"Flatten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It is nothing more than a ribbon torn from the green leaf of the ti plant, say three-quarters of an inch to an inch in width by 5 or 6 inches long, and rolled up somewhat after the manner of a lamplighter, so as to form a squat cylinder an inch or more in length. This was compressed to flatten it. Placed between the lips and blown into with proper force, it emits a tone of pure reedlike quality, that varies in pitch, according to the size of the whistle, from G in the middle register to a shrill piping note more than an ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... thick steak off the large end of a beef tenderloin; flatten it out a little; rub olive-oil or butter over it, and broil over a charcoal fire; place it on a hot dish, add a little pepper and salt, and serve ...
— Breakfast Dainties • Thomas J. Murrey
... prepared in the following way: Cut a fillet into eight slices three quarters of an inch thick; trim the slices into perfect circles, all exactly the same size; flatten them; put them in a hot pan, and saute for seven or eight minutes in two ounces of butter; dress them round a dish, and pour over them the sauce from which the dish will ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... so with the nose; the ancient Huns during the age of Attila were accustomed to flatten the noses of their infants with bandages, "for the sake of exaggerating a natural conformation." With the Tahitians, to be called LONG-NOSE is considered as an insult, and they compress the noses and foreheads of their children for the sake of beauty. The same holds with the Malays of Sumatra, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... as the sun rose, we saw the last low marshy points widen, flatten and recede, and beyond the outlying towers of the lights caught sight of lazy liners crawling in, and felt the long throb of the great Gulf's pulse, and sniffed the salt of the ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... the Hippopotamus with bullets made of platinum, Because if I use leaden ones his hide is sure to flatten 'em. ...
— Bad Child's Book of Beasts • Hilaire Belloc
... to narrow again, and the only way to tackle it was to flatten themselves, limpet-like, against the cliff face, and claw their way onwards, gripping every possible little projection which gave any sort ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... curved. When we look at near objects, the muscles act in such a way that the lens bulges out, and becomes thick in the middle and of the right curvature to focus the near object upon the screen. When we look at an object several hundred feet away, the muscles change their pull on the lens and flatten it until it is of the proper curvature for the new distance. The adjustment of the muscles is so quick and unconscious that we normally do not experience any difficulty in changing our range of view. The ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... evidently told the child to flatten himself against the wall, for the little fellow had spread out his arms and pressed his body ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... of reaching for the weapon, the Governor happened to glance toward him, evidently guessed what his prisoner contemplated, and promptly levelled his revolver. As the muzzle came up it spouted flame, and Frobisher heard the bullet sing past his ear, to flatten itself against the massive stone wall. Again the vicious little weapon was fired; but at the precise instant that the Chinaman's finger pressed the trigger, Frobisher leaned over and grasped the hilt of the sword; and again the bullet missed. A third time the ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... But he will thole through, in the end. For with all his roughness he can be unexpectedly adroit. Whinstane Sandy once told me something he had learned about Polar bears in his old Yukon days: with all their heaviness, they can go where a dog daren't venture. If need be, they can flatten out and slide over a sheet of ice too thin to support a running dog. And the drift-ice may be widening, but I refuse to give up my hope of hope. "Let the mother go," as the Good Book says, "that it may ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... would be delicious?' she cried; and plunging her spoon into the dish the girl helped herself to a large piece. But the instant it touched her mouth a cold shiver ran through her. Her head seemed to flatten, and her eyes to look oddly round the corners; her legs and her arms were stuck to her sides, and she gasped wildly for breath. With a mighty bound she sprang through the window and fell into the river, where she soon felt better, ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... warning pats, they tiptoed guiltily to the side of the house and peered in at the dining-room window, where the shade was raised a couple of inches above the sill. A noise at the back of the house made them start and flatten against the wall. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... women sit up of nights listening for a footstep, will they flatten their faces at the window, though all without be black. Jean had not been back in the kitchen for two minutes before she raised the blind. Her eyes were close to the glass, when she saw another face almost ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... fighting. No regular rounds with a rest between. The men rushed and slugged and clinched and tugged, and when they fell, got up and went at it again. Always, when they went to the floor, Sickles let his two hundred and fifty pounds drop limp and heavy on Drislane. Drislane would almost flatten out under it. Standing up, when Sickles's fist landed on him he would wince all over. He felt pain like ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... accidental. But it holds the chief and highest power, as mese to hypate, in respect of the concupiscent; as mese to nete, in respect of the irascible; insomuch as it depresses and heightens,—and in fine makes a harmony,—by abating what is too much and by not suffering them to flatten and grow dull. For what is moderate and symmetrous is defined by mediocrity. Still more is it the end of the rational faculty to bring the passions to moderation, which is called sacred, as making a harmony of the extremes with reason, and through reason with each ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... best, it is only pitiable; at worst, it is detestable. Athanasius contra mundum is grand only in cases where the snag is right, and the mundus wrong. Then persecution becomes the second-highest form of blessedness—the highest form, of course, being the ability to turn round and flatten-out the persecutor. Now, if Alf could open the windows of his understanding——But then, one of the gravest disabilities in the leopard of thirty-five, or thereabout, is connected with the changing of his ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... and her mother would find George there, with his coat and shoes off, and his big body flung down across the bed, asleep. George would wake up slowly, with much yawning and grumbling, Emeline would add her gloves and belt to the unspeakable confusion of the bureau, and Julia would flatten her tired little back against the curve of an armchair and follow with heavy, brilliant eyes ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... about half an inch thick; trim them, and flatten them with a cleaver; you may fry them in fresh butter, or good drippings (No. 83); when brown on one side, turn them and do the other; if the fire is very fierce, they must change sides oftener. The time they will take depends on the ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... the scion from rain. As soon as leaves appear on the scion, the sack is removed and all the new sprouts are broken off below the graft. I put only one scion on each graft. I use Beck's cold wax. It is easy to thin with water and I just flatten a stick for my brush. I never wax the bud but wax scion well ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... pieces, they should break off perfectly straight; if they split up lengthwise, they contain weak places due to streaks. All the varieties should, upon boiling, hold their shape and double in size; in case they break into pieces and flatten, they are ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... filled the Land now seemed suddenly to soften. The clustered tapers had lessened—to a single chandelier of four globes. Next, the forest trees began to flatten, and take on the appearance of a conventional pattern. The grass became rug-like in smoothness. The sky squared itself to the ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... phrase, one that has haunted my mind these many years, that the follies of the West flatten against the sublime wisdom of the East like bullets ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... the fifth break, the tailings go to the shorts bin, the middlings which are sufficiently well purified go to the middlings stone, while those from near the tail of the machine which contain a little germ and bran specks go to the second germ rolls, these being a pair of smooth rolls which flatten out the germ and crush the middlings, loosening adhering particles from the bran specks. From the second germ rolls the material goes to a reel, where it is separated into flour which goes into the baker's grade, fine middlings which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... volplane, slanting steeply down at the herd. He wanted to get close enough so that they could see who he was, and he wanted to fill his lungs and then shout down to them something that would make them squirm. He meant to flatten out a hundred feet or so above them and shout, "For I'm a rider of the sky!" and then give a range yell and climb up away from them with arrogant ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... rehearse the inner life of everybody that has ever lived would be no rational endeavour. Instead of lifting the historian above the world and making him the most consummate of creatures, it would flatten his mind out into a passive after-image of diffuse existence, with all its horrible blindness, strain, and monotony. Reason is not come to repeat the universe but to fulfil it. Besides, a complete survey of events would perforce register all changes that have taken place in ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... than ever in her dinner dress. Jewels shone in the great puff of snowy hair that lay like a crown about her head. (Graham had always wanted to poke his finger into this marvel to see if it would burst and flatten like a toy balloon.) Jewels shone in the laces of her dress and on her fingers. She sat very straight, as even a make-believe duchess should, and led the conversation. To do so was very easy, for ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... for us. I think they'll open fire pretty soon now, because the night is growing uncommon bright. The stars are so big and shining, and there are so many of them they all look as if they had come to a party. Flatten yourselves down, boys! I can see a figure kneeling by a bowlder and that means ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... as well as the most personal affections. . . . Even what are called the fine doctrinal distinctions are not dull. They are like the finest operations of surgery; separating nerve from nerve but giving life. It is easy enough to flatten out everything around for miles with dynamite if our only object is to give death. But just as the physiologist is dealing with living tissues so the theologian is dealing with living ideas; and if he draws a line between them it is naturally ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... with this further inconvenience added to the disgust it creates, that the words Joys, Ardours, Transports, Extasies and the rest of those pathetic terms so congenial to, so received in the Practice of Pleasure, flatten and lose much of their due spirit and energy by the frequency they indispensably recur with, in a narrative of which that Practice professedly composes the whole basis. I must therefore trust to the candour of your ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... lens. It is drawn perfectly tight so that the sides of the eyeball exert a continuous tension, or pull, on the membranous capsule, which, in its turn, exerts pressure on the sides of the lens, tending to flatten it. This arrangement brings the elastic force of the eyeball into opposition to the elastic force of the lens. The ciliary muscle plays between these opposing forces in ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... usual, and by-and-by the snake began to flatten his ribs, and draw himself from under the load, until at last he was clear of it; then, heaving a deep sigh of relief he lay quiet for awhile to recover his breath. He knew there was a hole somewhere if he could only find it and he kept poking his nose ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... believe, hates Willett himself. I've just got him stowed away for the night. Had to take him out of earshot of the store and put him in limbo at Craney's shack, where he can't hear what's going on. I gave him a dose that would flatten out St. Vitus himself. There'll be no budging Case this night ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... be observed that their action would be to rotate and elevate the ribs. The dome-like shape of the diaphragm is seen, and it can be easily understood that if the central tendon is fixed and the sheet of muscle fibres on either side contracts, the floor of the chest on either side will flatten, allowing the lungs to expand vertically. The joints of the ribs with the spine can be seen, and the slope of the surface of the ribs is shown, so that when elevation and rotation occur the chest will be ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... such of her neighbours as may seem to hamper her movements. Then, with her mouth and claws, she will seize one of the eight scales that hang from her abdomen, and at once proceed to clip it and plane it, extend it, knead it with her saliva, bend it and flatten it, roll it and straighten it, with the skill of a carpenter handling a pliable panel. When at last the substance, thus treated, appears to her to possess the required dimensions and consistency, she will attach it to the highest point of ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... who had, by this time, wiggled herself to a place beside Freddie, and so near the window that she could flatten her little nose ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... either," continued the Engineer. "The deceased are simply all over the place. The best plan is to dig until you come to a blanket. (There are usually two or three to a blanket.) Then tell off a man to flatten down clay over the place at once, and try somewhere else. It is a rotten job, though, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... The whole fun of an eighteenth-century English crowd consisted in snatching off some unfortunate's wig, or toppling him over into the gutter. The truth is we sin against civilization when we consent to flatten ourselves against our neighbours. The experience of the world has shown conclusively that a few inches more or less of breathing space make all the difference between a self-respecting ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... think of you in your log cabin with the white man," I said. "On winter nights I'll flatten my nose against the window-pane and have a little peek in; next day you'll recognize my footsteps in ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... new-laid egg and shake it about for some time until the white is well mixed with the yolk. In this condition it is possible to balance the egg on its end and make it stand upright on the glass. This trick is more certain to be successful if you are clever enough to flatten the end ever so slightly and evenly, by giving it a ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... "Hard a-port! flatten in forward! brail up the trysail, my men! Be smart!" cried Kloots, as from the wind's chopping round to the northward and westward, the ship was taken aback, and careened low before it. The rain now came down in torrents, and it was so dark that it was with difficulty they could ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... give almost invariably to their saints and their madonnas. This elegant corselet, made of sky-blue velvet, as dainty as that of a dragon-fly, enclosed the bust like a guimpe and compressed it, delicately modelling the outline as it seemed to flatten; it moulded the shoulders, the back, the waist, with the precision of a drawing made by an able draftsman, ending around the neck in an oblong curve, adorned at the edges with a slight embroidery in brown silks, leaving ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... some moments; then she laid her hand on Karen's shoulder. "That's it," she said. "She's beautiful and it most kills us to find out how cruel and bad she can be. But I guess we can't judge people like Mercedes, Karen. When you go through life like a mowing-machine and see everyone flatten out before you, you must get kind of exalted ideas about yourself. If anything happens that makes a hitch, or if anybody don't flatten out, why it must seem to you as if they were wrong in some way, doing you an injury. That's the way it is ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... would seem, is inseparable from the aggregatory idea; it is a necessity of the human mind. When we think of the class A as desirable, we think of Not-A as undesirable. The two things are as inevitably connected as the tendons of our hands, so that when we flatten down our little fingers on our palms, the fourth digit, whether we want it or not, comes down halfway. All real working gods, one may remark, all gods that are worshipped emotionally, are tribal gods, and every attempt to universalise the idea of God trails ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... fine. Mix with it about twice the quantity of hot mashed potatoes well seasoned with butter and salt. Beat up an egg and work it into the potato and meat, then form the mixture into little cakes the size of fish balls. Flatten them a little, roll in flour or egg and cracker crumbs, fry in butter and lard mixed, browning on both sides. ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... it comes from the makers is generally far from flat. It is often necessary to flatten a sheet of ebonite, and of course this is the more easily accomplished the smaller the sheet. Consequently a bit of ebonite of about the required size is first cut from the stock sheet by a hack-saw such as is generally used for metals. This piece ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... shore; There burst their noisy pride, and are no more? Thus the successive flows of human race, Chas'd by the coming, the preceding, chase; They sound, and swell, their haughty heads they rear; Then fall, and flatten, break, and disappear. Life is a forfeit we must shortly pay; And where's the mighty lucre of a day? Why should you mourn my fate? 'tis most unkind; Your own you bore with an unshaken mind: And which, can you imagine, was the dart That drank most blood, sunk deepest in my heart? I cannot ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... find the solid part of these strata, it is necessary to make a shaft at the foot of the wall of great depth through the strata; and in this shaft, on the side from which the hill slopes, smooth and flatten a space one palm wide from the top to the bottom; and after some time this smooth portion made on the side of the shaft, will show plainly which part of the hill ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... his companion just had time to flatten themselves against the wall when the jumble of flying steps was upon them, and two persons, with the slightest possible interval between them, dashed past at full speed. It was a perfect whirlwind of sound breaking in upon ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... to see what is on either side of them, and have their eyes accordingly placed on either side of their head. Some fishes, however, have their abode near coasts on submarine banks and inclinations, and are thus forced to flatten themselves as much as possible in order to get as near as they can to the shore. In this situation they receive more light from above than from below, and find it necessary to pay attention to whatever happens to be above them; this need has involved the displacement ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... tableau; they die out gradually. Someone gets out here, some-one else falls off there, and there is a general running down of the machinery that has propelled the festival up to the last moment. They flatten unmistakably, and it is almost a pity that some sort of climax cannot be engaged for each occasion, in the midst of which everyone should disappear, in red fire and a ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... longer satisfies us when we come face to face with it. The cause of this is always the same. Imagination and reality bear the same relation to each other as poetry and prose: The former conceives objects to be huge and precipitous, the latter always thinks that they flatten themselves out. The landscape painters of the sixteenth century, compared with those of our own day, furnish the most striking example ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... a circle, just at the mouth of the dug-out which most of the half-section inhabit, and flood with tobacco-stained saliva the place where they put their hands and feet when they flatten themselves to ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... slow rolling,—massive and formidable. Sometimes, just before breaking, a towering swell would crack all its green length with a tinkle as of shivering glass; then would fall and flatten with a peal that shook the wall beneath me.... I thought of the great dead Russian general who made his army to storm as a sea,—wave upon wave of steel,—thunder following thunder.... There was yet scarcely any wind; ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... take a piece of thin sheet iron or brass; flatten it out, and make a slight dent in it an inch from the two nearest edges. With this dent as centre are scribed two circles, of 3/4 and 1/2 inch radius respectively. Then scratch a series of radial marks between the circles, a fifth of an inch apart. Cut out along the outer circle, ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... Mrs Bompas were not consistent with his duty to me as host; and it did him honor and me too. But [with gathering fury] she isn't good enough for you, it seems. You regard her with coldness, with indifference; and you have the cool cheek to tell me so to my face. For two pins I'd flatten your nose in to teach you manners. Introducing a fine woman to you is casting pearls before swine [yelling at him] before ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... that the hero was a clergyman, sinking the opinions, as too vague to be mentioned, even had not the company been too flighty for a subject she thought serious and painful. "And he is at this moment sketching the Spinster's Needles!" said Bessie. "Well, I am consoled. With all your resolve to flatten down an adventure, fate is too strong for you. Something will come of it. Is not the very resolve that it shall not be an ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have walked on Lebanon. I have cruised in the seven seas and seen the white marvels of ancient cities reflected in the wave of incredible blueness. But then I was young. When the years began to pile up, I longed to stake off my horizons, to flatten out my views. I wanted the simpler, the more elemental things, things cosmic in their associations, nearer to the beginning or end of creation. The parrot that flashed through "nutmeg groves" did not hold out so much allurement as the simple gray-and-slaty junco. ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... vivid yellow fringe; the dead grass from the front yard, the sticks and stalks and old tomato vines, the bits of rag and the old bones that Guess has gnawed upon are burning in the alley, and the tormented smoke is darting this way and that, trying to get out from under the wind that seeks to flatten it to the ground. All this is spring, and—and yet it isn't. The word is not yet spoken that sets us free to live the outdoor life; we are yet prisoners and captives of ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... follow the advice to flatten himself on the ground. Instead, he stood straighter—even rose on his toes and stared in the direction whence he judged the ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... and like little white shells. He would take one between finger and thumb and play with it as if it were a toy, pulling at the lobe of it, or trying to flatten out the curved part. Her breasts, her shoulders, her knees, her little feet, every bit of her, he would examine and play with and kiss. She would lie and let him, seeming absorbed in some far-away thought, of which he was the object, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... that time masters of the frigate. Finding that his ship was captured, he leaped out of the cabin window, and swam safely to a Dutch ship astern. The Phoenix was carried off in triumph, and reached Naples in safety. Of course, the Grand Duke of Tuscany remonstrated, and ordered Commodore Flatten either to restore the Phoenix or to quit Leghorn; he was determined not to do the former, and sending to Commodore Bodley, who was lying at Elba with his small squadron, it was arranged he should come off the port, and draw the Dutch away. This he did. Commodore Van Galen's squadron, at the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... and in a very short time was near enough to the small plane for it to be seen clearly with the naked eye. It had been flying at a considerable height. As the boys watched, it went into a dive, with the pilot struggling desperately to flatten out. He succeeded, when not far from the surface of the ocean. As a result, instead of diving nose foremost into the water, the plane fell flat with a resounding smack, there was a breathless moment ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... "Flatten 'em out," said he, briefly. "Politics. First off I'm going to practice general law; then I'll be solicitor-general for this county. After that, I shall be attorney-general for the state. Later I may be governor, unless I become ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... curious information already collected and given in previous chapters. It appeared that at the birth of a child the head, while the skull was still soft, was intentionally compressed and bandaged, especially at the forehead and back, so as to flatten it and produce an abnormal shape of the skull. In many cases only the back of the head was flattened by the application of artificial pressure. The elongation was both upwards and sideways. This deformation was particularly ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... wonderful attic in all the world. And then, after he had stroked the soft fur, and smelled the buckskin and sweet grasses, and tasted the crumbling maple sugar, and dressed himself in the barbaric splendours of the North, he could flatten his little nose against the dim square of light and look out over the glistening yellow backs of a dozen birchbark canoes to the distant, rain-blurred hills, beyond which lay the country whence all these things had come. Do you wonder that in after years that child hits the ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... it up to the bows smartly, cat it, and then range along your cable all ready for letting go again if need be. Flatten in your larboard jib-sheets for'ard; man your larboard fore- braces and brace the headyards sharp up. Hard a-starboard with your helm, Williams—she has stern-way upon her. And you Rogers, away aloft and keep a sharp look-out ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... Our strength and weight Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! But the glory of smashing is lost of late, We raid less eagerly now than then, For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, The guns be many, the men be more; We fidget with pickets before and behind, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... in the water, a board may be placed upon it, weighted so as not to flatten against the bottom of the vessel, or it may be kept in position under the water by pressing thin slips of wood over from side to side. The skin being well saturated—which, according to the size of the bird, will take place in from twelve to twenty-four hours—must have ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Leuthold, their intrepid guide, flinging down everything which could embarrass his movements, stretched his alpenstock over the ridge as a grappling pole, and, trampling the snow as he went, so as to flatten his giddy path for those who were to follow, was in a moment on the top. To so steep an apex does this famous peak narrow, that but one person can stand on the summit at a time, nor was even this possible till the snow was beaten down. Returning on his steps, Leuthold, whose quiet, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... beat him up! That goes, do you hear? I'm gonna' flatten the big stiff. He made a monkey outa me, and he ain't gonna' get away ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... Murdock received the name "cockspur" from the shape of the flame. This had an illuminating value equivalent to about one candle for each cubic foot of gas burned per hour. The next step was to flatten the welded end of the gas-pipe and to bore a series of holes in a line. From the shape of the flames this form of burner received the name "cockscomb." It was somewhat more efficient than the cockspur ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... of them seem as if their mothers used to sit upon their faces when they was kids, to keep them warm and flatten ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... that Peter had many sufficient reasons for entertaining these encouraging hopes. He was capitally fed, had very little more to do than to ease off, or flatten in a sheet, the boat being too large to be rowed; and cigars, and liquors of various sorts were pretty much at his command, for the obvious reason that they were under his care. In delivering his sentiments, however, Peter was reasonably honest, ...
— The Lake Gun • James Fenimore Cooper
... looking out at the fields where the grains and vegetables were growing, thinking how easy it was to farm here—plenty of rain, plenty of sun, no storms to flatten and ruin the crops, not even enough insect pests to worry a man. He looked out at the fenced pastures where the colony's community ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... least was its effect previous to, and after Noah used it; and if they fail in this, that necessarily, this part of their argument is also a total failure. Let us look into the Bible. God cursed our first parents. Did this curse kink their hair, flatten their skulls, blacken their skin and flatten their nose? If it did, then Noah was sadly mistaken and these gentlemen too, in supposing that it was Noah's curse, that accomplished all this, for it was already done for the whole race—and long before, by God himself. God cursed ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne
... indeed, in my heart I knew I could never hope to equal, much less beat, such a mighty cast. I therefore decided on strategy, and, with this in mind, proceeded, in a leisurely fashion, once more to mark out the circle, which was obliterated in places, to flatten the surface underfoot, to roll up my sleeves, and tighten my belt; in fine, I observed all such precautions as a man might be expected to take ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... lose sleep guarding on him," was Jeff's confident reply. "There aint no winder to the corncrib, and the door fastens with a bar outside. Some of the chinking has fell out atween the logs, but he can't crawl through the cracks less'n he can flatten himself out like a flying squirrel. Furthermore, there's the dogs that will be on to him if he gives ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... flute brings out this quality of song. I must not allow the pressure of too much greed to flatten out the reed, for then, as I fear, music will give place to the questions "Why?" "What is the use of so much?" "How am I to get it?"—not a word of which will rhyme with what Radhika sang! So, as I was saying, illusion alone is real—it is the flute itself; while truth is but its empty hollow. ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... contagious, Young John soon pushed away his own plate, and fell to folding the cabbage-leaf that had contained the ham. When he had folded it into a number of layers, one over another, so that it was small in the palm of his hand, he began to flatten it between both his hands, and to eye Clennam attentively. 'I wonder,' he at length said, compressing his green packet with some force, 'that if it's not worth your while to take care of yourself for your own sake, it's not worth doing for some ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... began to sing amongst the rafters of the high and strange roof. The manufactory in which the men were at work was a strong contrast to this desolate place, a stunning noise, Cyclops with bared arms dragging sheets of red-hot copper, and thrusting it between the cylinders to flatten it; while it passed between these, the flame issued forth with a sort of screeching noise. When I first heard it I thought somebody was hurt: the flame was occasioned by the burning of the grease put between ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... that covers the rest of the head. The object of this arrangement, perhaps, is to defend it from the action of the water, as there are no eyelids. The globe in front is somewhat depressed, and is furnished behind with a muscle, which serves to lengthen or flatten it, according to the necessities of the animal. The crystalline humour, which in quadrupeds is flattened, is, in fishes, nearly globular. The organ of smelling in fishes is large, and is endued, at its entry, with a dilating and contracting power, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... to a woman at all, do it thoroughly. If you go halfway down she'll be tempted to push you the rest of the way. If you flatten out at her feet to begin with, ten to one but ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... within ten feet of me then, and I had no choice in the matter. No, when we do get a shot just you aim to cripple him—in the shoulder or leg. If he charges, hit his trunk or break his leg. One of those bullets, big as they are, would simply flatten out on his skull ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... Cubists are not Cubist enough," replied the stranger. "I mean they're not thick enough. By making things mathematical they make them thin. Take the living lines out of that landscape, simplify it to a right angle, and you flatten it out to a mere diagram on paper. Diagrams have their own beauty; but it is of just the other sort. They stand for the unalterable things; the calm, eternal, mathematical sort of truths; what somebody ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... feet made scarcely any sound on the granite floor. Still we were incautious, and it was purely by luck that I glanced ahead and discovered that which made me jerk Harry violently back and flatten myself against the wall. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... shape, until his wife takes charge of him and makes him into large loaves or little cakes, according to family requirements; but must not stop kneading, rolling, patting, on pain of having him all flatten out. ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... Flatten me not with flattery! Walk with me to the Battery, And see in glassy tanks the seals, The sturgeons, flounders, smelt and eels Disport themselves in ichthyic curves— And when it gets upon our nerves Then, while our wabbling taxi honks I'll tell you all about the Bronx, Where captive ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... little piles on a plate, and left there over night. Next morning the piles are examined, and if any of them has fallen down, he or she whom it represents will die within the year. Again, the women carefully sweep out the ashes from under the fireplace and flatten them down neatly on the open hearth. If they find next morning a footprint turned towards the door, it signifies a death in the family within the year; but if the footprint is turned in the opposite direction, it bodes a marriage. Again, divination by eavesdropping ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... for it. Call it what you wish, but don't expect any sympathy from me. While I use every precaution to preserve my health, you go sloshing around in your bare feet, or sit on a cake of ice to read a dime novel, or do some other tomfool thing to flatten you out. I refuse to sympathize with you, Mrs. Bowser—absolutely and teetotally refuse to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... swift as lightning. Don Luis saw the great blade of a scythe cleaving the air at the height of his head. Had he hesitated for a second, for the tenth of a second, the awful weapon would have beheaded him. As it was, he just had time to flatten himself against the ladder. The scythe whistled past him, grazing his jacket. He slid ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... place to grow: Just as in our streets, when the people stay To see the prince, and so fill up the way That weasels scarce could pass; when he comes near They throng and cleave up, and a passage clear, As if for that time their round bodies flatten'd were. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... at you. You told me yesterday you were loaded for these Californians and could flatten their anti-Japanese arguments in ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... as much impressed by the fact that I had not undressed as I was by the fact that he HAD, partly. He wore a hideous dressing gown of Jimmy's, much too small, and his hair, parted and plastered down in the early evening, stood up in a sort of brown brush all over his head. He was trying to flatten it with ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Leo. "That's most best way. High up this creek she come flatten down—little valley ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... like magic, sending the Apaches back to cover, where they began to return the fire briskly enough, though they did no more harm than to flatten their bullets, some of which dropped harmlessly into the rifle-pits, and were coolly appropriated by the Beaver's followers ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... front steering gear is shown at Fig. 3. A 3/4-in. steel rod makes a good steering rod. Flatten the steering rod at one end and sink it into the wood. Hold it in place by means of an iron plate drilled to receive the rod and screwed to block X. An iron washer, Z, is used to reduce friction; bevel block K to give a rocker motion. Equip block X with screw eyes, making them clear those in ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Strips. Fig. 52. When sheet-metal is punched by the methods usually employed by boys, a bulge or bur is made on the underside around the hole. If this bur be hammered to flatten it, the hole is distorted and made smaller. It is better to file the bur down, at least part way. It is not convenient to file a piece of thin metal when it is held in a vise. It is better to use either a metal or a wooden clamp, as shown in Fig. 52; then the filing can be quickly and easily ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... doubt it will spread from other sources, but so far as I know—and thanks only to you—I am well ahead of any other adventurer from the East this season, and, as you know, winter soon will seal the trails against followers. Next year, 1849, will be the big rush, if it all does not flatten. ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... Radisson had sprung upon him. The Frenchman's left arm had coiled the fellow round the waist. Our leader's pistol flashed a circle that drove the rabble back, and the ringleader went hurling head foremost through the main hatch with force like to flatten his skull to a gun-wad. There was a mighty scattering back to the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... drawing you will probably find more difficult at first. For the reason already explained it seems natural to observe objects as made up of outlines, not masses. The frame with cottons across it should be used to flatten the appearance, as in making outline drawings. And besides this a black glass should be used. This can easily be made by getting a small piece of glass—a photographic negative will do—and sticking some black paper on the back; turning it over the front ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... three months after the outbreak of hostilities their weakness in regard to equipment and to munitions was not, however, known, or at all events was only partially known. There was much talk in the Press about the "steam-roller" which was going to flatten the Central Powers out. We at the War Office had received warnings from our very well-informed Military Attache, it is true; but those warnings did not convey to us the full gravity of the position, a gravity which was probably not recognized even in high places in Russia ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... lively fight, possibly a series of them, and a triumphant return to his post, where hereafter he would be looked up to and quoted as an expert and authority on Apache-fighting. He knew just where the hostiles lay, and was going straight to the point to flatten them out forthwith; and so the little command moved off under admirable auspices and in ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... good for the like of you," says he, "and go on now or I'll flatten you out like a crawling beast has passed under a dray." "You will not if I can help it," says I. "Go on," says he, "or I'll have the divil making garters of your limbs tonight." "You will not if I can help it," says I. [He ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... before, the money is set aside for that special purpose, and the work will be carried on by somebody. Of course I can get a substitute if you refuse, and that substitute may, after a little time, satisfy the impatient children, who flatten their noses against the window-panes and long for Mias Pauline every day of their meagre lives. But I fear the substitute will never be Polly! She may 'rattle round in your place' (as somebody said under ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... anything, and let 'em have it rattlety-bang-jing. I never seen her do it, of course—all that was afore MY time—but pa used to say it never made no difference whether 'twas the man come tryin' to collect the store bill or the minister or anybody, she'd up and flatten him just the same. Course pa said 'twas a whole lot more li'ble to be the bill man than the minister 'cause there was precious ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Byeway, Grattan, (The Pyrenees begin to flatten, A feast denied to storm and shower, The pen's the wonder-working power); Or Smith, the master of "Addresses," Carves history out in modern messes:— Tells how gay Charles cook'd up his collops, How fleeced his friends, how paid his trollops— How pledged his soul, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... braggadocio were simple and childlike, really felt towards the older man who had been his employer much as a faithful retainer towards a feudal baron. His feeling towards him was something between love and an enormous mental worship. His little, ordinary soul seemed to flatten itself like an Oriental before his emperor when he spoke to Carroll sipping his bowl of tomato-soup in the cheap restaurant. He had, after all, that nobility of soul which altered circumstances could not affect. He was just as deferential ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... by filleting the tail of cod, egging and crumbing the pieces and frying them. Get about a pound and a half of the tail of a fine cod; with a sharp knife divide the flesh from the bone lengthways, cut it into neat pieces as nearly of a size as you can, and flatten with a knife. Dip in egg, then in crumbs mixed with a little flour, pepper, and salt. It is best to fry the cutlets in the wire-basket in plenty of fat, but if this is not convenient they can be done in the frying-pan; ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... that wrought-iron plate is not quite flat; it sticks up a little here towards the left, 'cockles,' as we say. How shall we flatten it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent. Well, here is a hammer, and I give the plate a blow as you advise. Harder, you say. Still no effect. Another stroke. Well, there is one, and another, and another. The prominence remains, you see; the ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... readily expelled do not attempt to force it out by straining. Instead, flatten in the abdomen by forcibly ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... underneath with the forefinger as you go, to make it lie quite flat. Beginners should flatten down the seam with their thimbles, or with the handle of the scissors, before they begin to hem, as the outer and wider edge is very apt to get pushed up and bulge over, in the sewing, which hides ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... their undoing. When he awoke to a realization of their peril it was also to discover that his motor had stalled. The plane had attained frightful momentum, and the ground seemed too close for him to hope to flatten out in time to make a safe landing. Directly beneath him was a deep rift in the plateau, a narrow gorge, the bottom of which appeared ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... if you are not careful to mind what I say you may be caught up by a hawk at any moment. So, listen: when I say 'Tuk,' you must hide yourselves immediately; don't try to run away, but just get under a rock, or even a leaf, or just flatten yourselves upon the ground, if you can't do better; you are so nearly the color of the ground that a boy will never see you, and you can even escape ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... showered out rain and lightnings—rain which the wind blew away before it reached the ocean, lightnings which the ravenous and mountainous waves swallowed before they could pierce the gloom. The ship lay over on her side, held there by the madly rushing wind, which seemed to flatten down the sea, cutting off the top of the waves, and breaking them into fine white spray which covered the ocean like a thick cloud, as high as the topmast heads. Each gust seemed unsurpassable in intensity, but was succeeded, after a pause, that was not a lull but a gasp, by one of more frantic violence. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... commemorating Napoleonic victories. The dugouts of officers and observers were all called villas—Villa Chambery, Villa Montmorency being examples. It all seemed like cozy camp life underground except that three times the morning of our visit it was necessary to flatten ourselves against the mud sidewalls while dead men on crossed rifles were carried out, every head in that particular bit of trench being bared as the sad ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a distinct shock. She had to flatten herself against the wall, too, and remain rigid, for the man abruptly turned the corner and marched down the driveway. Half way to the brilliantly lighted street he dodged behind the building opposite the hotel, threading his way through narrow back yards. Josie ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... figures were drawn in the ground and etched in the first stage of the print. Rembrandt then must have decided that their proportion was wrong for his composition. He reworked the area, using a scraper or burnisher to flatten out his etched lines, and covered the remaining ghosts of the figures with a mesh of drypoint cross-hatching. He then added the single small figure of the shepherd boy entirely ...
— Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example • Peter Morse
... common idea among trappers, that the beaver uses his tail for a trowel to flatten down the mud, but this is denied by more observing naturalists, who assert that the tail is merely employed for swimming, although when he is at work with his paws, he may flap it about, but not ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... Denry, in recounting the history of her adventures, Sir Jee's soul squirmed, and his body sympathised with his soul. Something in him that was more powerful than himself compelled him to do his utmost to reduce Denry to a moral pulp, to flatten him, to ignore him, or to exterminate him by the application of ice. This tactic was no more lost on the Countess than it was on Denry. And the Countess foiled it at every instant. In truth, there existed between the Countess ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... was very fine and open that year. A golden sunshine from October passed on into November and Lady Harman spent many of these days amidst the pretty things the builder from Aleham had been too hurried to desecrate, dump, burn upon, and flatten into indistinguishable mire, after the established custom of builders in gardens since the world began. She would sit in the rockery where she had sat with Mr. Brumley and recall that momentous conversation, and she would wander up the ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... nigh, a thought; Its jaw and its mouth are tenantless both, Nor passes emotion its throat. No glow on its face, no ringlets to grace Its brow, and no ear for my song; Hush'd the caves of its breath, and the finger of death The raised features hath flatten'd along. The eyes' wonted beam, and the eyelids' quick gleam— The intelligent sight, are no more; But the worms of the soil, as they wriggle and coil, Come hither their dwellings to bore. No lineament here is left to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... as pretty as you are when I was a girl," Mrs. Quincy said. "And that was all the good it did. I thought I was making a grand marriage when I got your father; but he seemed to sort of flatten out and lose all his ambition after we was married. He didn't seem to care about anything, though I used to give him my opinion pretty plain. And it's mighty little he left me when he ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... insteps like springing bridges of crimson lacquer; they swing up over curved heels like whirling tanagers sucked in a wind-pocket; they flatten out, heelless, like July ponds, flared and ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... empty of folk, but glittering like glass and radiant with quivering air, Manvers was shot at from a distance, so far as he could judge, of thirty yards. He heard the ball go shrilling past him and then splash and flatten upon a church wall beyond. He turned quickly, but could see nothing. Not a sign of life was upon the broad way, not a curtain was lifted, not a shutter swung apart. To all intents and purposes he was ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... in rows and the rows in turn sewed to each other like a patchwork quilt, taking care to have the fur all run the same way. The robe should now be dampened again and stretched and tacked to its full extent to remove any wrinkles and flatten the seams. This sewing is all done from the back of the robe using an even over-hand stitch. Just before the final stretching it is well to apply arsenical ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... threatened to fade and vanish in the fog and falling dusk, the ice was in motion, great pans of the pack tossing like chips in the gigantic waves. Nowhere was the ice at rest. It was neither heavy enough nor yet sufficiently close packed to flatten the sea with its weight. And a survey of the creeping fog and the ominous approach of a windy night portended that no more than an hour of drab light ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan |
