphroditus. The centurion sent to take him alive arrived before he expired. To him Nero addressed these last words: "Too late! Is this your fidelity?" He gradually sank, his countenance assuming ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... plates. Eyes rather small, lower lid opatic, covered with scales. Ears oblong, with a large scale in front. Body fusiform, roundish thick; scales of the back, broad, lozenge-shaped, keeled; keels ending in a dagger point; largest on the hinder parts of the throat and belly; transverse, ovate, 6-sided. Limbs four, strong. Toes elongate, compressed, unequal, clawed; tail short, conical, tapering, depressed; with rings of large, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... Charcoalmen, a society which worked in different countries with one aim—opposition to the despot and the legitimist. The young man of twenty-two was impressed, no doubt, by the solemn oath of initiation which he had to take over a bared dagger, but he soon had to acknowledge that the efforts of the Carbonari were doomed to dismal failure. Membership was confined too much to the professional class, and there were too few appeals to the youth of Italy. Treachery was {186} rife among the different sections of the wide-spreading ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... gladiatorial games. There were Greeks here, pale of face and gentle of manner who could strike the chords of a lyre and sing to its accompaniment, and there were swarthy Spaniards who fashioned breast-plates of steel and fine chain mail to resist the assassin's dagger: there were Gauls with long lithe limbs and brown hair tied in a knot high above the forehead, and Allemanni from the Rhine with two-coloured hair heavy and crisp like a lion's mane. There was a musician from Memphis whose touch upon the sistrum would call a dying spirit ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... him,) to be labouring under great dejection of spirits. One circumstance related to me, as having occurred in the course of the passage, is not a little striking. Perceiving, as he walked the deck, a small yataghan, or Turkish dagger, on one of the benches, he took it up, unsheathed it, and, having stood for a few moments contemplating the blade, was heard to say, in an under voice, "I should like to know how a person feels after committing a murder!" In this startling speech we may detect, I think, the germ of his ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... round the flame His mother, Douglas, and the Graeme, And Ellen too; then cast around His eyes, then fixed them on the ground, As studying phrase that might avail Best to convey unpleasant tale. Long with his dagger's hilt he played, Then raised his haughty brow, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... not striking with dagger-point, but ripping with knife-edge. Yet I do him, and La Louve, injustice in classing them with the two others; they are put together only as parts in the same phantasm. Compare with La Louve, the strength of wild virtue in the "Louvecienne" (Lucienne) of Gaboriau—she, province-born ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... oath and swagger, As a man of great renown, On the board he clapped his dagger, Called for sack and sat ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... had done with Grendel. Seizing the witch, he shook her till she sank down on the ground; but she quickly rose again and requited him with a terrible hand-clutch, which caused Beowulf to stagger and then fall. Throwing herself upon him, she seized a dagger to strike him; but he wrenched himself free ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... is dead, Dead of a dagger i' the back,—and dead enough For twenty. Scarce were you gone an hour's time We came upon him cold. And in a pool Nearby, the Lady Francesca floating drowned, Who last was seen a-listening like a ghost At the door of the dungeon, ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... made with hilts, and the handle is a Deuil cut out of wood or bone: the sheathes are of wood: with them they are very bolde, and it is accounted for a great shame with them if they haue not such a Dagger, both yong, old, rich and poore, and yong children of fiue or sixe yeares olde, and when they go to the warres they haue targets, and some long speares, but most of them such poinyardes: The vse neyther great shotte nor caliuers when they go against their enemies: for a small matter ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... as near the camp as he could without being discovered, and landing, threw off every article of clothing save a shred round his loins; and with his gun in the one hand, and dagger in the other, proceeded to the spot. Having approached sufficiently near to see all that passed in the encampment, he squatted among the bushes, and watching his opportunity, "picked off" the ringleader; then rushing from his covert, and giving the war whoop, he planted his dagger in ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... restaurants were not long confined to one locality. From a very early date, owing perhaps to its proximity to the Tower and the Thames, East Cheap was famed for its houses of entertainment. The Dagger in Cheap is mentioned in "A Hundred Merry Tales," 1526. The Boar is historical. It was naturally at the East-end, in London proper, that the flood-tide, as it were, of tavern life set in, among the seafarers, in the heart of industrial activity; and the ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... his companion, with a down looking visage and a very ominous smile, when by chance he gave way to that impulse, which was never, except in reply to certain secret signs that seemed to pass between him and the elder stranger. This man was armed with a sword and dagger; and underneath his plain habit the Scotsman observed that he concealed a jazeran, or flexible shirt of linked mail, which, as being often worn by those, even of peaceful professions, who were called upon at that perilous period to ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... supreme and final effort, the dying man lurched forward and threw himself wildly toward the sound. His hand, brandishing the dagger, was uplifted and seemed about to descend on his foe; but at that very instant, with a frightful imprecation upon his lips, the gigantic form collapsed, the knife dropped from the hand, and he plunged, a corpse, into the arms ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... what she had to do in the kitchen, she helped Abdalla carry up the dishes. Looking at Cogia Houssain, she knew him at first sight, in spite of his disguise, to be the captain of the robbers, and, scanning him very closely, saw that he had a dagger ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... her toes on one foot! Therefore the Magician in giant form soon caught them up, and he was just about to grip Nix Naught Nothing when the Magician's daughter cried: "Put your fingers, since I have none, to my breast. Take out my veil-dagger and throw it down." ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... appeal. Now and again the terrible cries of "There shall be no more wars! There can be none! My Great Secret! I am Master of the World!" rang through the house despite the closed doors,—cries which they feigned not to hear, though Manella winced with pain, as at a dagger thrust, each time the ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... older. After the three have left home in search of professions, the older brothers try to kill the youngest, but he escapes. In his wanderings he meets with an old hermit, who, on hearing the boy's story, presents him with a magic booklet and dagger. These articles can furnish their possessor with whatever he wishes. At the appointed time the three brothers meet again at home, and each demonstrates his skill. The oldest, who has become an expert blacksmith, shoes a horse running at full speed. The second brother, a barber, trims ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... Swerve from it by so much as the breadth of my dagger and here's your instant reward. You heard not, saw not, and by the Horns of ninefold-cuckolded Jupiter you thought not nor dreamed not anything more ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... pain, like that caused by a dagger's thrust, seemed to flash through Bernardine's heart as those words ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... richly carved ivory 400 work-table, brought from Mexico, inside fitted up with silk and different compartments, standing three feet high 1 lady's solid silver rutler, 25 from Mexico 1 gilt head-ornament, 3 representing a dagger 1 lady's English dressing-case, $250 solid silver fittings, English make and stamp, rosewood, bound with brass and gilt, fitted and lined with silver 1 pair rich carved ivory hair 155 brushes, engraved with name and crest 1 ditto engraved and crest 55 1 small ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... With ribbons of silk and tags of leather, And chains of silver and buttons of stone, And knobs of amber and polished bone, And a turquoise brooch and a collar of jade, And a belt and a pouch of rich brocade, And a gleaming dagger with inlaid blade And jewelled handle of burnished gold Rakishly stuck in the red scarf's fold— A dress, in short, that might suit a wizard On a calm warm day In the month of May, But was hardly fit for ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... and clipt palm-trees; then a path As bleached as moonlight, with the shadow of leaves Stamped black upon it; next a vine-clad length Of solid masonry; and last of all A Gothic archway packed with night, and then— A sudden gleaming dagger through his heart. ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... never have done but that the revel broke, a great curl of her hair blew across my lips. I was bold,—I was heated, too, with this half-secret life of my heart, this warm blood that went leaping so riotously through my veins, and yet so silently,—I took my dagger from my belt and severed the curl. See, friend! will you look at it? It is like the little gold snakes of the Campagna, is it not? each thread, so fine and fair, a separate ray of light: once it was part of her! See how it twists round my hand! Haste! haste! let me put it up, lest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... governor of Jaffa is said to have pointed the dagger which was aimed at the heart of the English prince by the hand of an assassin. The wretch, as the bearer of letters, was admitted into the chamber of Edward, who, not suspecting treachery, received several severe wounds before he could dash the assailant to the floor and despatch ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... discoursed on a Jew's harp keeps the elfin women away from the hunter, because the tongue of the instrument is of steel. In Morocco iron is considered a great protection against demons; hence it is usual to place a knife or dagger under a sick man's pillow. The Singhalese believe that they are constantly surrounded by evil spirits, who lie in wait to do them harm. A peasant would not dare to carry good food, such as cakes or roast meat, from one place to another ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the motives which prompted the King's advances to the Cretan. While holding out the right hand to M. Venizelos, Constantine with the left aimed a dagger at his heart: a band of eleven assassins had just been arrested at Salonica on a charge of conspiring to murder him—to murder him in the very midst of his own and his allies' military forces, and under circumstances which made detection certain and escape impossible. Even thus: "their ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... to the outrage of which he had been guilty, aimed a fierce blow at his breast with a poniard. The stroke was well meant, nay, was well directed; but it was adroitly intercepted by M. de Crillon, who had been among the first to rise. With a blow of his sheathed sword he sent the dagger spinning towards the ceiling. ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... companions. They are dressed in most respects like the Tuaricks, but seem to take pride in loading themselves with a luxury of weapons. To see one of them running after a camel is really a ludicrous sight: bow, arrows, sword, gun, pistols, dagger, stick out in all directions, and it is hard to imagine how they would behave in the midst of this arsenal if attacked. The chief of them is En-Noor, a person of mild and good manners—quite a gentleman, in fact. He is a man of light complexion; but ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... wretch had on a white cap, and was wrapped up in a large red plaid shawl; the point of a very sharp dagger stuck through the bottom of the straw basket which she carried on her arm; but Tom did not ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... on the vault by stabs with a knife or dagger, or by other sharp objects, such as the spike of a railing. More frequently a pointed instrument, such as a fencing foil, the end of an umbrella, or a knitting needle, is thrust through the orbit into the base of the brain. Occasionally the base of the skull has ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... his nails aching with the cold, stands squarely with his small legs apart, and looks up at Father. "An' I shall be a player, too, when I'm a man," says Willy Shakespeare. "I shall be a player and wear a dagger like Herod, an' walk about an' draw it—so——" and struts him up and down while his father laughs and claps hand to knee and roars again, until Mistress Shakespeare tells him he it is ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... boots of black flexible leather, ascending to the hose, and armed with spurs with gigantic rowels, a round-crowned small-brimmed black hat, with an ostrich feather placed in the side and hanging over the top, a long rapier on his hip, and a dagger in his girdle. This buckram attire, it will be easily conceived, contributed no little to the natural stiffness of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... as he went by, and that a look of indignation for her foolishness. He ran to the bull, drew his knife from his sash and tried to stab it in the brain; but his hand shook so that he missed and only gave it a glancing gash that let much blood flow. He swore and struck again, snapping the dagger blade short off against the horns. Whereupon he threw the dagger violently from him and gave an angry kick at the animal, as if he would kill it ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... that he unceasingly said this to himself, and that yet with all this he could not console himself for having been so no longer during the many years since he had lost his post; that he had never been able to draw the dagger from his heart; that everything which recalled the memory of the past made him beside himself, and that to hear that his wife was going to take Madame de Poitiers to see a review of the body-guards, in which he now counted for nothing, had turned his head, and had rendered him wild ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... moments, the convulsive starts of his dying favourite, until the poor goat stretched out her limbs with the twitches and shivering fit of the last agony. He then started into an access of frenzy, and unsheathing a long sharp knife, or dagger, which he wore under his coat, he was about to launch it at the dog, when Hobbie, perceiving his purpose, interposed, and caught hold of his hand, exclaiming, "Let a be the hound, man—let a be the hound!—Na, na, Killbuck maunna be ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... doing? Get my dagger, boy," wildly reiterated the irate manager. "Don't you see there will be a stage-wait?" He cast an anxious glance in the direction of the door ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... Tom Thumb, 'is in great danger, for he has been captured by a gang of thieves, and the latter have sworn to kill him if he does not hand over all his gold and silver. Just as they had the dagger at his throat, he caught sight of me and begged me to come to you and thus rescue him from his terrible plight. You are to give me everything of value which he possesses, without keeping back a thing, otherwise he will be slain ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... out of mole-hills, and having you level them for me, Norn," she said, taking a glass of sherbet from the flower-wreathed tray of the charming slave. "I wish I wasn't such an alarmist. I felt as frantic as though Doris Leighton had drawn a dagger, and now I can see what ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... be peace), which is a sword such as no king has; steel and stone are one to it; if you bring it down on a rock it will not be injured, and it will cleave whatever you strike. Thirdly, there is the dagger which the sage Timus himself made; this is most useful, and the man who wears it would not bend under seven camels' loads. What you have to do first is to get to the home of the Simurgh[10], and to make friends with him. If he favours you, he ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... water Flag (Iris pseudacorus) is similar of growth, and equally well known by its brilliant heads of yellow flowers, with blade-like leaves, being found in wet places and water courses. The root of the Blue Flag, "Dragon Flower," or "Dagger Flower," contains chemically an "oleo-resin," which is purgative to the liver in material doses, and specially alleviative against bilious sickness when taken of much reduced strength by reason of its acting ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... the narrative history is merged into legend. The legend would have us believe that on the 7th Thermidor the "Citoyenne Fontenay" sent a dagger to the "Citoyen Tallien," accompanied by a letter in which she said that she had dreamt that Robespierre was no more, and that the gates of her prison had been flung open. "Alas!" she added, "thanks to your signal cowardice there will ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... barbed wire fence. Yet, it is claimed that certain of his enemies, like the leopard, know his one great weakness—a terror of being wet—and often make him uncoil by rolling him into the water. His coat of hard covering is really compact masses of hardened hair drawn out to sharp dagger points, and might be likened to pine cones endued with power. Through ages of experience, the scaly ant-eater has learned that even his powerful coat of protection is not altogether a success in life's battles, and from time to time his armour has been made lighter and lighter, ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... cause which remains unmentioned, but which is possibly internal. He is first displayed "pacing a sombre avenue of ilex and arbutus that reflected with singular truth the gloom of his countenance," and "toying sadly with the jewelled hilt of his dagger." He meditates upon his loveless life and the burthen of riches. Presently he "paces the long and magnificent gallery," where a "hundred generations of Di Sornos, each with the same flashing eye and the same marble brow, look down with the same ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... much frequented by country gentlemen on their visits to town. Although those inns have long been swept away, the quaint half-timbered buildings of Staple Inn remain to aid the imagination in repicturing those far-off days when the Dagger, and the Red Lion, and the Bull and Gate, and the Blue Boar, and countless other hostelries were dotted on ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... bay'nit,' said Learoyd, who had been listening intently. 'Look a-here!' He picked up a rifle an inch below the foresight with an underhanded action, and used it exactly as a man would use a dagger. ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... our condition are not allowed to carry arms. What would a lord say—yes, or any other person of whatever condition —if he caught an upstart peasant with a dagger ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the said servant rode soo nygh hym th[at] the male touched hym and he bade hym ryde forther and asked, why his bow was bent, and he said that was mater to hym, and the sayd deponent with I^d knyff [in another place it is called a dagger] which he had in his hand cut the bow string, bicause he rode soo nygh hym with horse that he had almost stroken hym downe; And forther he deposith that my lady light downe from hir horse hirself and said that, 'and she liffed, she would be avenged'; and thereupon ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... man, impetuously. "In times like ours it is not sufficient to pray and to hope for divine assistance; we ought rather to act and toil, and, instead of folding our hands, arm them either with the sword or with the dagger." ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... of dagger came, Near depriving him of sense. In his breast's a raging flame, Calls he AMIE'S lovely name As he ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... thread. It made large excursions, but constantly came back to her love. Sometimes that love was happy, sometimes unhappy. Often she said "Edward!" in the exquisite tone of a loving woman; and whenever she did, Zoe received it with a sort of shiver, as if a dagger, fine as a needle, had passed through her ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... inordinate ambition. She had won him to consent to the murder, but she doubted his resolution; and she feared that the natural tenderness of his disposition (more humane than her own) would come between and defeat the purpose. So with her own hands armed with a dagger she approached the king's bed, having taken care to ply the grooms of his chamber so with wine that they slept intoxicated and careless of their charge. There lay Duncan in a sound sleep after the fatigues of his journey, and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... church. Organ music pealed; choir boys appeared from their robing-room beside the entrance, pacing two and two as they chanted. The celebrant stood in his place at the altar, and antiphonal music rolled among the arches; pierced by the dagger voice of a woman in the arcades, who called after the retreating butcher's boy to look sharp, and bring ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... and he is compelled to seek shelter under Bewulf's shield of iron. Bewulf's sword snaps asunder, and he is seized by the dragon. Wiglaf stabs the dragon from underneath, and Bewulf cuts it in two with his dagger. Feeling that his end is near, he bids Wiglaf bring out the treasures from the cavern, that he may see them before he dies. Wiglaf enters the dragon's den, which is described, returns to Bewulf, and receives his last commands. Bewulf dies, and Wiglaf bitterly ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... disposition. He was above the average height of men, slender, and in armor—the armor of the East, adapted in every point to climate and light service. A cope or hood, intricately woven of delicate steel wire, and close enough to refuse an arrow or the point of a dagger, defended head, throat, neck, and shoulders, while open at the face; a coat, of the same artistic mail, beginning under the hood, followed closely the contour of the body, terminating just above the knees as a skirt. Amongst Teutonic and English ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... stand-point—respected them for their virtues, and often spoke of the goodness of heart of the sex, but never dreamed of taking to himself a wife. The unequalled beauty of Clotelle had dazzled his eyes, and every look that she gave was a dagger that went to his heart. He felt a shortness of breath, his heart palpitated, his head grew dizzy, and his limbs trembled; but he knew not its cause. This was the first stage ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... regular army; then another individual, whose garb announced him as being of the militia, and whose rank as an officer was only distinguishable from the cockade surmounting his round hat, and an ornamented dagger thrust into a red morocco belt encircling his waist. After these came the light and elegant form of one, habited in the undress of a British naval officer, who, with one arm supported by a black silk handkerchief, evidently taken from his throat, and suspended from his neck, and with the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... is very likely a patronymic, the name of some region or some mythical ancestor. In other words, it is a signal for widening our view and for conceiving the object, not only vividly and with pause, but in an adequate historic setting. Macbeth tells us that his dagger was "unmannerly breeched in gore." Achilles would not have amused himself with such a metaphor, even if breeches had existed in his day, but would rather have told us whose blood, on other occasions, had stained the same blade, and perhaps what ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... to raise the world to higher things. So gracious, so influential, so far-seeing, so all-embracing was his nature, that Voltaire called him "the lawgiver and the glory of his people," while Frederick the Great dedicated to him a dagger with the inscription, "Libertas, Patria." The shadows in his character were that he was imperious and arbitrary; so overmastering that he trained the Corsicans to seek guidance and protection, thus preventing them from ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... permitted to the subject to take up arms against the sovereign for the cause of liberty." Then, convoking an assembly of the states at Saragossa, he produced before them the instrument containing the two Privileges, and cut it in pieces with his dagger. In doing this, having wounded himself in the hand, he suffered the blood to trickle upon the parchment, exclaiming, that "a law which had been the occasion of so much blood, should be blotted out by the blood of a king." ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... set about their business straight-way. Neither did the others abide long in the Hall, but went out into the Burg to see the chapmen and their wares. There the Alderman bought what he needed of iron and steel and other matters; and Folk-might cheapened him a dagger curiously wrought, and a web of gold and silk for the Sun-beam, for which wares he paid in silver arm-rings, new-wrought and of ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... pursuer, a persecutor—the other a sensualist, a Gallio, a tool. For many years he has never beheld his mother's face; he married in his youth; he injured, deserted, yea, he killed his wife—not with his own hand or with the dagger, but by the surer weapons of hatred, neglect, unkindness. And she died. He has but one child; that child was left in charge of my honoured and loving daughter, the Lady Pevensey of Notts, and hath been brought up in a Christian manner; ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... and a blue cloth trimmed with braid and gold thread wrapped round him, his drawers being of white stuff, reaching down to the ankles. Round his waist he wore a silk sash, in which was stuck a silver-mounted dagger; and in his hand he carried a sword, also mounted with silver. He wore on his head a turban of many colours, with braid and fringes of gold thread wrapped round a dark-coloured skull-cap. His attendants were dressed in the same fashion. Some were fair, and others very dark, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... suspect did that of Brutus. The Caesars had no God, no fear of public opinion at home, no general sentiment of civilized nations to control their tyranny. They had only the shadow of a hand armed with a dagger. One shrewd observer of the times at least, if I mistake not, had profited by the lesson of Caesar's folly and fate. To the constitutional demeanour and personal moderation of Augustus the world owes an epoch of grandeur ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith |
