"Nail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... picked the dirt all over with a big nail, and pried it loose, and then he had pretended that his shovel was a big iron scoop that could scoop the dirt out just the way the big scoop did when it ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... to go dis bressed night An' put out dat turkey's light, 'N I'll nail him lak a cobblah. Take keer, 'Cindy, lemme pass, Ain't a-g'ine to take no sass Off ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... seen. But between three and four in the morning the first faint champing of marching feet could be heard and the Hun came down from the bedroom looking as pale as death. He opened the door and stood there listening. The insolent crunch, crunch, crunch of heavy nail-studded service boots came nearer, and a khaki column appeared on the winding road. The housewife, whose aching eyes had searched the road for Boudru all ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... days later, when Cap'n Jacka walked up to his own door, he carried the cinder-sifter under his arm; and that, before ever he kissed his wife, he stepped fore and hitched it on a nail right in the middle of the wall over the chimney-piece, between John Wesley and ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... is locked. Did he take out the key? It is always hung in one place, and the nail is empty. He cudgels his brains for remembrance, but surely he left the ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... sitting, back to the light, tapping a bowl of goldfish with the tip of a polished finger-nail; the room was very cool. She held a letter out. "Your uncle is ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... with chloroform vapour, and nail it out on a board (as for a necropsy); moisten the hair thoroughly with 2 per ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... the old statesman died, and his fiddle was heard no more across the valley in the quiet of the evening, but was left untouched for the dust to gather on it where he himself had hung it on the nail in the kitchen under his hat. Then when life seemed to the forlorn girl a wide blank, a world without a sun in it, Angus Ray went over for the first time as a suitor to the cottage under Castenand, and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... is all nonsense, but I wish it wasn't. Anyway, it's what I mean to do myself; and I'm awfully much obliged to you, Dad, for giving me this chance. You've hit the right nail on the head this time. Farming was what I was meant for; I feel it. I would have hated being a barrister, setting people by the ears and making my living out of other people's troubles. Being a farmer you feel that in doing good to yourself you are doing good all round. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... provoke his conductors by shewing that he distrusted them. The hunters led the way, with a lamp; the Count and St. Foix, who wished to please their hosts by some instances of familiarity, carried each a seat, and Blanche followed, with faltering steps. As she passed on, part of her dress caught on a nail in the wall, and, while she stopped, somewhat too scrupulously, to disengage it, the Count, who was talking to St. Foix, and neither of whom observed the circumstance, followed their conductor ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Anne heard a plaintive cry from the little building in the yard which served Mr. Harrison as a toolhouse. Anne flew to the door, unhasped it, and caught up a small mortal with a tearstained face who was sitting forlornly on an upturned nail keg. ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... gasped. And she wrenched to free herself. One of his hands slipped, his nail tore a long gash in her neck; the blood spurted out, she gave a loud cry, an exaggerated cry— for the pain, somehow, had a certain pleasure in it. He released her, stared vacantly at the wound he had made. She rushed into her room, slammed ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... only tall Elzevirs are beautiful, only tall Elzevirs preserve their ancient proportions, only tall Elzevirs are worth collecting. Dr. Lemuel Gulliver remarks that the King of Lilliput was taller than any of his court by almost the breadth of a nail, and that his altitude filled the minds of all with awe. Well, the Philistine may think a few millimetres, more or less, in the height of an Elzevir are of little importance. When he comes to sell, he will discover ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... and gritted out an oath of congratulation. "That's where you hit the proper nail on the head!" he exclaimed. "He's the king-pin of the whole machine, and if you can pull him out, the machine will fall to pieces. What charge did you put in the warrant? I only hope it's big enough ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... roofing tin or copper, locate the troublesome crack, and gently insert a piece of the sheet metal, trimmed to the right size, beneath the cracked shingle. Properly done, you should not find it necessary to nail the piece of sheet metal because the shingles themselves will hold it in place. While making this repair, be careful not to walk on the roof more than is absolutely necessary. Your weight and the pressure of your feet may ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... of the engines with which some of his servants had done wonderful things. They showed him Moses' rod; the hammer and nail with which Jael slew Sisera; the pitchers, trumpets, and lamps too, with which Gibeon put to flight the armies of Midian. Then they showed him the ox's goad wherewith Shamgar slew 600 men. They showed ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... matting, consignments of crude sugar from the Sandwich Islands than the remains of human beings. The bodies of a pappoose and of a very little child, which probably died at birth or soon after it, have sea-otter skins around them. One of the feet of the latter projects, with a toe-nail visible. The ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... joke for him!" said the gambler, catching the last word. "But some one was bound to try this dodge sooner or later. Why, as far back as I can remember, people said he kept his money hidden away at the bottom of nail kegs and under heaps of scrap-iron." He took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end, and struck a match. "Well, I wouldn't want to be the other fellow, Colonel; I'd be in all kinds of a panic; it takes nerve ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... time I had in a brig off Hatteras," observed Teddy, who had somewhat recovered his composure; "we had to cut away both masts, you persave, and to scud under a scupper nail driv into the deck, wid a man ready to drive it ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... floor formed from the plain surface of hewed logs, and a door made of boards split from the log, hastily smoothed with the drawing-knife, united firmly together with wooden pins, hung upon wooden hinges, and fastened with a wooden latch. Not a nail nor any particle of metal enters into the composition of the building—all is wood from top to bottom, all is done by the woodsman without the aid of any mechanic. These primitive dwellings are by no means ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... was too stupid to say anything. The snake said, "Here is a terrible row all at once, I must make for a hole." He had a keen eye for a hole, and he soon saw one. It was a small one, in Philip's mattress, almost hidden by the seam, and had been made most likely by a splinter or a nail. The snake put his head in it, saying, "Any port in a storm," then drew in his whole length, and settled himself ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... 'tis! now, for an hundred pound, could I have gratified him with a waiter's place at the custom-house, that had been worth to him an hundred pound a-year upon the nail. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... the conservatory door was hanging on a nearby nail, and taking it down they unlocked the door, and the two boys passed into the darkness ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... been gathering roses together in the Priory garden, and, in straining up to reach a particularly lovely bloom that hung from the roof of the pergola, Cara's thin muslin sleeve had caught on a projecting nail which had ripped it apart from shoulder to elbow. As the torn sleeve fell hack it revealed a trickle of blood where the nail's sharp point had scored the skin, and above that, marring the whiteness of the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... in its every particular, forming a sublime and frightful whole. The Redeemer was extended on a cross laid on the ground, one of the executioners placed a knee against His side, while another spread His fingers abroad, and a third hammered in a flat-headed nail as broad as a crown, and so long that the point came out behind the wood. And when the right hand was riveted the torturers saw that the left would not reach to the place they intended to pierce, therefore they attached a rope to the arm, pulled it with ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... not!” I replied quietly. “Pickering was right on my heels, and my absence was known to his men here. And it would not be square to my grandfather, —who never harmed a flea, may his soul rest in blessed peace!—to lie about it. They might nail me ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... like. We'll stay here. Mrs. Owen,—the thicker the merrier." But Elsley had vanished into a chamber bestrewn with plaids, pipes, hob-nail boots, fishing-tackle, mathematical books, scraps of ore, and the wild confusion ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... could never have given you this pleasure, and had not our helpers been so many, we could never have made the place so beautiful. Before the general dancing begins there will be a double quadrille of honor, in which all those will take part who have driven a nail, papered or painted a wall, dug a spadeful of earth, or done any work in ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Nicholas could assist him but little with his advice. After many pros and cons, like all other difficult matters, it was postponed.—"Really, Newton, I can't say. The property certainly is not yours, but still we are not likely to find out the lawful owner. Bring the trunk on shore; we'll nail it up, and perhaps we may hear something about it by-and-bye. We'll make some ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... which were all Satan's seed, to have Him put to death. The cry "Away with Him! Crucify Him!" was inspired by himself. He used man to dishonor the Son of God, to revile Him, spit in His face, to scourge Him and finally to nail Him to the Cross. Did he think that he might yet get the victory and keep the Lord Jesus from finishing the work the Father gave Him to do? We do not know if such was the case, but we know that while the Son of God gave Himself, Satan had also his ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... which he thinks wise, for he cannot endure that Copyhold should be touch'd, as you may see more plainly a little further, where he says in Loves Labour Lost, the Curate plays the fool egregiously; and so does the Poet too: there he clenches the Nail, there he gives Shakespear a bold stroke, there obstinacy and malice appear in true colours: And yet if a parcel of the ones Plays, were set up by way of Auction against t'others Sermons and Essays; nay, tho the Loyal and Politick Desertion discussd was ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... often repeated, which refers the motives of Pizarro's conduct, in some degree at least, to personal resentment. The Inca had requested one of the Spanish soldiers to write the name of God on his nail. This the monarch showed to several of his guards successively, and, as they read it, and each pronounced the same word, the sagacious mind of the barbarian was delighted with what seemed to him little short of a miracle,—to which the science of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... similar; the ponderous weight and slow motion is far more effective in displacing this ball, for the reason that time is essential to the distribution of the motion. If the body to be struck be small as, for instance, a nail, a greater motion and less matter is more effective than much matter and little motion. Hence, we have a distinction applicable to the difference of momentum of luminous and calorific rays. The velocity of a wave of sound through the atmosphere, is the same ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... short, belong to that valuable class to which, while it gives pleasure to the cultivated reader, the most commonplace and Philistine man of business cannot refuse the to him supreme praise of being eminently "practical." They hit the nail on the head in nearly every case, and they take the plainest and most direct route to their point, dealing in rhetoric and metaphor only so far as the strictly "business" ends of the argument appear to require. Nothing, for ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... which the following is the substance:—The cross is commonly used in China, and consists of any flat boards of sufficient size, the upright shaft being usually eight to ten feet high. The transverse bar is fixed by a single nail or rivet, and is therefore often loose, and may be made sometimes to traverse a complete circle. It is not so much an instrument of punishment in itself, as it is an operation-board whereon to confine the criminal, not with nails, but ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... repeated with a smile. "Well, must is a nail that drives through wood, no doubt; but if it hits iron it is apt to bend. Not that I am so hard as that; but money, money, money! And whose money do you mean, little maid? If you want money of mine to spend in bread, or in cakes, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a party,' says Boggs, 'who once immerses a ten-penny nail in a quart of Red Dog licker, an' at the end of the week he takes it out ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the materials from which sages spin their dry and ethereal webs. But this narrative is concerned only with the facts in the case. Therefore it is necessary to know only that when Jimmy Sears stooped to pick up his nail-pointed arrow, lying beside a stunned pullet, he heard the sharp nasal "sping" of a rock whirring near his head. Chicken and bow and arrow in hand, he began to run, not ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the soul to the body, until she becomes like the body, and believes that to be true which the body affirms to be true; and from agreeing with the body and having the same delights she ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... a finger-nail by an injudicious use of the hammer. Bud sat down in the paint pot, and had to go to bed while his clothes were cleaned. In fact Lily Rose was the only one of the whole family circle to suffer no injury, but the Boarder guided her so ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... McBride's portion will be five hundred pounds on the nail—that would be no bad hit, and she a good, clever, likely girl. I'll pop the question ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... ready to throw a fit," said Ballard, "because he had been all through the Picket Post range and had never found any gold there. I'll bet a farm you can nail this thing ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... young blacksmith had an aspect as poor as the sewing-girl's. For its sole ornament, over the deal table upon which Agricola wrote his poetical inspirations, there hung suspended from a nail in the wall a portrait of Beranger—that immortal poet whom the people revere and cherish, because his rare and transcendent genius has delighted to enlighten the people, and to sing ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... tribe of us, to begin with; then our family has been here for ages, and we have plenty of 'spondulics,' so we can rather lord it over the other fellows, and do as we like. There, ma'am, you can hang your smashed glass on that nail and do up your back hair as fine as you please. You can have a blue blanket or a red one, and a straw pillow or an air cushion for your head, whichever you like. You can trim up to any extent, and ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... the other chap I'm after now—perhaps you'll be so obliging as to tell me where I can put my paws on him. I hung the duck from this nail—the cord was good and strong, and it couldn't have broken loose. You see it ain't there now. So the question is did the blamed bird come to life again and skedaddle off, or was one of your friends the foxes aboard while we snoozed, to make ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... near the drift mouth of the mine belched coal and coal dust day after day. When Phoebe—you'd never have known her for the pretty girl she used to be far back in the Blue Ridge—rubbed out a washing on the washboard, hung it to dry on the wire line stretched from the back door to a nail on the side of the out-building, she knew that every rag she rubbed and boiled and blued would be grimy with coal dust before it dried. What was she to do about it? Where else could the wash be hung? Once Phoebe thought she had ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... was lost in the noise of percussion. A common habit of the distinguished statesman was to reach out his right hand at full arm's length, and then to bend it back at the elbow and lightly scratch the top of his head with his thumb-nail. ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... to the wish of her friends, even in her misery, Sibyl Andres held her hand. At the door of the studio, she turned again, to look long and lingeringly about the room. Then she went out, closing and locking the door, and leaving the key on a hidden nail, as her ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... returned him two or three books he had lent me. In the volume of Shelley I underlined with my nail the last two lines of a certain verse and put a mark in ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... he won't do you much harm. You hit the nail on the head when you mention Norburn. Norburn would be very pleased to run your factory as a State work-shop ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... neither may they cover with tiles, nor whiten their walls with lime, but there is a Clay which is as white, and that they use sometimes. They employ no Carpenters, or house-builders, unless some few noble-men, but each one buildeth his own dwelling. In building whereof there is not so much as a nail used; but instead of them every thing which might be nailed, is tyed with rattans and other strings, which grow in the woods in abundance; whence the builder hath his Timber for cutting. The Country being warm, many of them will not take pains to clay their walls, ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... of the world to try their luck. One said that it belonged to an ape, another to a lynx, a third to a crocodile, and in short some gave it to one animal and some to another; but they were all a hundred miles from the truth, and not one hit the nail on the head. At last there came to this trial an ogre who was the most ugly being in the world, the very sight of whom would make the boldest man tremble and quake with fear. But no sooner had he come and turned the skin round and smelt it than ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... finger on it," said Moss. "Hit the nail on the head. It's just like my father said: 'Trees go dead on the top.' Colihan—" The boss leaned forward confidentially. "I've got an assignment ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... call that every one should square the circle. Our manner of teaching," said he, "cramps and warps many a mind, which if left more at liberty would have been respectable in some way, though perhaps not in that. We lop our trees, and prune them, and pinch them about," he would say, "and nail them tight up to the wall, while a good standard is at last the only thing for bearing healthy fruit, though it commonly begins later. Let the people learn necessary knowledge; let them learn to count their fingers, and to ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... as Gibault was once more about to try his piece, after rubbing the edge of his flint with his thumb-nail; ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... right arm imitated the movement of the bow; his left hand and his fingers seemed to be feeling along the handle. If he makes a false note, he stops, tightens or slackens his string, and strikes it with his nail, to make sure of its being in tune, and then takes up the piece where he left off. He beats time with his foot, moves his head, his feet, his hands, his arms, his body, as you may have seen Ferrari or Chiabran, or some other virtuoso ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... everything must go wrong by a natural law. In the first place, while making a hobble peg, while Carmichael and Robinson were away after the horses, the little piece of wood slipped out of my hand, and the sharp blade of the knife went through the top and nail of my third finger and stuck in the end of my thumb. The cut bled profusely, and it took me till the horses came to sew my mutilated digits up. It was late when we left this waterless spot. As there was a hill with a prepossessing gorge, I left ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... few pieces of the find in his bag. And the man what he showed 'em to was so terrible interested that nothing would do but he must come up to Dunnabridge and see the lot. He offered two hundred and fifty pound for the things on the nail; so Jonathan saw very clear that they must be worth a good bit more. They haggled for a week, and finally the owner went up to Exeter and got another chap to name a price. In the long run, the dealers halved the things, and ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... bedding, and pieces of cloth served as coverlids. The pillow was a curious affair, being a thick piece of bamboo, about four feet long, on little legs. We were shown into one of these rooms, and a sign made to us to go to sleep. Even the largest houses have not a nail in them, but are fastened together with sennit, which is a line made from the root of a tree. I may say that everything is fastened with sennit—canoes, as well as houses—so that large quantities ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... how—she's quite peculiar, you know," said Charlotte, finding her way less clear with each word. "Never mind, Polly; only just fight her if she begins on what is your duty; if she does, then fight her tooth and nail." ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... spot whence the shout proceeded, we were astonished to find the thirteen-year-old son of Orson Clark standing, with an old blunderbuss in his hands, in a triumphant attitude by the panther, which lay as dead as a door-nail on the ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... in that Waring hombre. I'll sure nail him like you said; but if he goes for his gun I don't want you plantin' no cucumber seed on my restin'-place. Guess I'll ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... all the spaces between the jars with the packing material. If the box is deep and a second layer of fruit is to go in, put thick pasteboard or thin boards over the first layer and set the wrapped jars on this. Fill all the spaces and cover the top with the packing material. Nail on the cover and mark clearly: GLASS. THIS ...
— Canned Fruit, Preserves, and Jellies: Household Methods of Preparation - U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletin No. 203 • Maria Parloa
... the ladies' committee a general idea of it. Just see, Maggie, if I know the peroration. 'In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, these are the reasonable demands of every intelligent Englishwoman'— I had better say British woman—'and I am proud to nail them to ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... about, as you take care not to step on a nail, or to sprain your foot, so take care not to damage your own ruling faculty; and if we observe this rule in every act, we shall undertake this ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... who was now the proper master. "It is said in a very straight-forward and well-meant manner. You, as a learned man, certainty know how strange nature is. Some persons cannot bear to touch grey paper, or they become ill; others shiver in every limb if one rub a pane of glass with a nail: I have just such a feeling on hearing you say thou to me; I feel myself as if pressed to the earth in my first situation with you. You see that it is a feeling; that it is not pride: I cannot allow you to say thou to me, but I will willingly ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... which He might have used, (For us resolved to perish) He refused; While they stood ready to prevent His loss, Love took Him up, and nail'd Him to the ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... started to run ag'in. Like Lot's wife, I couldn't help lookin' back, and there wuz the b'ar flat on his back. I went up to him kinder cautious, for I didn't know but he might be shammin', them black b'ars are mighty cute; but, no, he wuz deader'n a door nail. I took the partridges back to town, and then a party on us came back and toted ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... I quit shinglin'," replied the road-master, cautiously. Dingman waited; Byram fitted a shingle, fished out a nail from his apron-pocket, and drove it ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... the scandal. Seems Stanton's been playing the fool. They say he's half mad, anyhow, about a lot of things—always was, but it is a bit worse since a touch o' the sun he had a year or two ago. He's off his head about an Ouled Nail—don't know whether she came here because of him, or whether he picked her up at Touggourt, but the story is, he could o' got away before now, with his bloomin' caravan, on that d——d fool expedition of his you read of in the papers, ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... circumstance. circunstantes bystanders. cirio wax candle. cisura incision, cut. cita citation, appointment. ciudad f. city. civilizar to civilize. claridad f. clearness. claro clear. clase f. class, rank. clavar to nail, fix. clemente clement, merciful. cobarde coward, timid. cobardia cowardliness. cobijar to cover. cobrar to recover, collect money. cobre m. copper. cocina kitchen. cocinero cook. codicioso covetous. cofradia ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... raised his eyebrows over the card I found for him; then he drummed upon it with his finger-nail, and his embarrassment expressed itself in a ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... moon hung again over the apex of the Great Pyramid, like a silver cutting from the rosy nail of a houri. The Sphinx—mighty guesser of riddles, reader of rebuses and universal solver of missing words—looked over the unfathomable desert and these few pages, with the worried, hopeless expression of one who is obliged at last to give it up. And then ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... desperate conflict. Tooth and nail Tommy attacks, the foe, fists and legs doing very gallant service. There would indeed have been a serious case of assault and battery for the next Court day, had not Providence sent Mrs. ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... been nettled at hearing what he terms a wild-goose chase put on a par with a fox-hunt; and the gamekeeper having always been accustomed to look upon hawks as arrant poachers, which it was his duty to shoot down, and nail, in ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... he wrote to me: 'I hope that others have remembered and made note of A. T.'s sayings—which hit the nail on the head. Had I continued to be with him, I would have risked being called another Bozzy by the thankless World; and have often looked in vain for a Note Book I had ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... next you drink, Do me the gentleness to think That every drop of drink accursed Makes Christ within you die of thirst; That every dirty word you say Is one more flint upon His way, Another thorn about His head, Another mock by where He tread; Another nail another cross; All that you are ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... watchful, still and bare, With a thousand spears in air, Guarding yet its treasured leaf From storm and hail and winter's grief? Unregarded on the ground Leaves of yester-year abound, For what is autumn's gold to one That hoards a life scarce yet begun? Let me so renew my youth, I defend it, nail and tooth, Rooting deep and lifting high. For this my dead leaves hiss and sigh And glow as on the downward road To the dog-snake's dread abode. Noxious things of earth and air, Get you hence, for I prepare To flaunt my beauty in the sun When ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... I'll make us a couple of suits of fairly heavy steel armor, so that we'll have real protection if we should need it. You see, we don't know what we are apt to run up against out here. Then, with that much done, it'll be up to you to provide, since I'll have to work tooth and nail at the forges. You'll have to bring home the bacon, do the cooking and so on, and see what you can find along the line of edible roots, grains, fruits, and what-not. Sort of reverse the Indian idea—you be the hunter and I'll keep the ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... skeptical, however, and was not satisfied until the board member agreed that in case the flood failed to abate next day, as predicted, the board should do the extra capping. This settled, a nail was driven into the upper plank to mark ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... of a protracted existence! Why, the truths a man carries about with him are his tools; and do you think a carpenter is bound to use the same plane but once to smooth a knotty board with, or to hang up his hammer after it has driven its first nail? I shall never repeat a conversation, but an idea often. I shall use the same types when I like, but not commonly the same stereotypes. A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... especially the finger nails, of the surgeon, assistants, and nurses should be well scrubbed with hot water and soap, by means of a nail brush, immediately before the operation. The patient's body about the site of the proposed operation should be similarly scrubbed with a brush and cleanly shaved. Subsequently the hands of the operator, assistants, and nurses, and the field of operation should be immersed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... just over the window. That would do; but it must be firm to bear his weight. He got up on a chair to feel the nail; it was not quite firm, and he stepped down again and took a hammer from a drawer. He knocked in the nail, and was about to pull a sheet off his bed, when he suddenly remembered that he had not said his prayers. Of course, one must pray before dying; every Christian does that. There ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... the question. It's the advisability of publishing it. I say to you that if you insist on this story's publication, you'll kill the Times deader than a door-nail. I'll call the business manager in." Walford whistled through a tube, and shortly after the business manager appeared. "Read this," said Walford briefly, "and give Mr. McQuade your honest opinion regarding its publication. ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... thumbs having two nail joints, as in figure 385, are classified as if the joint toward the outside of the hand were not present. In other words the inner joint is used, and no consideration whatever is given ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... FALLON: Yes, we'll nail him. And, if he puts his gun in my face today, he won't catch me empty-handed the second time. (Draws automatic from his pocket.) I'm ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... and he seemed to have a long life of work before him. But a trivial incident revealed to me the fact that things were not as they seemed, and that this great sturdy Englishman was by no means in the state of health that men supposed. When walking in Switzerland, he had accidentally injured the nail of his great toe, and it was necessary to remove it. Forster regarded the operation as a slight one, and was anxious that cocaine should be used as an anaesthetic, so that he might, as he said to me, "have the fun" of witnessing the actual operation. When the time came, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... their arms are taking The raven's wings with greed are shaking; When they come back to drink in hall Brave spoil they bring to deck the wall— Shield, helms, and panzers (1), all in row, Stripped in the field from lifeless fow. In truth no royal nail comes near Thy splendid hall ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... are lies frae end to end, And some great lies were never penn'd: Ev'n ministers, they hae been kenn'd, [known] In holy rapture, A rousing whid at times to vend, [fib] And nail't wi' Scripture. ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... and striding over to a nail in the wall, took off his coat and hung it up. Somehow, he looked larger than ever in his gray sweater. A sense of comfort and unaccustomed well-being restored him to good humor. Throwing himself into the rocker, he stretched ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... image[FN33] which shall resemble me in all points, and that you fashion it according to my form and figure, and you adorn it aright and render it to represent my very self in all proportions, and then bring it to me." They obeyed her order and brought her a statue which was herself to a nail, so she looked upon it and was pleased therewith. Then she ordered them set the image over the Hammam-door, so they placed it there, and after she issued a firman and caused it to be cried through the city that whoso should enter that Bath to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... not go away without making one more effort for his friend the King, who was really in great danger as long as he lived in a cage. Indeed, already he had met with several alarming accidents. Once the nail on which his cage was hung had given way, and his feathered Majesty had suffered much from the fall, while Madam Puss, who happened to be in the room at the time, had given him a scratch in the eye which came very near blinding him. Another time they had forgotten to give him any water to drink, ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... the ears of the Princess, and she promised secretly to the butcher to give him a piece of gold if he would show her a kindness, which was, that he would nail the head of Falada over a certain large and gloomy arch, through which she had to pass daily with the geese, so that then she might still see her old steed as she had been accustomed. The butcher promised, ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... and the crowd, some such little raft in the wreck, some occasional opportunity like that of Tuesday, has been present to me these two days as better than nothing. But if our friends are so accountable to this house of course there's no more to be said. And it's one more nail, thank God, in the coffin of our odious delay." He was but too glad without more ado to point the moral. "Now I hope you see we can't ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... venting my wrath upon Karl Ivanitch, he had passed to his own bedstead, looked at his watch (which hung suspended in a little shoe sewn with bugles), and deposited the fly-flap on a nail, then, evidently in the most cheerful mood possible, he turned ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... though a few of them are just little thumb-nail icon-sized images placed at the ends of chapters. The rest are quite nice images, though shown here at only 30% of each linear dimension of those we found in ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... no longer fashionable. They want payment on the nail there, confound them! Besides, this is nearer the walls and we can hear the Burgundians shouting. It is as good as a relish ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... that "a patent for moving wheel-carriages by steam has been taken out by one Moore," adding "this comes of thy delays; do come to England with all possible speed." Watt replied "If linen-draper Moore does not use my engine to drive his chaises he can't drive them by steam." Here Watt hit the nail on the head; as with the steamship, so with the locomotive, his steam-engine was the indispensable power. In 1786 he states that he has a carriage model of some size in hand "and am resolved to try if God will work a ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... article his eye fell upon, he tore and crushed it; he swept the table clean of its queer Spanish bric-a-brac, and trampled the litter under his heels. Spying a painting of a saint upon the wall, he ran to it, ripped it from its nail, and, raising it over his head, smashed frame and glass, cursing all saints, all priests, and churchly people. Havoc followed him as he raged about the place wreaking his fury upon inanimate objects. When he had well-nigh wrecked the contents of the room, ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... asserted," he says, "that if the fish called a sea-star is smeared with the fox's blood and then nailed to the upper lintel of the door, or to the door itself, with a copper nail, no noxious spell will be able to obtain admittance, or, at all events, be productive of any ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... kill the old Marchese as dead as a door-nail, for one thing," said another of the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... dreams. There is one of this kind whom I have in my eye, and whose case is perhaps unusual enough to be described. He was from a child an ardent and uncomfortable dreamer. When he had a touch of fever at night, and the room swelled and shrank, and his clothes, hanging on a nail, now loomed up instant to the bigness of a church, and now drew away into a horror of infinite distance and infinite littleness, the poor soul was very well aware of what must follow, and struggled hard against the approaches of that slumber which was the beginning of sorrows. But his struggles ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or detailist of the Ruskin type has for years been insisting that a spade was a spade and should be painted to look like a spade; that a spade was not a spade until every nail in the handle and every crack in the ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... thirteen inches from the top of the upright stick; and the same proportion should be observed for kites of other dimensions. At the point of crossing, the sticks should be slightly notched, and strongly bound together with twine tied in flat knots. Driving a nail or screw through the sticks, to bind them, weakens the frame at the ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... destroyed many thousands of Pheasants, Partridges and Wood-cocks. His Stable Doors are patched with Noses that belonged to Foxes of the Knight's own hunting down. Sir ROGER shewed me one of them that for Distinction sake has a Brass Nail struck through it, which cost him about fifteen Hours riding, carried him through half a dozen Counties, killed him a Brace of Geldings, and lost above half his Dogs. This the Knight looks upon as one ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... later he was laughing softly as a boy in the midst of a prank, and busily throwing off the robe of serge. Fumbling through the night he located the shirt and trousers he had seen hanging from a nail on the wall. Into these he slipped, and then went out under ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... Something confused. She had red slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does? Would I like her in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti's gone. Mailboat. Near Holyhead by now. Must nail that ad of Keyes's. Work Hynes and Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has something to put in them. What's that? ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... to pay union wages, yet they were fighting tooth and nail, and I certainly could not afford ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... stem consists of a tough pithy substance, round which the leaves are formed. These, long and tapering like the rush, are four-sided, and extremely brittle; the base from which they shoot is broad and flat, about the size of a thumb-nail, and very resinous in substance. As the leaves decay annually, others are put forth above the bases of the old ones, which are thus pressed down by the new shoots, and a fresh circle is added every year to the growing plant. Thousands ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... aristocratic West Point pro-slavery friends, introduced democratic politics into the army at a time when the army was yet in an embryo state, already in September and October, 1861. O, impudent liars! history will nail your names to the gallows, together with the name of your fetish ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... Aboulmahasen (apud De Guignes, tom. ii. p. ii. p. 95) is more correct in his account of the holy lance than the Christians, Anna Comnena and Abulpharagius: the Greek princess confounds it with the nail of the cross, (l. xi. p. 326;) the Jacobite primate, with St. Peter's staff, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... little. Another piece is secured to it, not neatly, as with proper tools, but clumsily, with many nails of different sizes, driven unevenly and with their heads battered awry. Wedged clumsily in between these pieces, and secured by a supplementary nail, is a bit of broken rope. Let us touch that rope tenderly; for who knows what despairing hands may last have clutched it when this rude raft was made? It may, indeed, have been the handiwork of children, on the Penobscot or the St. Mary's River. ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... wouldn't let these rough-and-tumble doctors touch it. They'd amputate at the shoulder for a hang-nail. I don't trust 'em." ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... great head on you, old chap," he said, affectionately. "It certainly seems as though you have hit the nail on the head this time. I understand, now, why their leader was so anxious to have us move away. They expect to encounter the Indians somewhere in this neighborhood and they do not want any witnesses. What shall we ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... buckets, in a way to crush one temple in upon the brain. So swift and sudden had been the whole thing, that, on turning the wheel, his lifeless body was still inclining on its periphery, retained erect, I believe, in consequence of some part of his coat getting attached, to the head of a nail. This was the first serious sorrow of my life. I had always regarded my father as one of the fixtures of the world; as a part of the great system of the universe; and had never contemplated his death as a possible ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... he enjoyed himself; and the hawk soon came wheeling down to the ground, which he no sooner touched, than away ran the weasel, having got an excellent dinner at the expense of the hawk. He was not a bit the worse for the ride; while Mr. Hawk lay there as dead as a nail. The biter was bitten that time, wasn't he? It was a pretty good lesson to the hawk family not to be so greedy, though whether they ever profited by it is more than I can say. From the account that a little girl gave me of the incursions recently made upon her chickens, I judge that they did not ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... glanced at his watch hanging on a nail at the side of his bunk; but, finding that he could not abuse him on the ground of being late, he contented himself with scowling. But, a few moments later, he pretended that he had a real cause ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... allow to monopolise the name. Cunning is the only resource of the feeble; and why may we not feel for victorious cunning as strong a sympathy as for the bold, downright, open bearing of the strong? That there may be no mistake in the essayist's meaning, that he may drive the nail home into the English understanding, he takes an illustration which shall be familiar to all of us in the characters of Iago and Othello. To our northern thought, the free and noble nature of the Moor is wrecked through ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... received no damage; but on raising the hatch leading to the fore-peak he saw that the place was nearly full of water. His exploration of the forecastle ended here; and he was about to proceed on deck when he caught sight of a fishing-line suspended on a nail inside one of the bunks. This fishing-line he at once secured and took on deck with him laying it down on top of the carpenter's tool-chest so that it might not be forgotten when ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... rabbeet, he run for those automobile, but those automobile she have one leak in the wheel. Senor, thees is the judgment of God. Myself, I theenk the speerit of Don Miguel's father have put the nail where thees fellow can peeck heem up. Well, when hee's nothing for do, hee's got for do sometheeng, eh? Mira! If Don Miguel catch thees coyote on the Rancho Palomar, hee's cut off hees tail like that"—and Pablo snapped his tobacco-stained fingers. "Queeck! Hee's got for do something ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... the first note. The handwriting was utterly new to him; but his intuition, applied instantly to the envelope, told him of the source. The nail, driven, was now to be clinched. She had the right to ask him to come; and she did ask him ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... Ah, the heart Doth open when one looketh on her face. She's like a princess of the Mount Lidang. Her features are like those of Nilagendi, Her heels are like the eggs of hens, and make Her seem a princess of Siam. Her fingers More tapering are than quills of porcupine. And solid is the nail of her left hand. No noble's girl is Bidasari's peer." Now when the princess heard them sing her praise Her soul was wounded as if by a thorn. Her dark eyes flashed. "Ah, speak no more of her," She said, "nor speak ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors |
