"Inch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... English youth, but for male humanity,—wide enough to include a sober under-clerk of doubtful age. Jamie's father had been a drayman, in the employ of the house, as we have said, until his middle was bisected by that three-inch tire weighted with six ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... airs!" he thought. "And considering what we—" But after all, she plainly had not expected him, and he took the refusal quietly. Nevertheless he resolved not to go next day. "These cursed women—there's not an inch of straight grain in ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... search of precious ore. While doing this, his foot slipped from under him, and he fell heavily forward against a smooth, slab-like surface of the rock, when, to his dismay, it gave back a hollow sound, and a large block yielding an inch or two, ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... coloured shadow of himself and melted into remembrance as dreamy as the distant voices of the rooks now lulling you to rest," and hear their testimony to his greatness too. And he is very great this day. And woe to Boythorn or other daring wight who shall presumptuously contest an inch with him! ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... easy. From a room to the left he heard voices, Margaret's amongst them. His own name was called aloud, and a man whom he had never seen said, "Oh, is he there? I am not surprised. I now thrash him within an inch of his life." ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... him, you can't get it out o' 'im, no more nor ye'll draw smoke out o' this,' and he raised his pipe an inch or two, with his thumb on the bowl, 'without backy ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... slender hand on his arm. He did not respond by look or movement to the gesture of affection; but had a very close observer been present he would have noticed that he drew his chair about the tenth of an inch nearer to hers. ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... directly under the tails of his coat; the ball just traversed along his trousers about a foot beneath the waistband, cutting them and his drawers and shirt, as it were, with a knife, and wounding the flesh in its course to the depth of perhaps the eighth part of an inch. Directly Major Longsword perceived that his man was hit, he vociferously ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... drawback was baiting the hook whenever a fish was taken from it. Uncle James soon remedied this difficulty. He cut from the under side of a dead mackerel six thin pieces, about half an inch in diameter, and gave each of us two. We put them on our hooks, and they served for bait a long time. When they were gone, we put on more of the same kind. Mackerel will bite at any very small object, almost, that they can see, and sometimes fishermen fasten ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... to that," said the operator. "We'll just shake hands if you don't mind, before you go. There's more man to the cubic inch about you than in any other fellow I've come across for a long time. I've no club at home now, or I'd ask you to look me up. But I dare say we shall meet again some ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... of the tent. It was three feet in depth, with perpendicular sides. At nine inches from the edge a trench a foot deep was dug. In the centre was an old flour barrel filled with earth. Upon this stood the tent-pole. The tent was brought down so as to extend six inches into the ditch, the nine-inch rim of earth standing inside serving as a shelf on which to put odds and ends. A wall of sods, two feet high, was erected round the outside of the little ditch. Thus a comfortable habitation was formed. The additional ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... seas, I imagine him to have been slightly mistaken. He placed this bit of paper on the little mantel-piece; drew his solitary well-worn razor several times across the palm of his left hand; dipped his brush, worn, within half an inch, to the stump, into the hot water; presently passed it over so much of his face as he intended to shave; then rubbed on the damp surface a bit of yellow soap—and in less than five minutes Mr. Titmouse was ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... dear sir," said Brook good-humouredly, "that you've made a slight mistake in this matter. Carrot-seed is usually sown in trenches less than an inch deep. You'd better leave off work just now and come over to my place at once. I'll give you some useful hints as ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... Roland's grief was so deep and his weakness so great that he swooned where he stood, and the archbishop saw him fall and heard his cry of pain. Slowly and painfully Turpin struggled to his feet, and, bending over Roland, took Olifant, the curved ivory horn; inch by inch the dying archbishop tottered towards a little mountain stream, that the few drops he ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... had been hovering on the outskirts of this duel, inclined her head the fraction of an inch, but Alice put out her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... long, and 1 inch deep, of silk woven in the loom; the pattern consists of a stripe of red, yellow, and blue, once repeated, and arranged so that the two blue lines meet in the centre. At each end, for about six or seven inches, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... is right," began The Chief after the laugh at Albert's expense ceased. "Perhaps you'd like to try the effect of depth of planting on corn. Here are some boxes of earth. George, you plant six kernels of corn one inch deep and mark the box with your name and the depth on it, Peter, plant the next box with six kernels at two inches. Albert, try three inches, and Jack, four inches. It will be your business, Myron, to drop in here each half day ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... adopted a single eyeglass, as being less disfiguring. The first time that she saw it in his eye, she could not contain herself for joy: "I really do think—for a man, that is to say—it is tremendously smart! How nice you look with it! Every inch a gentleman. All you want now is a title!" she concluded, with a tinge of regret in her voice. He liked Odette to say these things, just as, if he had been in love with a Breton girl, he would have enjoyed seeing her in her coif and hearing her say that she believed in ghosts. Always until then, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... staircase outside the door of a friend's drawing-room, one of them just leaving, the other about to go in. They begin to talk to each other and block up all the landing. If anyone happens to be coming up behind them, man or woman, do you imagine that they will put themselves half an inch out of their way? ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... drinking-match, and was presented with a large horn, and was requested to empty it at a single draught, which he expected easily to do, but on looking in the liquor seemed scarcely diminished. The second time he tried, and lowered it slightly. A third, and it was still only sunk half an inch. Whereupon he was laughed at, and called for some new feat. "We have a trifling game here," answered the king, "in which we exercise none but children. It is merely to lift my cat from the ground." Thor put forth his whole might, but could only lift up one foot, and was laughed at again. Angry ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... of the tramcar, refusing to give way. It should have presented a blue paper to him—or a pink paper—anyway, there he stood in front of it, asking for its permission to circulate, and as it had no permission, it stopped within an inch of running over him, while the conductor leaned forward shouting curses. Then it was that a firm but gentle hand inserted itself within Maubert's arm, while a firm but gentle voice asked Maubert to be a good boy and ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... inch. The Japanese matted floor, even in darkness, gives out a sort of ghostly, phosphorescent glow. Thus, in the unlit space Mata could perceive that the girl lay at full length, her Dragon Robe changed to an ordinary house dress, her long hair unbound, her ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... half enough for pickets. Knowing that his aunt would be indisposed to lay out any money he looked very thoroughly through sheds and barn. In the latter place he moved a pile of rubbish in hopes of finding something beneath. The heap consisted mostly of half-inch iron rods of various sizes, and he was about to go elsewhere when he stumbled against a short piece and set it rolling to the middle of the floor. Picking it up he threw it back into the corner, where it clanged ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... was a man of moderate height, with a long pointed nose which he was in the habit of putting down to within an inch or two of his desk when he was looking for any particular paper, for he was very short sighted. It rather conveyed the impression that he was poking about with it, and that he hunted for questionable clauses or illegalities in a document, ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... a small, narrow court in which the edifice stands. At the head of the steps, to the right, is a stone tablet, very old, with characters cut at least an inch deep into the granite of it, Chinese characters signifying, 'This is ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... himself, in the minds of his fellow-citizens. He may have retired to private life again, but his distinguished services have outlived the brief hour of action; and his hero-worshiping countrymen will always recognize him in his most salient character, "every inch a soldier." It is quite impossible to call him "Mr.," or at once to know who is meant if his card reads—for instance—"Mr. Lucius Fairchild." Nothing but the title of his well-earned rank gives an adequate idea ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... Professor Newcomb made the matter plain even to the non-mathematical mind, when he said that "ten decimal places are sufficient to give the circumference of the earth to the fraction of an inch, and thirty decimal places would give the circumference of the whole visible universe to a quantity imperceptible with the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... chin turned a little up. Draw through the nose all the air you can, till your chest is brimful. Now place in the mouth a piece of clay pipe stem, say an inch long, and blow through it as long and hard as you can, as if you were trying ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... We then put her in stays, and while she was coming about, which she was long in doing, we drove over a shoal where we had little more than sixteen feet water with rocky ground; so that our danger was very great, for the ship drew sixteen feet nine inches aft, and fifteen feet one inch forward: As soon as the ship gathered way, we happily deepened into three fathom; within two cables' length we had five, and in a very short time we got into deep water. We continued plying to windward till four o'clock in the afternoon, and then ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... goat's milk; in these days it became so unutterably loathsome to me that I had, at length, to give it up altogether, and I cannot think of it now without a qualm. The broth offered me was infamous, mere coloured water beneath half an inch of floating grease. Once there was a promise of a fowl, and I looked forward to it eagerly; but, alas! this miserable bird had undergone a process of seething for the extraction of soup. I would have defied anyone to distinguish ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... but to fight the enemy inch by inch," replied Putnam. "A moment's yielding on our part ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... became scarlet; and to hide his confusion he seized a dish-cover, and hastily went out of the room with it, returning in a moment pale and serious as became one who at heart was every inch a family ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... him with his last man and cartridge. The Confederate troops take all advantage possible of the numerous ravines in our front; but the batteries at Fairview pour a heavy and destructive fire of shell and case into their columns as they press on. Every inch of ground is contested by our divisions, which hold their footing at ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... The little bride's outer garment was the finest black crepe, but under it, layer after layer, were slips of rainbow tinted cob-web silk that rippled into sight with every movement she made. And every inch of her trousseau was made from the cocoons of worms raised in her own house, and was spun into ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... shed. Through this each man pops his sheep when shorn, where he remains in company with the others shorn by the same hand, until counted out. This being done by the overseer or manager supplies a check upon hasty or unskilful work. The body of the woolshed, floored with battens placed half an inch apart, is filled with the woolly victims. This enclosure is subdivided into minor pens, of which each fronts the place of two shearers, who catch from it until the pen is empty. When this takes place, a man for the purpose refills it. As there are local advantages, an equitable distribution ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... small gravel was stirred up by them, and each of which was followed by the ejection of a jet of eggs from the female. I then caught them both, and dissected them. The sexual organ in the male was projected above a quarter of an inch, and the body filled with milt; the female, although she seemed to have shed a considerable quantity of her spawn, had ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... the Gold Rooms at the Grand Babylon on the Embankment. They are immense, splendid, and gorgeous; they possess more gold leaf to the square inch than any music-hall in London. They were designed to throw the best possible light on humanity in the mass, to illuminate effectively not only the shoulders of women, but also the sombreness of men's attire. Not a tint on their walls that has not been ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... HOT. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate: Whither I go, thither shall you go too; To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you. Will ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... strange smile. "Oh yes, but I am," she said. "I've been mad for some time now. It's been gradually coming on, but to-day—to-day it is moving faster—much faster." Her low voice quickened. "I haven't much sanity left, Allegro. I can feel it slipping from me inch by inch like a paid-out rope. Only enough left now to know that I am mad. When I don't know that any longer, I shall have lost ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Scented; they differ only in the form of the leaves, those of the latter variety being shorter and broader than the other. They are annual herbaceous plants, rising with strong erect stems to the height of from six to nine feet, with fine handsome foliage. The stalk near the root is often an inch or more in diameter, and surrounded by a hairy clammy substance, of a greenish yellow color. The leaves are of a light green; they grow alternately, at intervals of two or three inches on the stalk; they are oblong and spear-shaped; those lowest on the stalk ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... the Chaldaeans were in general clay tablets, varying in length from one inch to twelve inches, and being about one inch thick. Those holding records of special importance, after having been once written over and baked, were covered with a thin coating of clay, and then the matter was written in duplicate and the tablets again baked. If the outer writing ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... younger man came forward, tall, lean, wiry, and erect as the Corporal himself. He wore the moustache which showed him to be a Light Dragoon, and looked every inch a soldier; but though he could not have been more than three or four and thirty, he had the sad expression of a man who has found the years long. Still bronzed and brown though his face was, he blushed just a little as he caught ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... middle measuring line. Then with two hands that trembled he poured into it a part of the infusion. The liquid went tink-tinkling in a succession of little jerks. He held it to the light; it rose a good inch above the line he had marked. He shook his head at it slowly, with an air of admonition and reproof, and poured it ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... pink peach, and the various green foliages of the trees, for this is Spring, when "the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love," and here am I ——, well, well!! Even my old foe, the two-inch thorn bush, has assumed a light-green muslin bridal veil. All this bursting into leaf is most refreshing, to me at least, and I doubt not no less welcome to the noble Boer sniper, who now gets more cover than was possible a month ago. As we left camp, he was sniping away ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... can't say," answered Jackson. "It looks for all the world like a rat, only the hair is so long. Dead enough though, for it does not budge an inch." ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... it with narrow strips of adhesive plaster. These should be put on smoothly, and a sufficient number applied to cover the wound. In most instances of domestic practice, the strips of adhesive plaster are too wide. They should not exceed in width one fourth of an inch. Then apply a loose bandage, and avoid all "healing salves," ointments, and washes. In removing the dressing from a wound, both ends of the strips of plaster should be raised and drawn toward the incision. The liability of the wound re-opening ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... five more to starboard. 'Ere's the original!" He handed me a paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet square, bearing in the centre the six-inch initials, "G.M." ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... which were least understood. He recognized the nature of the pulmonary artery, which he denominates arterious vein; he knew the vessels of the mesentery, and showed that they did not go to the vena portae, but to certain glandular bodies; and he first applied the name of twelve-inch or duodenum (dodekadaktulos) to that part of the alimentary canal which is next to the stomach. Like Erasistratus, he appears to have studied carefully the configuration of the brain; and though, like him, he ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... he was not born to greatness, like North and Newcastle; he was not liked by the king or the nobility; he was generally in the ranks of the opposition; he was a new man, like Cicero, in an aristocratic age,—yet he conquered by his genius the proudest prejudices; he fought his way upward, inch by inch; he was the founder of a new national policy, although it was bitterly opposed; and he died universally venerated for his integrity, wisdom, and foresight. He was the most remarkable man, on the whole, who has taken part in public ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... poop we watch the vivid shifting patch of deck that each lights up on its way. The stars are very sharp in the vast violet dome above our masts; they shimmer on the sea; and our trucks describe minute orbits among the stars, for the trades have yet to fail us, and every inch of canvas has its fill of the gentle steady wind. It is a heavenly night. The peace of God broods upon His waters. No jarring note offends the ear. In the forecastle a voice is humming a song of Eva Denison's that has caught the fancy of ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... returned to his corner there arose within him a determination to thrash Young Brophy within an inch of his life after the big fight was out of the way and Jimmy no longer bound by any obligations, for he realized that for some reason Brophy had just gone a little too far with his rough tactics, there having been in the arrangement with the sparring ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wry-necked, one-eyed, goggle-eyed, squinting, bow-legged, knock-knee'd, rheumatic, crazy. Some of the small tradesmen's houses, such as the crockery-shop and the harness-maker, had a Cyclops window in the middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some forlorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment horizontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. So bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... with her. But, he felt, it took courage to sit beside her. She was likely to stare haughtily at him. However, he did go up to the rail and sit, shyly kicking his feet, beside her, and she did not stare haughtily. Instead she moved over an inch or two, glanced at him almost as though they were sharing a secret, and ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... Noah to that flood! Let none survive to tell another tale; for, only when the chronicler of small-beer is dead shall we be able to know men as men, heroes as heroes, poets as poets—instead of mere centres of gossip, an inch of text to a yard of footnote. Then only may we begin to talk of something worth the talking: not merely of how the great man creased his trousers, and call it 'the study of character,' but of how he was great, and whether it is possible ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... force. By compressing air, oxygen, or coal-gas (useful otherwise) in iron cylinders with closed vents, which could be opened, we should have a store of energy serviceable at any time to drive the car. In this way a pressure or thrust of several tons on the square inch might be applied to the car as long as we had gas to push ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... ashore and were astonished to find a native occupied in building a small sloop of about thirty tons: the tools of which he made use consisted of a half worn-out axe, an adze, about two-inch blade, made out of a paring chisel, a saw, and an iron rod which he heated red hot and made it serve the purpose of an auger. It required no little patience and dexterity to achieve anything with such instruments: he was apparently not deficient in these qualities, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... to exchange specimens of woods indigenous to this climate for those of other climates, specimens to be about three inches long by three-quarters of an inch thick, and to have a knot in them if possible. I have cypress, magnolia, mimosa, Cottonwood, althea, prickly ash, fig, crepe myrtle, sweet-gum, and black-gum. Correspondents willing to exchange will please ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... did not clear their land after the manner of the German farmer in Pennsylvania, who uprooted his trees. Instead, it was done by belting the tree. He notched a six-inch band around the trunk, removed the bark which prevented the sap from going up and thus killed the tree from lack of nourishment. A field of such trees he called a deadening. The roots were left to rot and enrich the ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... said my uncle Toby, rising up from the side of the bed with one shoe off.—An' please your Honour, said the Corporal, he will never march but to his grave. He shall march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch,—he shall march to his regiment.—He cannot stand it, said the Corporal.—He shall be supported, said my uncle Toby.—He'll drop at last, said the Corporal, and what will become of his boy? He shall not drop said my uncle Toby, firmly,—Ah, well-a-day!—do what we can for ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... door, embracing me on the threshold. That is to say, I was in a symbolical manner virtually kicked out of doors. Unfolding the paper, I found a piece of a first string of a violin about an eighth of an inch in length, with the words, "A piece of the treble string with which the deceased Staraitz[4] strung his violin for the last concert ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... wick lamps are employed for illuminating lighthouses. For reflectors the wick is nearly an inch in diameter. For the lens-light a more powerful and complicated lamp is used. The oil is made to flow into the burners by various means. The most simple is by placing the reservoir higher than the lamp, the oil thus flowing by its own gravity ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... Castaly inspires, Let him consider wherefore he was meant, Let him but answer Nature's great intent, 300 And fairly weigh himself with other men, Would ne'er debase the glories of his pen, Would in full state, like a true monarch, live, Nor bate one inch of his prerogative. Methinks I see old Wingate[318] frowning here, (Wingate may in the season be a peer, Though now, against his will, of figures sick, He's forced to diet on arithmetic, E'en whilst he envies every Jew he meets, Who cries old clothes to sell about the streets) 310 Methinks (his ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Orleans, and entered with zeal upon the work of fitting out a squadron, as well as an army, for its reduction. The squadron was to consist of a fleet of armed steamers, and twenty bomb-schooners, each carrying gigantic mortars, fifteen-inch shells. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... of the seventeenth century (if we except Galileo) was Des Cartes; and if ever one could say of a man that he was all but murdered—murdered within an inch—one must say it of him. The case was this, as reported by Baillet in his Vie De M. Des Cartes, tom. I. p. 102-3. In the year 1621, when Des Cartes might be about twenty-six years old, he was touring about as usual, (for he was as restless as ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... shall be defiled" but to pronounce my friend's name in a slanderous lie, I could not endure. Perhaps,' he continued, 'it is like kicking a man when he's down, to tell you now, gentlemen, that the fellow who had just maligned an honest man was once thrashed within an inch of his life by this same Henry Rayne at college, for a cowardly, disrespectful deed of his towards some lady friends of ours. The hatred born of the moment that he lay in the dust of the college yard, with the finger of scorn raised at him from every hand, has ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... and glossy, and presents here and there blisters filled with serous fluid. The local temperature is raised, and the part is the seat of a burning sensation and is tender to the touch, the most tender area being the actively spreading zone which lies about half an inch beyond the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... afraid I should get too fond of dress before I have finished my education, and that my mind may be diverted from serious subjects. It is no doubt all intended for my good, but I should not lose much time if I turned up my hair like this, and what harm could there be in lengthening my skirts an inch or two? My picture will show her that I am improved by such little changes, and perhaps it will induce hor to let me go to the Bal Blanc that Madame d'Etaples is going to give on Yvonne's birthday. Mamma declined for me, saying I was not fit to wear a low-necked ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... accommodate an arm-chair, if the chair could have but contrived to get into it, I caught a glimpse of my friend's printing press and his case of types, canopied overhead by the blue ancient of the vessel, bearing, in stately six-inch letters of white bunting, the legend, "FREE CHURCH YACHT." A door opened, which communicated with the forecastle, and John Stewart, stooping very much, to accommodate himself to the low-roofed passage, thrust in a plate of fresh herrings, splendidly toasted, to give substantiality and relish ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... been spent upon these costumes, what discouraged debates attended their making, what muscular agonies their fitting. Only they could have estimated, and they never did estimate—the time lost over pattern books, the nervous strain of placing this bit of spangled net or that square inch of lace, the hurried trips downtown for samples and linings, for fringes and embroideries and braids and ribbons. The gown that she wore to her own dinner, Mrs. White had had fitted in the Maison Dernier Mot, in Paris;—it was ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... gave way; at first inch by inch they retreated, then more rapidly, leaving many of their number wounded on the deck. Bruff had faced about and driven the enemy aft; Noakes and Reuben still pushed forward. Paul, following close at their heels with an officer's sword which he had picked up, observed, ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... islands scattered along the Firth of Forth, one of the most interesting is the ancient Aemonia, Emona, St. Columba's Isle, or St. Colme's Inch—the modern Inchcolm. The island is not large, being little more than half-a-mile in length, and about a hundred and fifty yards across at its broadest part. At either extremity it is elevated and rocky; while in ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... posses and risk the brunt of the battle. The Captain's scrapbook, which he was kind enough to let me look over, revealed many an interesting incident, and one would never think when talking to him that this genial, humorous, kind faced man was every inch a soldier and a hero. The combination strikes me as wonderfully illustrative of what real culture and civilization can do for a man. He fights, not for the love of fighting, from a savage hankering after blood, but because it is for the good of humanity in general that ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... much to tell about that either. It was on a steamer, in the Gulf. On the forecastle lay a stout oaken box, and in it—all his troubles to come—was a young bear. In the top of it was an inch auger-hole, and at this small port the poor devil used to keep his eye all day so pitifully, that I had compassion on him, saw he would get etiolated, and besought the captain to let ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... equipment is an ordinary square board, Fig. 2. If you take six boards, each 45 inches long, 7 inches wide and 1/2 inch thick, and attach them to two cleats at the back, you will have a good, serviceable drawing board which can be hung against the wall with screw hooks and screw eyes; or, it can be set on an easel or other convenient holder. It is ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... right hand came out of his long pocket. They were in the thick of Piccadilly, but his action was too swift for any interference. Four reports rang suddenly out, and the muzzle of the revolver was held deliberately within an inch or so of Brett's heart. And before even the nearest of the bystanders could realise what had happened Brott lay across the pavement a dead man, and Hedley was calmly handing over the revolver to a policeman who had sprang ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... indigestion and nervousness. These latter parasites are, however, formidable in so far as their size is concerned. The mature pork tapeworm is about ten feet long, although the eggs, seen in the pork flesh, giving it its name of "measly," are only about a thousandth of an inch in diameter. The fish tapeworm, when mature, measures about twenty-five feet in length, while the beef tapeworm is about the same length. These worms can develop only in the bodies of the animals named, and find their way into the human body only through the ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... gaiter-tops. Crisp, elegant button-boots had not come in, like a good many other excellent things. And Hanny was undeniably petite. Stretch up her very utmost, she hardly measured five feet. Women had not, by taking thought, added an inch to their stature by high heels. There were one or two "lifts" put in between the soles, called spring-heels; but the hats ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... next morning we passed the strait to Inch Kenneth, an island about a mile in length, and less than half a mile broad; in which Kenneth, a Scottish saint, established a small clerical college, of which the chapel walls are still standing. At this place I beheld a scene, which ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... second shelf; and he began to doubt whether this mode of determining his choice could be persisted in. But in its progress along the third and lowest range of volumes, his hand was arrested midway by a book which projected about half an inch beyond its fellows. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... fingers of her left hand were drawn down so as nearly to close it, and were fixed; the nails on that hand were almost four inches long and extended above her wrist; the nails on her large toes had grown to the thickness of a quarter of an inch; her head was covered with a thick bush of grey hair; but she was toothless and totally blind, and her eyes had sunk so deeply in the sockets as to have ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... to Parma, that plan was frustrated. Still she stormed at Burghley and Walsingham, flatly and with contumely refused to ratify Leicester's arrangement, and continued to keep back the pay of the troops. Parma, though he too was starved in men and money by Philip, continued inch by inch to absorb the revolted territory. All that Leicester succeeded in accomplishing by the month of September was the brilliant and entirely futile action of Zutphen where in one great hour Philip Sidney won death and immortality (September 22nd). Thereafter, ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... wooden keepers like those of the stables in Normandy. The beds are made of soft mats, skins, or feathers. Their household utensils are formed of wood, even the pots with which they boil water but, to preserve them from burning, they are laid over with a kind of clay an inch thick. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... and crested across it in a green wave of trees and bushes. The trail was as narrow as a man's body, and was no more than a wild-animal runway. Occasionally, a piece of rusty iron, showing through the forest-mould, advertised that the rail and the ties still remained. In one place, a ten-inch tree, bursting through at a connection, had lifted the end of a rail clearly into view. The tie had evidently followed the rail, held to it by the spike long enough for its bed to be filled with gravel and rotten leaves, ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... will find it expressing itself in the care with which the German housewife does her marketing. You will find it expressing itself in the intensive methods of agriculture, through which scarcely a square inch of arable land is permitted to lie fallow,—through which, for example, even the shade trees by the roadside furnish fruit as well as shade, and are annually rented for their fruit value to industrious members of the community,—and it is said ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... impassive face, staring ahead as the oily waters moved slowly under the bow of the stern-wheeler. Now and again he would turn to give a fierce order to the steersman or to the patient Yoka, the squat black Krooman who knew every inch of the river, and who stood all the time, his hand upon the lever of the telegraph ready to "slow" at the first sign ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... Carrickfergus in 1760, an incident took place, reflecting at once the highest lustre on the soldier concerned, and evincing the union of consummate courage with noble humanity. Whilst the combatants were opposed to each other in the streets, and every inch was pertinaciously disputed by the British forces, a child by some accident escaped from a house in the midst of the scene of action, and ran, unawed by the danger, into the narrow interval between the hostile fronts. One of the French grenadiers seeing the imminent danger of the ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... of the connecting link type. They did a good thorough job but the writer believes he sees two connecting links that escaped their sensitive ears and sharp eyes. They are Jubilee songs; one is "Keep inching along like a poor inch worm, Jesus will come by-and-by," the other is "Go chain the lion down before ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... has filled every inch of his canvas. The plot never flags and has no diminuendo after the death of Ajax. The cause of the tragedy is not plainly indicated at the outset; with a skill which is masterly, Sophocles represents in the opening scene Athena and Odysseus as beings purely ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... an architect, and neither in an inferior degree.[77] No man ever entertained more exalted notions of friendship, or was ever more sincere, steady, warm, and disinterested, in all his attachments. Every inch of his heart was let out in lodgings for his friends." Lord Orrery thus speaks of him:—"His prose writings are little less harmonious than his verse; and his voice, in common conversation, was so naturally musical, that I remember honest Tom Southern used to call him the Little ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... Bermuda, my sickness disappeared as suddenly as it commenced; and one pleasant morning I threw aside my shore dress, and with it my landsman's habits and feelings. I donned my short jacket and trousers, and felt every inch a sailor! ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... it's best to pick up a motor car and a chauffeur in Denver, rather than ship them on from here. There are plenty of cars to be had, and men who know every inch of the road." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... inch of Sir Thomas's countenance became intensified at these terrific words. Great as had been his contempt for the actual holder of the title, considered simply as a young man, he had always been filled with a supreme respect for the ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... little Eve Edgarton. "Only—" ruggedly the soft little chin thrust itself forth into stubborn outline again. "Only, Father," she articulated with inordinate distinctness, "you might just as well understand here and now, I won't budge one inch toward Nunko-Nono—not one single solitary little inch toward Nunko-Nono—unless at London, or Lisbon, or Odessa, or somewhere, you let me fill up all the trunks I want to—with just plain pretties—to take to Nunko-Nono! It isn't exactly, ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... At the end of December the return of Collot d'Herbois from his massacres at Lyons stiffened Robespierre, and rallied the Committee of Public Safety more firmly to the policy of terror. For some weeks a desperate campaign of words was fought out inch by inch, Danton and Desmoulins lashing out desperately as the net closed slowly in on them; and it was not till the 20th of February 1794 that they received the death stroke. It ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... exclaimed the gardener, straightening himself; "ay, ay, I remember it—coming along the lane that my garden sloped down to, so that every inch of it could be seen. It had been all raked over, and there, just out of the ground, growing up in mustard-and-cress letters as long as my arm, I saw 'This genteel residence to let, lately occupied by N. Swan, Esq.' I took my hob-nailed ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... stopped, and the dog came on, dragging behind him in the road the block of wood fastened by a chain to his collar and trying at the same time to wag his tail. He was tan-coloured, lean as a rail, long-eared, a hound every inch; and Davy was a ragged country boy who lived alone with his mother, and who had an old single-barrel shotgun at home, and who had in his grave boy's eyes a look, clear and unmistakable, ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... Inch: the English and American standard of length in insect measurement: it is 12 lines and 25.4 mm.: usually expressed in ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... Robin shot at the pricke, He mist but an inch it fro; The yeoman he was an archer good, But he cold never ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... pantomime) under the captain's ribs. 'Sure, of coorse, they can't be up to his thricks, an' he an ould sojer!' And here Andy let fly vivaciously beneath his unconscious adversary's left ear, restraining the knuckles within about half an inch of ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... moonlight and dust—past a motor by the roadside, its owner, in court dress, sweating at its works—dust, moonlight, and black silk—a Whistler by Jove! Now we pass a slow going gharry, and now two young hatless soldiers in a high dog cart pass us under the trees, downhill at a canter, an inch between us, and half an inch between their off wheel and the edge of the road, and the sea ten feet beneath. Then along the lines of tents, with their curtains open and occupants going to bed.... We too must experience that tent life, but not ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... spurring on, cutting at the hands of those who would have forced his charger back, and still Barnaby, without retreating an inch, waited for his coming. Some called to him to fly, when the pole swept the air above the people's heads, and the man's saddle ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... hunger, lameness, and old age; the ox bleeding from the goad on the hard furrows, or stumbling through the hooting crowd, blind, footsore, and shivering, to its last home in the slaughter-house; the dog, yielding up its noble life inch by inch under the tortures of the knife, loyally licking the hand of the vivisector while he drove his probe through its quivering nerves; the unutterable hell in which all these gentle, kindly, and long-suffering creatures dwelt for ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... important inventions in political science. Yet not so: for men who are able to make discoveries are generally disposed to make allowances. Men who are eagerly pressing forward in pursuit of truth are grateful to every one who has cleared an inch of the way for them. It is, for the most part, the man who has just capacity enough to pick up and repeat the commonplaces which are fashionable in his own time who looks with disdain on the very intellects to which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... given to admiration of their dear PUNCHINELLO. But when an English adorer says that he considers "MR. CHARLES SUMNER fit for a throne," we are tempted to inquire what throne there is fit for him? The fact is, thrones have come to be rather more disreputable than three-legged stools. "Every inch a king" may mean six feet of mad-man, or five feet of mad-woman. We sincerely hope that there is no intention in England of making MR. SUMNER the King of Spain—we mean of abducting him for the purpose; for of course, he would never voluntarily ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... meal-time came round. In the present state of her health she often suffered from a morbid appetite and fed on things of incredible unwholesomeness. Thus, there was a kind of cake exposed in a window in Rosoman Street, two layers of pastry with half an inch of something like very coarse mincemeat between; it cost a halfpenny a square, and not seldom she ate four, or even six, of these squares, as heavy as lead, making this her dinner. A cookshop within her range exhibited at midday great dough-puddings, ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... of that," said Mrs. Richmond from the other side of the fire, with a tender glance at her husband's loosely knit figure. "I never thought there was an inch of heroism in you, Bertie darling, till that day when we went punting and we got upset. How brave you were! I've never forgotten it. It was ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... got several strikes. We searched under the stones for worms and secured a few. Whereupon Romer threw a baited hook to a trout we plainly saw. The trout gobbled it. Romer had been instructed in the fine art of angling, but whenever he got a bite he always forgot science. He yanked this ten-inch rainbow right out. Then in another pool he hooked a big fellow that had ideas of his own as well as weight and strength. Romer applied the same strenuous tactics. But this trout nearly pulled Romer off the rock before the line broke. I took occasion then to deliver ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... Raphael, forty-three by Titian, thirty-four by Tintoret, twenty-five by Paul Veronese. Rubens has the enormous contingent of sixty-four. Of Teniers, whose works are sold for fabulous sums for the square inch, this extraordinary museum possesses no less than sixty finished pictures,—the Louvre considers itself rich with fourteen. So much for a few of the foreigners. Among the Spaniards the three greatest names could alone fill a gallery. ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... was an absolute nullity (conclusive us it might seem to be) when compared with the consideration that here, at this point, terminated the clew. 'There must be something wrong,' I said, 'about the nail.' I touched it; and the head, with about a quarter of an inch of the shank, came off in my fingers. The rest of the shank was in the gimlet-hole where it had been broken off. The fracture was an old one (for its edges were incrusted with rust), and had apparently been accomplished by the blow of a hammer, which had partially imbedded, in the top of the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... necessarily ruled out. It may be possible, nevertheless, to set up a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of two sets even when the number is infinite. Thus, it is easy to set up such a correspondence between the points of a line an inch long and the points of a line two inches long. For let the lines (Fig. 1) be AB and A'B'. Join AA' and BB', and let these joining lines meet in S. For every point C on AB a point C' may be found on A'B' by joining C to S and noting ...
— An Elementary Course in Synthetic Projective Geometry • Lehmer, Derrick Norman
... scarce an inch of paint left on my front door," she observed, as the man steadied her with an arm round her waist, and settled ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the little town should have persisted in clinging so tenaciously to the high-water mark; but there were probably two paramount reasons for this. The deep gully was to a great extent protected from the force of the winds, and, as it was soon quite brimful of houses, every inch of space was valuable; then, smuggling was freely practised along the coast, and the more the houses were wedged together, the more opportunities for secret hiding-places would be afforded. The whole town has a consciously guilty look in its evident desire to conceal itself; and ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... octave. Other churches in the south of Scotland were dedicated to him. In the parish of Kelton, in Kirkcudbright, are the remains of an ancient chapel and burial-ground known as "Kirk Mirren." On Inch Murryn (Mirin's Island), in Loch Lomond, are the ruins of his chapel. At Kilsyth, Stirlingshire, is "St. Mirin's Well." There are other traces of him at Coylton, in Ayrshire, where a farm is called "Knock Murran," ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... figured above is a remarkable weapon. The copy is taken, by permission, from the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. Sir W. Wilde describes the original thus in the Catalogue: "It is 3-1/8 inches in its longest diameter, and at its thickest part measures about half-an-inch. It has been chipped all over with great care, and has a sharp edge all round. This peculiar style of tool or weapon reached perfection in this specimen, which, whether used as a knife, arrow, spike, or axe, was an implement of singular ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... and nearer by. It did not disappoint me, nor change the impression produced by the first view. What a homely face! but I thought withal, what a fine face! Rugged, and soft; gentle, and shrewd; Miss Cardigan's "Yon's a mon!" recurred to me often. A man, every inch of him; self- respecting, self-dependent, having a sturdy mind of his own; but wise also to bide his time; strong to wait and endure; modest, to receive from others all they could give him of aid and counsel. But the honest, keen, ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... double-flowered; of these five varieties are now known in England, varying from pure white, through rose, to intense crimson.[678] One of these varieties, called the camellia-flowered, bears flowers above 21/4 inches in diameter, whilst those of the fruit-bearing kinds do not at most exceed 11/4 inch in diameter. The flowers of the {344} double-flowered peaches have the singular property[679] of frequently producing double or treble fruit. Finally, there is good reason to believe that the peach is an almond profoundly modified; ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... convinced in his judgement against the Bishopps, and would have suffered and did agree to exclude the service out of the churches, nay his own chappell; and that he did always say, that this he did not by force, for that he would never abate one inch by any vyolence; but what he did was out of his reason and judgement. He tells me that the King by name, with all his dignities, is prayed for by them that they call Fanatiques, as heartily and powerfully as in any ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the aid of her family—one of them a fine, grown-up young man—she was able to hold on to the land. But the ready cash she got from the Curragh men who came to lodge with her was useful too. It was a good big house of the kind, and the widow made use of every available inch of it, so that she had about a dozen of us in all. Mrs. Walsh, though an easy-going soul herself, had a fine bouncing girl to help her, but, with a dozen hungry men coming with a rush at night, it used to be a scramble for ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... resolved to marry him to a daughter of the Prince de Conde. The Prince was greatly pleased at the project. He had three daughters for M. du Maine to choose from: all three were extremely little. An inch of height, that the second had above the others, procured for her the preference, much to the grief of the eldest, who was beautiful and clever, and who dearly wished to escape from the slavery in which her father kept her. The dignity with ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... which both ladies had trembled very much, and been marvellously polite—certain indications that they were within an inch of a very desperate quarrel—Miss La Creevy bounced out of the room, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... as to lie out of sight of any canoes that happened to be passing along the shore; but I would much rather have left her where she was, though I allows it would have been risky. I would have just chucked the sail over her and covered that with an inch or so of sand, so that it would not have been noticed by a boat a short way out. But if there is a village up here, why, a boat might come down any moment to do some fishing, and there we should be caught at once; as for getting away with them makeshift paddles, it would ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... sullen or sleepy, and no jogging of hands, no enticing, would induce it to crawl an inch, and the alderman, taking his daughter on his knee, declared that it was a wise beast, who knew her hap was fixed. Moreover, it was time for the rere supper, for the serving-men with the lanterns would be coming for the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and they began to devise means to get their catch up the face of the cliff. They first tried to pack them up; but the effort was futile as the earth gave way under their feet. Finally three men went to the top of the cliff and let down a half inch cotton rope which was attached to the leading string of one of the nets. The men pulled and succeeded in lifting it half way up, when it caught on a stunted bush that grew out from the rocks. They tried hard to free it, when the rope which had been worn weak in places, ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... "how did she?" "She looked a queen, every inch of her, and she is tall," said Agatha: "soothly some folk stared on her, but not many knew of her, since she is but new into our house. Though it is a matter of course that all save our new-come knight knew that it was not thou that sat there. ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... elemental joy no metaphysician can analyse. The water itself, that dances, and sings, and slakes the wonderful thirst—symbol and picture of that draught for which the woman of Samaria made her prayer to Jesus—this lovely thing itself, whose very wetness is a delight to every inch of the human body in its embrace—this live thing which, if I might, I would have running through my room, yea, babbling along my table—this water is its own self its own truth, and is therein a truth ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... "As if any old Woodford stick could mean as much as this one. Why, this has the initials of every one in both camps carved on it, and every inch of it represents a good time. You've no ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... skin, so as just not to fetch blood, with a small instrument, something in the form of a hoe; that part which answers to the blade is made of a bone or shell, scraped very thin, and is from a quarter of an inch to an inch and a half wide; the edge is cut into sharp teeth or points, from the number of three to twenty, according to its size: When this is to be used, they dip the teeth into a mixture of a kind of lamp-black, formed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... gladly fly; yet would prefer to be wafted along by a breeze, sometimes alighting on a patch of green grass, then gently whirled away to a still sunnier spot.... O, how blest should I be were there nothing to do! Then I would watch every inch and hair's breadth of the progress of the season; and not a leaf should put itself forth, in the vicinity of our old mansion, without my noting it. But now, with the burden of a continual task upon me, I have not freedom of mind to make such observations. I merely see what is going ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... less evidence of the march of time. But years, like wheels upon a road, can hardly pass without leaving in their wake some faint impress, however fair the weather, and perhaps his hair lay a fraction of an inch higher up the temple, and in the corners of his eyes a hint might even be discerned of those little wrinkles that register the smiles and frowns. Otherwise he was the same distinguished-looking, immaculately dressed, supremely self-possessed, and charming Francis Bunker, whom the Baron's ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... very general and vague consideration of what is likely to contribute to the better cultivation of the greater part of his dominions. The attention of the landlord is a particular and minute consideration of what is likely to be the most advantageous application of every inch of ground upon his estate. The principal attention of the sovereign ought to be, to encourage, by every means in his power, the attention both of the landlord and of the farmer, by allowing both to pursue their ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... another six feet and becomes twelve feet high, and hands his twelve feet on to his son, who is full-grown at eighteen feet, and so on. In a thousand years you would all be three or four miles high. At that rate your ancestors Bilge and Bluebeard, whom you call giants, must have been about quarter of an inch high. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... both were worth a man's best effort. Down the river one might drive a band of cattle, bring in a loaded pack train, single file against the wall. That was a twelve days' trip. Up through the defiles at the west a man on foot might make it out, provided he knew each inch of the Secret Way that scaled ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... a single hut,—all was gloomy, dismal, cheerless, and solitary. It seemed the work of enchantment; every thing was as visionary as "sceptres grasped in sleep." We had paddled along the banks a distance of not less than thirty miles, every inch of which we had attentively examined, but not a bit of dry land could any where be discovered which was firm enough to bear our weight. Therefore, we resigned ourselves to circumstances, and all of us ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... since as powerful in me as it was before? Fancy has not been since so kind; yet I have given it room for thought, which before I never did; I sat whole hours and days, and fixed my soul upon the lovely figure; I know its stature to an inch, tall and divinely made; I saw his hair, long, black, and curling to his waist, all loose and flowing; I saw his eyes, where all the Cupids played, black, large, and sparkling, piercing, loving, languishing; ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... wretched;—as wretched a human creature, we may say, as any crawling God's earth at that time. But she had borne her load, and, bearing it, had gone about her work, still striving with desperate courage as the ground on which she trod continued to give way beneath her feet, inch by inch. They had known and pitied her misery; they had loved her for misery—as it is in the nature of such people to do;—but they had little known how great had been the cause for it. They had sympathised with the female weakness ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Ortheris leave the escalator, step aside and stand looking around the cocktail lounge. He set his glass, with its inch of tepid highball, on the bar; when her eyes shifted in his direction, he waved to her, saw her brighten and wave back and then went to meet her. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, dodged when he reached for her and took ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... in the Territories is a specious fallacy. Concede the demand of the slavery-extensionists, and you give up every inch of territory to slavery, to the absolute exclusion of freedom. For what they ask (however they may disguise it) is simply this,—that their local law be made the law of the land, and coextensive with the limits of the General Government. The Constitution acknowledges ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... time, a huge fellow appeared half a mile distant. His blowing sounded like the exhaust of a western steamboat, and sent up a respectable fountain of spray. Covert pronounced him a high pressure affair, with horizontal engines and carrying ninety pounds to the inch. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... so that there is about four inches of two-year-old wood at the base and some one-year-old wood with small matured buds. These small buds will grow, as a rule. The scions are kept in damp sawdust until used. I like the stock to be a half to one inch in diameter. I wait until the trees are in full leaf before I graft. After leafing out the stock does not bleed. If I find that the stock is bleeding hard when I cut back, I wait a few days before grafting. It is a waste of time to graft when the stock is bleeding. I have grafted ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... sarcastic, 'here we be. Which one of the heathen do you think is Jimmie? If he had an inch or so more of upper lip, I'd gamble on that critter with the pink nighty and the baskets on his feet. He has a kind of familiar chicken-stealin' look in his eye. Oh, come down on the wharves, Jonadab, ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... people's point of view the weather left nothing to be desired. The sun shone like a glistering shield in the light blue November sky, the roads were like iron, the wind, what there was of it, like steel. There was a line of white on the northerly side of the fences, that yielded grudgingly and inch by inch before the march of the pale sunshine: the new pack could hardly have had a more unfavourable ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... and as much condemned by others, for making Sir John Falstaffe the property of Pleasure for Prince Henry to abuse, as one that was a Thrasonical Puff, and emblem of mock Valour; though indeed he was a man of Arms every inch of him, and as valiant as any his Age, being for his Martial Prowess made Knight of the Garter by King ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... sound at all on the moon itself. There was no air to carry it. But from each plastic helmet a six-inch antenna projected straight upward, and the microwaves of suit-talkies made a jumble of slightly metallic sounds in the headphones ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Hercules and a dwarf the difference would be less than between the largest of these insects and the smallest. Among them are 'workers' of five millimeters in length 'soldiers' of ten, and males and females of twenty. We find also a kind otherwise very curious: the sirafous half an inch in length, which have pincers for jaws, and a head larger than the body, like the sharks. They are the sharks among insects, and in a fight between some sirafous and a shark, I would bet on ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... of the two remaining seats occupied him until well into the afternoon. That of the bedroom, like the first, was empty; but from the second seat of his sitting-room he drew out something yielding and folded and furred over an inch thick with dust. He carried the object into the kitchen, and having swept it over a bucket, took a ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... like a dream. Sometimes," passing her hand over her forehead with a little laugh, "I feel as if I should suddenly find myself wakened in the room in Mortimer Street by Jane Cupp bringing in my morning tea. And I can see the wallpaper and the Turkey-red cotton curtains. One of them was an inch or so too short. I never could afford to buy the new bit, though I ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... opposition. Two battalions of the Scottish troops, in the pay of the states-general, were assembled in the market-place, and attacked them with such fury, that they were driven from street to street, until fresh reinforcements arriving, compelled the Scots to retreat in their turn; yet they disputed every inch of ground, and fought until two thirds of them were killed upon the spot. Then they brought off the old governor, abandoning the town to the enemy; the troops that were encamped in the lines retreating with great precipitation, all the forts in the neighbourhood ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... morning with their so-called plows or other tools for aiding the growth of their crops. The Indian plow is, I believe, the crudest I have found in any part of the wide world. It consists of a simple handle with a knob at the top; a block of wood with an iron spike in it about an inch thick at one end and tapering to a point at the other; and a tongue to which the yoke of bullocks are attached. The pointed spike is, perhaps, sixteen inches long, but only a fraction of it projects from the wooden block into which it is fastened, and the ordinary ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... undo it you will know that I always loved you. Men who would have satisfied most women have wooed me in vain. And now could any one of them who have charged me with cruelty see me. Yes, dearest Lion, I am every inch a woman and am subdued at last, and longing, longing, dear heart, to feel your arms about me and see the light in your mesmeric eyes. I have been waiting for you so long, love; come back to me, for I cannot do without the sweet, grave smile, ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... riding down a main street of Bridgewater, I noticed a gateway corresponding to the description given me. Under this was standing, and gazing about him, a man whom I shall describe. In height he might seem to be above five feet eight: (he was in reality about an inch and a half taller;) his person was broad and full, and tended even to corpulence: his complexion was fair, though not what painters technically style fair, because it was associated with black hair: his eyes were large and ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... mistake which should be set right as soon as possible. There is no middle course. Either Jesus Christ was the Son of God, or He was not. If He was, His great Father forbid that we should juggle in order to prove Him so—that we should higgle for an inch of wound more, or an inch less, and haggle for the root ??y in the Greek word e???e. Better admit that the death of Christ must be ever a matter of doubt, should so great a sacrifice be demanded of us, than go near to the handling of ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... Cheap Jack will find them,' said Ida by-and-by. 'Vernon says he is such a clever fellow; and a rover like that would know every inch of the country.' ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... an excellent store for a long voyage. These young shoots are generally very tender. They are gathered early, and sold in the market as vegetables, for which they are a good substitute. They are often a yard long, and half an inch thick. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... move from this cabin an inch further than to the burial ground," replied Mrs. Wentworth, "but if you fear it is my intention to escape, let one of your policemen remain here ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... If I were heroic I'd lie down and be a beautiful invalid, waiting for a happy release. It would be easier for you if I could. Louis, I just can't. It wouldn't be honest. If I die, it won't be a beautiful spectacle, my dear. I'll fight every inch of the way! There's such a lot of me to kill. I'm so alive, and I love to be alive. It—it ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... reason the overladen state of the Terra Nova was a cause of anxiety. The Australasian meteorologists had done their best to forecast the weather we must expect. Everything which was not absolutely necessary had been ruthlessly scrapped. Yet there was not a square inch of the hold and between-decks which was not crammed almost to bursting, and there was as much on the deck as could be expected to stay there. Officers and men could hardly move in their living quarters when standing up, and certainly they could not all sit down. To say that we were heavy ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... can ponder the incredible distances between the stars, but cannot possibly contain within itself a real understanding of them. Marked out on a man's hand an inch is a large unit of measure. In interstellar space a cubical area with sides a hundred thousand miles long is a microscopically fine division. Light crosses this distance in a fraction of a second. To a ship moving with a relative speed far greater than that of light, this ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... Nor does this reflect in any way upon the superb soldierly qualities of his predecessor. Johnston was no doubt too manly an officer to take part in the romantic conspiracies about him. He was every inch a brave soldier who did his fighting in the open. Like Robert E. Lee, he joined the Confederacy in conscientious good faith, and he met death bravely at Shiloh ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... pertinaciously on the one important box. She had designated it as being smaller than the others, and, as all the seven were now ranged in a row, I had an opportunity of comparing them. It was something smaller,—perhaps an inch less high, and an inch and a half shorter. She was a sharp woman, and observed my scrutiny. "I always know it," she said in a loud whisper, "by this little hole in the canvas," and she put her finger ...
— The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box • Anthony Trollope
... was a little short-sighted. She used a stick out of doors, and when she went very long distances she took with her a small terrier, which warned her of the difficult parts of the road. But indoors she moved about freely, knowing to an inch how much room each piece of furniture occupied, and seldom knocking against anything as ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... you ought to be, Jasper. Have you an inch of ground of your own? Are you of the least use? Are you not spoken ill of by everybody? ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... on the opposite side of the wash. Charlton was in almost to his arm-pits. The horse braced its feet and pulled. Beulah, astride the saddle, urged it to the task again and again. At first by imperceptible gains, then inch by inch, the man was dragged from the mire that fought with a thousand clinging tentacles for ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... Saidjah had soon been able to make with the new-comer. The buffalo turned willingly on reaching the end of the field, and did not lose an inch of ground when plowing backwards the new furrow. Quite near were the rice fields of the father of Adinda (the child that was to marry Saidjah); and when the little brothers of Adinda came to the limit of their fields just at ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... nephew of the maypole EMERITA who is called Duchess of Kendal in England. "Had a horse shot under him at Malplaquet;" battlings and experiences enough, before and since. Has real sense, abundant real pedantry; a Prussian soldier every inch. He presided in the Copenick Court-martial; he is deeply concerned in these Crown-Prince difficulties. His Majesty even honors him by expecting he should quietly keep a monitorial eye upon the Crown-Prince;—being his neighbor in those parts; Colonel-Commandant ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle |
