"Needle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exemplifies how small an additional stimulus will overthrow the mind into a new state of equilibrium when the process of preparation and incubation has proceeded far enough. It is like the proverbial last straw added to the camel's burden, or that touch of a needle which makes the salt in a supersaturated fluid suddenly ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... might. The result was that the boy next to him had to move a very little distance, but the little fellow at the end was compelled to describe a half-circle with great rapidity, and was sometimes hurled across the field, and brought up with a heavy fall. There were thread-the-needle, hunt-the-red-lion and football, played very much as it is now, except with less system and discipline, and various games of ball. These games of ball were much less scientific and difficult than the modern games. Chief were four-old-cat, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... pacuna is composed of a very delicate thin reed, perfectly smooth inside and out, which is encased in a stouter one. The arrows are from nine to ten inches long, formed of the leaf of a species of palm, hard and brittle, and pointed as sharp as a needle. At the butt-end some wild cotton is twisted round, to fit the tube. About an inch of the pointed end is poisoned. Quivers are made to hold five or six hundred of these darts. The slightest wound causes certain death within a few minutes, as the poison mixes with the blood, ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... body is supported by ten powerful legs, its enormous jaws are equipped, like those of the calot, or Martian hound, with several rows of long needle-like fangs; its mouth reaches to a point far back of its tiny ears, while its enormous, protruding eyes of green add the last touch of ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a courtier acquainted with no language but his own. The ladies studied Latin, Greek, Spanish, Italian, and French. The "more ancient" among them exercised themselves some with the needle, some with "caul work," (probably netting) "divers in spinningsilk, some in continual reading either of the Scriptures or of histories either of their own or foreign countries; divers in writing volumes of their own, or translating the works of others into Latin or English;" while ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... was there seen, it is evident that to the extent to which the teacher awakens wonder and curiosity in his presentation of a lesson problem, the child will be ready to enter upon the further steps of the learning process. For example, by inserting two forks and a large needle into a cork, as illustrated in the accompanying Figure, and then apparently balancing the whole on a small hard surface, we may awaken a deep interest in the problem of gravity. In the same manner, by calling the pupils' attention to ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... the rising ray:' the operation of taking the sun's azimuth, in order to discover the eastern or western variation of the magnetical needle.] ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... mornings in the loggia reading and working. Lucy was a dexterous needle-woman, and a fine piece of embroidery had made much progress since their arrival at Torre Amiata. Secretly she wondered whether she was to finish it there. Eleanor now shrank from the least mention of change; and Lucy, having opened her generous ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have helped falling in love with her, although most men, I fear, would only have fallen the more in love with themselves, and cared the less for her. But he did not see them, or hear the divine measures to which her needle flew, as she laboured to arm him against the cold ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... in this town. I've been an 'agin-er' for fifty years. They'd have tarred and feathered me long ago if there'd been any leading citizen unstingy enough to have donated the tar. Then, too, I've had a little money, and going through the needle's eye is easy business compared to losing the respect of Westville so long as you've got money—unless, of course," he added, "you're a female lawyer. I tell you, there's no more fun than stirring up the animals in this old town. Any one unpopular in Westville is worth ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... peril, like the needle to the loadstone, obedience, irrespective of rank, generally flies to him who is best fitted to command. The truth of this seemed evinced in the case of Mad Jack, during the gale, and especially at that perilous moment when he countermanded the Captain's order at the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... out of my depth, Blanche, methinks," said Lysken, re-threading her needle in a practical unromantic way. "Love is love, for me. It differeth, of course, in degree; we love not all alike. But, methinks, even a man's love for God, though it be needs deeper and higher far, must yet be the same manner of love that he hath for his ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... that night, doing improving things to the white net waist that went with her best suit, which was black. As her needle nibbled busily down the seams she continued happily to wonder about that Entirely Different Line. It sounded to her more like a reportership on a yellow journal than anything else imaginable. Or, perhaps, could she be wanted to join ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... motioned the driver to a certain twig, got in, and shut his mouth firmly, thus closing debate. We smoked silently, waiting for the doctor's mind to fog. He turned uneasily in his seat, like the agitated needle of a compass, and even in time hazarded the remark that something did not look natural; but there was nothing to look at but flat land and flat sky, unless a hawk sailing here and there. At noon we lunched at the tail ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... was made to this appeal; and the invalid looked anxiously at his wife. The last sat at her work, which had now got to be less awkward to her, with her eyes bent on her needle, and her countenance rigid, and, so far as the eye could discern, her ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... into muslins, dimities, cloths, calicoes, &c.; and is also joined with silks and flax, in the composition of other stuffs, and in working with the needle. ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... within. Man, I say, re-creates himself. How? By The Principle Of Honor. His first desire is to excel some one else; his first impulse is distinction above his fellows. Heaven places in his soul, as if it were a compass, a needle that always points to one end; namely, to honor in that which those around him consider honorable. Therefore, as man at first is exposed to all dangers from wild beasts, and from men as savage as himself, Courage becomes the first quality mankind must honor: therefore the savage is courageous; ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Dan had learnt to handle a thimble, but my own second finger was ever reluctant to come forward when wanted. It had to be found, all other fingers removed out of its way. Then, feebly, nervously, it would push, slip, get itself pricked badly with the head of the needle, and, thoroughly frightened, remain incapable of further action. More practical I found it to push the needle through by help of the ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... The tall Earthman seemed about to say something more, but Dal turned away and headed across toward the line for the shuttle plane. Ten minutes later, he was aloft as the tiny plane speared up through the black night sky and turned its needle nose ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... himself as a "self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms." His companionship with nature became so intimate as to cause him to say, "Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me." When a sparrow alighted upon his shoulder, he exclaimed, "I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn." ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... anxious about them, the smell of the roast-duck made us so hungry that we could not resist the temptation of eating our share without waiting for them. Dick then set to work to prepare our fishing gear, and in the course of the evening not only made a netting pin and needle, but manufactured a landing-net, which would serve the double purpose of catching some small fish for bait, and rifting up any larger fish likely to break our tackle should we attempt to haul them out of ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... of some idea of humility. It is also said that the wall was pierced in this way to prevent the appearance of a camel during divine service, but even that explanation would only repeat the same suggestion through the parable of the needle's eye. Personally I should guess that, in so far as the purpose was practical, it was meant to keep out much more dangerous animals than camels, as, for instance, Turks. For the whole church has clearly been turned into a fortress, windows are bricked up ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... thought how he had taken Hanada to his room after that boy's battle and had attempted to sew up the cut with an ordinary needle. He smiled grimly as he thought of the fight and how he had resolved to win or die. Hanada had helped ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... were bearers of much sentiment but no especial benefit to the recipients at the front; and like many of her companions she had slipped her name and address into one of these soon-discarded cap covers. As luck would have it, their package of "Havelocks," "housewives," needle-cases, mittens (with trigger finger duly provided for), ear-muffs, wristlets, knitted socks, and such things, worn by the "boys" their first winter in Virginia, but discarded for the regulation outfit thereafter, fell ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... of this is to leave open slits, petty gashes in the fabric, running lengthwise of the warp, and these are all united later with the needle, in the hands of the women who ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... on the fender-seat close by her chair, and for some minutes watched the clever needle work its golden way through the white silk. No one has ever had such dainty fingers ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... eight brent—were divested of their skins, which furnished patches of warm covering, of from two to four square feet. The sinews of the legs were divided into threads, and, using a small sail-needle which he carried to clean the tube of his gun, La Salle proceeded to show Waring how to make a large robe, placing the larger skins in the middle, and forming a border ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... while you're about it? But lend me the needle, and I'll see what I can do with the selvage. I don't think there's enough to protect my royal body from the cold blast as it is. What are you doing with that ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a frock she wished repaired. Mrs. Heath-Brown, whom she had met upon the Nile, recommended to her a Mrs. Hendricks, wife of a British soldier and a most clever little needle woman. Jinny looked up Mrs. Hendricks and found it impossible to secure her for some days as she was busy refitting for a fashionable wedding in ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... far-famed Needles are a row of wedge-like masses of hard chalk running out to sea in the direction of the axis of the range of hills. They do not now much resemble their name, but in earlier years there was among them a conspicuous pinnacle, a veritable needle, one hundred and twenty feet in height, that fell in 1764. At present the new lighthouse, built at the seaward end of the outermost cliff, is the nearest approach to a needle. The headland behind them is crowned by a fort several ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... line parallel to the left edge. You have now a 6x8-inch rectangle marked off, leaving a one-inch space around the edge of the tag-board. Start at a point where a vertical and a horizontal line intersect and mark off the six-inch ends into spaces one-fourth inch apart. Next with a large needle pierce the board at each point of intersection. This will make twenty-five eyelets at each end. On the reverse side of the board draw diagonals to determine the center. Tie together the two brass rings and fasten them firmly to the center of the ...
— Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools • Virginia McGaw
... while, girls, if you please," said Alice, "till I just tell you what I want to have done. In the first place, I think it will be so pleasant to form a sewing Society, to meet on Saturday afternoons, and make bags and needle-cases and collars and many other things to sell; and I know my father will be delighted to have us put a box, with these things, in his store. Then, while we sew, I propose that one reads aloud from some interesting book or paper about missions ...
— Self-Denial - or, Alice Wood, and Her Missionary Society • American Sunday-School Union
... parlor-maid turned faint at the sight of blood, and the chamber-maid lost her wits in the flurry. It was a bad cut, and must be sewed up at once, the doctor said, as soon as he came. "Somebody must hold his head;" he added, as he threaded his queer little needle. ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... cunnin' enough tew be on th' lookout for jest such tricks an' that they know right now where we be. They know it wouldn't dew for them tew lose track of us in this here wilderness of mountains, where 'twould be like tryin' tew find a needle in a haystack tew try tew hit our trail ag'in, once it was lost; an' so, I reckon, some on 'em has got an eye on us right now, an' that we'll have tew play a shrewder trick than that tew fool 'em. But, maybe, 'twill ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... wife is represented in her boat, "making her toilet at dawn using the water as a mirror." While we are assured also that the woman sitting upon her veranda "finds it very difficult to thread her needle by the pale light of the moon," which fact, few, ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... Mixture is cooked when a slight pressure leaves no dent, or when a small skewer or fine knitting-needle put into the centre ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... repelled, and retains it natural form, composed of the attraction and pressure of its own parts, and thence looks like quicksilver, reflecting light from both its surfaces. Nor is this owing to any oiliness of the leaf, but simply to the polish of its surface, as a light needle may be laid on water in the same manner without touching it; for as the attractive powers of polished surfaces are greater when in actual contact, so the repulsive power is ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... kindly and eloquently on the subject of dishonesty, and the necessity there was for full confession before forgiveness could be obtained (this last appeal sorely trying Ger's fortitude), but all to no avail. As the needle points ever to the north, so all the squire's exhortations ended with the same question, to be met with the same answer, growing fainter in tone as the hours wore on, but no less firm in substance. "I can't ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... find one seemed for a good while unlikely; for I searched a score and more of wrecks, and on every one of them the binnacle either was empty or the needle entirely rusted away. But at last I came to a barque that had a newer look about her than that of the craft amidst which she was lying, and that also had her binnacle covered with a tarred canvas hood such as is used when ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... but I only wanted to say a few words to you about a brother of mine who is out there somewhere, we believe. Now, I know the Northwest is a big place, and you might as well think of lookin' for a needle in a haystack as for a certain feller there; but accidents do happen, and by some sorter luck you might just happen to run across Teddy," said Hank quickly, and with a wistful look on his ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... are the words of an aged crone? For all have left her muttering alone; And the needle and thread that they got with such pains, They forever must keep as dagger ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... influence of one human being over another—in some sense, God-appointed—a necessary result of the human constitution. There is scarcely a human being that is not varied and swerved by it, as the trembling needle is swerved by the approaching magnet. Oppose conflict with it, as one may at a distance, yet when it breathes on us through the breath, and shines on us through the eye of an associate, it possesses an invisible magnetic power. He who is not at all conscious of ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... on some really high enterprise of life. However one can, if one's soul strains hard enough, dust and dream; darn and dream. Especially if one has a helpful lilt, rhythmic to dust-cloth's stroke or needle's swing, throbbing like a strain of music ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... drew a blue silk sock over her hand and poked at the hole in its heel with a thoughtful needle. "He always loves them—for the time, my dear. He is ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... to its economy why this practice should not die out. The tearing up into strips of old garments, and the tacking of their ends together with needle and thread is work eminently suited for children, and one in which they take great pride, as it gives them a share in the creation of a ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... of dolichos supplies the shoes, In which some have to brave the frost and cold. A bride, when poor, her tender hands must use, Her dress to make, and the sharp needle hold. This man is wealthy, yet he makes his bride Collars and ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... vinegar were manufactured. Agricultural implements were then few and simple, and farmers made as many of them as they could. Every farmhouse was a creamery and cheese factory. As there were no sewing machines, the farmer's wife and daughters had to ply the hand needle most of the time when they were not engaged in more laborious pursuits. During the long evenings they generally knit socks and mittens or made rag carpets. [Footnote: Nourse, Agricultural Economics, p 64, from "The Farmer's Changed Conditions," ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... which from below looks as sharp as a needle, has a platform on its summit of about fifty paces in circumference. Here is a heap of small loose stones, about two feet high, forming a circle about twelve paces in diameter. Just below the top I found on every granite block that presented a smooth surface, inscriptions, the far greater part of ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... We now know that this contradiction runs through all their habits of life. With them white is the colour indicative of mourning; the place of honour is on the left hand; the seat of intellect is in the stomach; to take off one's hat is considered an insolent gesture; the magnetic needle of the Chinese compass is reckoned as pointing south, instead of north; even up to the middle of the nineteenth century the chief weapon in war was the bow and arrow, although they were long before acquainted with gunpowder—and so on, ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... hundred pounds of the common gunpowder. At one end of the machine is fastened an invisible clock-work meant to regulate the time of the explosion, which time may be fixed from one minute to thirty-six hours. The spark is produced by means of a steel needle which gives a spark at the touch-hole, and communicates thereby the fire to ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... respectfully; but an unwonted restraint checked the expression of gratification which her presence ever imparted. Madeleine smilingly bade them to be seated; then passed around the table and spoke to every needle-woman in turn, inquiring after the personal health of each, or asking questions about her family,—for she knew the histories of all; and then learning particulars concerning the work that had been done, and the ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... agreement upon disputed matters. The trade agreement has been particularly successful in many industries in England. In this country it is best known in the soft coal mining industry in eastern United States, and in the needle trades of New York City. On the whole, the trade agreement has not been markedly successful in the United States. Although it smoothes out minor differences, the unions still prefer to back their more important demands ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... tramp about the country, and brought him on one occasion before a London police magistrate for attempting to commit suicide. Inquiry showed that the man could work hard, and, strange to say of a man over six feet high and broad in proportion, was handy with his needle at embroidery, etc. The Committee kept him a few nights at a common lodging-house—for he was homeless since leaving the infirmary—and then by great good fortune got him work at a tent and sail maker's, where now, some half a year later, he is earning his ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... she determined to keep if possible, dreading for the sake of her children the influences of a crowded tenement house. Dennis stood by her, a stanch and helpful friend; Ernst was earning a good little sum weekly, and by her needle and washtub the patient woman continued the hard battle of life with fair prospects ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... advantages. While the neat-handed woman worked busily and carefully many merry jests passed between them—many sincere and hearty words of admiration—and before long Arsinoe had become quite excited and took pleased interest in the needle-woman's labors. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... think that I was a millionaire. Look at my face, it's crimped and gouged—one of them death-mask things; Don't seem the sort of man, do I, as might be the pal of kings? Slouching along in smelly rags, a bleary-eyed, no-good bum; A knight of the hollow needle, pard, spewed from the sodden slum. Look me all over from head to foot; how much would you think I was worth? A dollar? a dime? a nickel? Why, I'M THE WEALTHIEST ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... shuttle Is hushed, and the woman Who sits at the wheel Is engrossed in the story. The daughter, Yevgenka, Her plump little finger Has pricked with a needle. The blood has dried up, But she notices nothing; 180 Her sewing has fallen, Her eyes are distended, Her arms hanging limp. The children, in bed On the sleeping-planks, listen, Their heads hanging down. They lie on their ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... past endurance, he had spared her still, At any cost of silence. What is such love To mine, that would outrival Roman heroes— Watch mine arm crisp and shrivel in quick flame, Or set a lynx to gnaw my heart away, To save her from a needle-prick of pain, Ay, or to please her? At their worth she rates Her wooers—light as all-embracing air Or universal sunshine. Luca, go And tell Fiametta—rather, bid the lass Hither herself. [Exit Luca.] He comes to pay me ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... brides. Dinner-tables were set out for meals never to be finished, save by rats. Family portraits of comfortable old faces smiling under broken glass hung awry on pink or blue papered walls. Half-made shirts and petticoats were still caught by the needle in broken sewing-machines. Dropped books and baskets of knitting lay on bright carpets snowed under by fallen plaster. Vases of dead flowers stood on mantelpieces, ghostly stems and shrivelled brown leaves reflected in gilt-framed mirrors. ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to us in the midst of everlasting bliss, while the rich man Dives, who had supported him for years, by the crumbs from his table, and was clothed in purple and fine linen, is burning in an eternal hell. Remember that it is 'less difficult for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven;' and so, my friends, you may justly rejoice in your poverty and your afflictions, for 'those whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth;' and the more wretched your careers may be, here on earth, the more ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... granite, cut in the shape of tiles and open work, to within eighty feet from the base. According to the legend, on the spot where the church now stands, there lived in the time of St. Genevroc, a young girl, whom the saint found, when passing her house on the fete of our Lady, employed at her needle. He reproached her gently with her impiety, yet she went on sewing, saying "she required food on Sundays as well as on work days." But the girl has hardly finished speaking, when all her body became cold and motionless ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... assented the physicist, and held the Sirius upright, with her needle-sharp stern buried a few feet ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... me any good," he returned gloomily. "The only thing that can help me now is for me to git the fellow myself, and I might just as well look for a needle in a haystack." ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... house, calling for their parents in excited voices, and pouring out incoherent exclamations. Sylvia cried a little at the comforting sight of her mother's face and was taken up on Mrs. Marshall's lap and closely held. Judith never cried; she had not cried even when she ran the sewing-machine needle through her thumb; but when infuriated she could not talk, her stammering growing so pronounced that she could not get out a word, and it was Sylvia who told the facts. She was astonished to find ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... in constant waiting in her antechamber, like a lady of quality. Pereda was not rich enough to maintain such an attendant; he therefore compromised matters by painting on a screen an old lady sitting at her needle, with spectacles on her nose, and so truthfully executed that visitors were wont to salute her as they passed, taking her for a real duenna, too deaf or too discreet to notice ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... our class, nor will we aim at pairing with them. Tomorrow is St. Valentine's Day, when every bird chooses her mate; but you will not see the linnet pair with the sparrow hawk, nor the Robin Redbreast with the kite. My father was an honest burgher of Perth, and could use his needle as well as I can. Did there come war to the gates of our fair burgh, down went needles, thread, and shamoy leather, and out came the good head piece and target from the dark nook, and the long lance from above the chimney. Show me a day that either he or I was absent when ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... premature taste for literary amusements; and our old fashioned moral adages in writing-books are replaced by scraps from "Elegant Extracts," while print-work and embroidery represent scenes from poems or novels. I allow, that the subjects formerly pourtrayed by the needle were not pictoresque, yet, the tendency considered, young ladies might as well employ their silk or pencils in exhibiting Daniel in the lions' den, or Joseph and his brethren, as Sterne's Maria, or ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... "Jenkinses," it took hours of quiet argument before Caleb could convince those shy and suspicious people that his errand was an honest one. Eventually they did come to believe him; they led him, a-foot, another half mile up the timber-fringed stream, to a log cabin set back in the balsams upon a needle carpeted knoll. And they stood and stared in stolid wonder at this portly man in riding breeches and leather puttees, when he finally emerged from that small shack, "Old Tom's" tin box under his arm, and, with lips working strangely, pinned ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... won't look for a needle in that haystack," the General answered. For a brief second he eyed the lieutenant. "Get back to your regiment, Brice, if you want to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... hard lot she had voluntarily incurred. That every little accomplishment she had acquired in happier days had been put into requisition for this purpose, and directed to this one end. That for two long years, toiling by day and often too by night, working at the needle, the pencil, and the pen, and submitting, as a daily governess, to such caprices and indignities as women (with daughters too) too often love to inflict upon their own sex when they serve in such capacities, as though ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... first lesson of hand-craft with the needle; boys may (and they will always prize the knowledge), but girls must. It is wise that our schools are going back to old fashioned ways, and saying that girls must be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... natural philosophy and physiology. Compositions have been required in Arabic and English. The lessons in drawing, commenced by Miss Whittlesey, have been continued under the instruction of Mrs. Smith, and plain and fancy needle-work ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... seated alone at the far end of this hall, beneath the window-plate, clad in her white robes of office, richly broidered with emblems of the moon. Her women, most of whom were employed in needle-work, though some whispered idly to each other, were gathered at the lower end of the ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... was held August 24, 1861, at Stepney, ten miles north of Bridgeport, and Mr. Barnum and Elias Howe, Jr., inventor of the sewing machine needle, agreed to attend and hear for themselves whether the speeches were loyal or not. They communicated their intention to a number of their friends, asking them to go also, and at least twenty accepted the invitation. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... came near my stove, in a broidered mantle clad, and said to me, 'Here, hide 'neath my veil the child whom you one day begged from me. Haste to the city, buy linen, buy a needle, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... needle-like, stung Val's face. There were ominous pools of water gathering in the garden depressions. Even the small stream which bisected their land had grown from a shallow trickle into a thick, ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... Big Drum—the weekly cartoon. Taken together, those designs might be held to represent a life's good work; yet they represent but a fraction of what he executed during his seven-and-twenty years' hard labour. If after a close study of all his productions with pencil and etching-needle, you ask yourself what constitutes his real life's-work, you will probably choose to ignore his book plates—even those to the Comic Histories of Rome and England, to the sporting novels of "Mr. Sponge," and the rest—and point to his "Pictures of Life and Character," as given forth in ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... impatient at the delay, as is usual with passengers. The most restless, if not the most impatient, of those in the first-class car was a foreign-looking gentleman, tall, dark, and with military carriage. A grizzled moustache with ends waxed to a needle point and an imperial accentuated his foreign military appearance. At every pause the train made at the little wayside stations, this gentleman became visibly more impatient, pulling out his watch, consulting his time table, ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... need of an enemy.' 'Borrow from a Bania and you are as good as ruined.' 'The rogue cheats strangers and the Bania cheats his friends.' 'Kick a Bania even if he is dead.' "His heart, we are told, is no bigger than a coriander seed; he goes in like a needle and comes out like a sword; as a neighbour he is as bad as a boil in the armpit. If a Bania is on the other side of a river you should leave your bundle on this side for fear he should steal it. If a Bania is drowning you should not give him your hand; he is sure to have some pecuniary motive for ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... is of the needle type, fitted with suitable stuffing box nuts and ending in an exposed square shank to which the special wrench may be fitted when the valve is to be opened ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... although I believed myself a match for him even at that work I would not descend so far below the dignity of a gentleman as to fight like a porter; but if he had anything to say to me, I was his man at blunderbuss, musket, pistol, sword, hatchet, spit, cleaver, fork, or needle; nay, I swore, that should he give his tongue any more saucy liberties at my expense, I would crop his ears without any ceremony. This rhodomontade, delivered with a stern countenance and resolute tone, had the desired effect upon my antagonist, who, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... their only decent garment for an additional dose of the deadly drug. A decrepit old man raised himself as we entered, drew a long sigh, and then with a half-uttered imprecation on his own folly proceeded to refill his pipe. This he did by scraping off, with a five-inch steel needle, some opium from the lid of a tiny shell box, rolling the paste into a pill, and then, after heating it in the blaze of a lamp, depositing it within the small aperture of his pipe. Several short whiffs followed; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... little parlour in his home he found his nephew sitting, silent and discontented, by the window. Madeline had taken up a book, and Ellinor, in an opposite corner, was plying her needle with an earnestness that contrasted with her customary ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... transfigured by the Sabbath influence; so that their very garments—whether it were an old man's decent coat well brushed for the thousandth time, or a little boy's first sack and trousers finished yesterday by his mother's needle—had somewhat of the quality of ascension-robes. Forth, likewise, from the portal of the old house stepped Phoebe, putting up her small green sunshade, and throwing upward a glance and smile of parting kindness to the faces at the arched window. In her aspect ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... children play with, out of the scraps of worsted with which I had furnished him. Instead of cutting the wool into lengths, however, it was left in loops; and I learned that this is done to afford a firm hold for the sharp needle-like teeth of an inquisitive eel, who might be tempted to find out if this strange round thing, floating near his hole, would be good to eat. I was impatient as a child,—remember it was my first eel-fishing expedition,—and I thought nine o'clock would never come, for I had been told to go ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... was not the least difference as to her lodging, dress, manner of life, etc. She remained in every way the poor hand-maid of the Lord, as to all outward appearance. 4, But that which is as lovely as the rest, she continued working at her needle all this time. She earned her 2s. 6d., or 3s., or a little more, a week, by her work, as before: whilst she gave away the money in Sovereigns or Five Pound Notes.—At last all her money was gone, and that some years before she fell sleep, and as her bodily health never had been good, ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... was unique in its peculiar property, and the loadstone in its singular power. Now chemistry holds in solution the elements and secrets of creation; now electricity would seem to be the veil which hangs before the soul; now the magnetic needle, true to the loadstar, trembles on the sea, to make the mariner brave and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... had already set in, and she was seated before the stove in a heavy rocking-chair. Her busy fingers were plying her needle, a work she loved in spite of the hard training of her early days in the north. At the other side of the glowing stove Jessie was reading one of the books with which Father Jose kept her supplied. The wind was moaning desolately about the house. The early snowfall ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... as sharp as a needle, observed this, and, leaving his man in charge of Tonkin, darted after the fugitive. He soon returned, however, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and declaring that he had well-nigh lost himself in his vain endeavours ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... be always in the right. In all our quarrels, in all the variations of my humour, I am obliged to end by doing homage to her reason, as the Chinese mariners, in every change of weather, burn incense before the needle. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... illustrated by these photographic drawings. Here, for instance, is a portrait exactly after the manner of Raeburn. There is the same broad freedom of touch; no nice miniature stipplings, as if laid in by the point of a needle—no sharp-edged strokes: all is solid, massy, broad; more distinct at a distance than when viewed near at hand. The arrangement of the lights and shadows seems rather the result of a happy haste, in which half the effect was produced by design, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... say, are you going to worry me?" asked she, giving her spouse a playful tap. "I know what I know! Dr. Poulain has given up M. Pons. And we are going to be rich! My name will be down in the will.... I'll see to that. Draw your needle in and out, and look after the lodge; you will not do it for long now. We will retire, and go into the country, out at Batignolles. A nice house and a fine garden; you will amuse yourself with gardening, and I shall ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... better than I, forsooth, that you must be a Lady, and have your Petticoats lac'd four Stories high; wear your false Towers, and cool your self with your Spanish Fan? Come, come, Baggage, wear me your best Clothes a Sunday, and brush 'em up a Monday Mornings, and follow your Needle all the Week after; that was your good old Mother's way, and your Grandmother's before her; and as for the Husband, take no care about it, I have designed it Antonio, and Antonio you are like to wed, or beat the hoof, Gentlewoman, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... of the Avenue faces the Obelisk, Cleopatra's Needle, a present to the United States from the Khedive of Egypt, brought to this country in 1877, and erected here in 1880; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the latter on the site of what was once the Deer Park. The ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... patted and tapped into order. Her few dresses also had to be gone over for loose buttons, and the darning of threadbare places was a duty exercising her constant attention. Her clothing was always made by her mother, whose needle had once been noted for expertness, and, therefore, fitted more accurately than is customary in young girls' dresses. The arranging and rearranging of her beads was a frequent and enjoyable labor. She had four different necklaces, representing four different pennyworths ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... Madame Bonaparte opposed with fortitude the influence of counsels which she believed fatal to her husband. He indeed spoke rarely, and seldom confidentially, with her on politics or public affairs. "Mind your distaff or your needle," was with him a common phrase. The individuals who applied themselves with most perseverance in support of the hereditary question were Lucien, Roederer, Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely, and Fontanel. Their efforts ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... illiterate, were brought, like criminals to be tried, the profoundest mysteries and most perplexing questions of theology, and in proportion to the ignorance of the judge, was the presumption with which sentence was pronounced. A general love of dogma prevailed. The cross-legged tailor plying his needle on his raised platform; the cobbler in the pauses of beating the leather on his lap-stone; and the field-laborer as he rested on his spade; discussed with serene and satisfied assurance problems, before the contemplation of which, the ripest learning and highest ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... cathedral, wherein if there be no saints, there are likewise no priestcraft and no idols; but endless vistas of smooth red green-veined shafts holding up the warm dark roof, lessening away into endless gloom, paved with rich brown fir-needle—a carpet at which Nature has been at work for forty years. Red shafts, green roof, and here and there a pane of blue sky—neither Owen Jones nor Willement can improve upon that ecclesiastical ornamentation,—while for incense I have the fresh healthy turpentine fragrance, far ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... refuse the things, but as I had quickly fallen into the habit of commanding, which, I must say I found very pleasant, I told him to be silent. I had laid out Etiennette's needle case and also a little box in which I had placed Lise's rose. Mattia wanted to open this box, but I would not let him. I put it back in my bag ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... melted or evaporated from the exposed slopes, these sheltered drifts would lie undiminished and when summer really came, they gave birth to scores of trickling rills. Vegetation sprang up in that moist, needle-mulched soil as luxuriant as any in the tropics. From the time the furry anemone lifted its lavender-blue petals above the dwindling snow patch, until the apples formed on the wild rose bushes and the kinnikinic berries turned red, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... metal, with infinitely more delicacy and accuracy than by melted metals,—taking them, too, from the most fragile and perishable moulds? What sounds more purely fanciful than to assert a connection between variations in the direction of the compass-needle and spots on the surface of the sun! or what is more improbable than that the period of solar spots should be ten years? What would seem to be more completely beyond the reach of human measurement than the relative velocities ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... and albida.—The blades of several cotyledons of both these plants were rubbed or slightly scratched with a needle during 1 m. or 2 m.; but they did not move in the least. When, however, the pulvini of six cotyledons of M. pudica were thus scratched, two of them were slightly raised. In these two cases perhaps the pulvinus ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... in wonderment. She stared at Marcella, forgetting the sock she had just slipped over her left hand, and the darning needle in ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... plying the needle and awl vigorously. He looked up only for a second at a time during the next few moments, but what he saw impressed him very favorably. Mrs. Prency was not a young woman, but apparently she had a clear conscience and a good digestion, for she sat with an entirely satisfied ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... drama is a subject which claims in this place some share of our attention, partly because it excited in a variety of ways that of Elizabeth herself. By the appearance of Ferrex and Porrex in 1561, and that of Gammer Gurton's Needle five years later, a new impulse had been given to English genius; and both tragedies and comedies approaching the regular models, besides historical and pastoral dramas, allegorical pieces resembling the old moralities, and translations from the ancients, were from this time ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... our flesh faileth us, and we become ignorant and brutish. Our affections cleave to the earth, and temptations with their violence turn our souls towards another end than God. As there is nothing more easily moved and turned wrong than the needle that is touched with the adamant, yet it settles not in such a posture, it recovers itself and rests never till it look towards the north, and then it is fixed—even so, temptations and the corruptions and infirmities of our hearts ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... in the window, so that they might still see some of the blue sky, as she expressed it, she looked across the Court towards Lizzie Stevens' home. Yes, there she was, Pollie could see, busy plying her needle, and there were the violets also, in a broken jam jar close by her as she sat at work; and raising her pale face towards them, as though they were old friends returned to her, she caught sight of little Pollie ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... between the villains and my young master (which is no credit to me, as I was so wrought with rage that I verily believe I would have no more felt the thrust of a rapier than Marian's housewife the prick of a needle). But there was no method in aught, neither could anything be seen; for the moon had withdrawn behind the clouds, and we seemed to be fighting underneath clear water, so pale and ghastly was the light ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... hot hillside among tangled masses of jasmine, in which here and there were set star-like golden flowers, whose gardenia-like perfume mixed with the resinous aromatic smell of the long-needle pines. I rode a little behind, on purpose, for I love to see a pretty woman turn her head and look backward across her shoulder. She has no pose more charming, unless it be when she stands before the "laughing mirror" and lifts her hands to ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... her coming was very glad, and went away, as in haste. But she returned about noon, drawing a toboggin (sled) piled up with garments and arms, for she was a huntress. Indeed, she could do all things as few women could, whether it were cooking, needle-work, or making all that men need. And the winter passed very pleasantly, until the snow grew soft, and it was time for them to return. Till she came they had little luck in hunting, but since her coming all had gone ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... galvanic battery under his bolster, bell and wires to the head of his bed, and bells at each ear—think how even he would click and flash those wondrous dispatches of his, and how they would become mere nothing without the activity and honesty which catch up the threads and stitches of the electric needle, and scatter them ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... sleep last night between sleeping and waking. A figure standing beside me, thin, miserable, sad and sorrowful; the shadow of night upon his face, the tracks of the tears down his cheeks. His ribs were bending like the bottom of a riddle; his nose thin that it would go through a cambric needle; his shoulders hard and sharp that they would cut tobacco; his head dark and bushy like the top of a hill; and there is nothing I can liken his fingers to. His poor bones without any kind of covering; a withered rod in his hand, and he looking ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory
... his friends rather than himself; and at others, against the enemies of his country. Guided by the inexplicable instinct of forest skill, he could conduct the wanderer in the woods from point to point through the wilderness, as the needle guides the mariner upon the ocean. So endowed, others equally illiterate, and less gifted, naturally, and from instinct, arranged themselves under his banner, and ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... religion and prudery, a base malignant and sensual character. I was immediately sent by my aunt to the parish-school, where, being naturally tractable and apt to learn I soon acquired the rudiments of a good education, and besides, I learnt also to become an expert needle-woman. No sooner did my aunt find that I was mistress of this latter accomplishment, than she took me at once from school, and compelled me to toil day and night at my needle, refusing me at the same time all necessary rest ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... basement of the Washington had about convinced her that all human nature was sour but she disliked to tell Mary Rose so when Mary Rose so plainly expected her to agree that the world was inhabited by a superior sort of angel. She snipped her threads and drew the plaid skirt from under the needle. ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... a needle, held her hand out and looked at her nails critically for a moment, and then began ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... 28 indicates the apparatus of our experiment. When we close the switch, S, the battery starts a stream of electrons from a towards b. Just at that instant the needle, or pointer, of the current instrument moves. The needle moves, and thus shows a current in the coil cd; but it comes right back again, showing that the current is only momentary. Let's say this again in different words. The battery keeps steadily forcing electrons through the circuit ab ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... out from our Mount Brewer wall, about four miles to the south of us. To reach it we must climb up and down over the indented edge of the Mount Brewer wall. In attempting to do this we had a rather lively time scaling a sharp granite needle, where we found our course completely stopped by precipices four and five hundred feet in height. Ahead of us the summit continued to be broken into fantastic pinnacles, leaving us no hope of making our way along it; so we sought the most ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... use iron, chalk, and clay, Use water, snow, and ice, Use thread and needle, pin and pen, Use every ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... mistress's name. Still my husband, cap in hand, persisted in trying to accompany the alcalde, and seeing this my lady, filled with rage and vexation, pulled out a big pin, or, I rather think, a bodkin, out of her needle-case and drove it into his back with such force that my husband gave a loud yell, and writhing fell to the ground with his lady. Her two lacqueys ran to rise her up, and the alcalde and the alguacils did the same; the Guadalajara gate was all in commotion—I ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... field of vision, but we cannot locate it. Why not? Our sense of touch is also very weak and only extends over a very limited space. And as it is on the large scale, so is it with the small. We see the eye of a needle, but infusoria and bacteria, which we know to be there and which affect us so much, we cannot see. With telescopes and microscopes we can slightly extend the field of our perception, but the limitations and weakness of our sense-impressions remain none ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... see that the one to Boling started due north out of Salem and the other, the one I must follow, started due west out of Salem. Taking out my compass, I would see in what direction the north end of the needle pointed; the road running off in that direction would be the one to Boling, so I would start ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... in the long June evenings, in the year 1588; Mrs. Leigh sat in the open window, busy at her needle-work; Ayacanora sat opposite to her, on the seat of the bay, trying diligently to read "The History of the Nine Worthies," and stealing a glance every now and then towards the garden, where Amyas stalked up and down as he had used to do in happier days gone by. But his brow was contracted now, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... compass, I made a discovery that sent the blood with sudden rush first to my heart and then to my brain; a small piece of iron, invisible in an ordinary light, had been driven into the framework of the compass, close to that part of the card marked "W," thereby deflecting the needle to the point in question, so that ever since our departure from Quipai, we had been steering due west, instead of north by west, as I intended and believed. The dodge might not have deceived a seaman, but ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... fighter in Ahmoo's army was busy. Suddenly setting up a bawling on his own account Neewa turned tail to the nest and ran. Miki was not a hair behind him. In every square inch of his tender hide he felt the red-hot thrust of a needle. It was Neewa that made the most noise. His voice was one continuous bawl, and to this bass Miki's soprano wailing added the touch which would have convinced any passing Indian that the loup-garou devils were ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... teaspoonful to a pint of water. Once or twice each day they should be turned inside out and scrubbed with a brush and water. The hole in the nipple should be only large enough for a rather coarse needle to go through. The hole in the nipple can be made by such a needle heated red hot and ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... was there. In the rear he sat, and everybody turned to look at Lum. So simple was he that the reason of his presence was soon plain, for he could no more keep his eyes from the back of Martha Mullins's yellow head than a needle could keep its point from the North Pole. The circuit-rider on his next circuit would preach the funeral services of Uncle Billy Hall, who had been dead ten years, and Uncle Billy would be draped with all the virtues that so few men ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... white fingers fumble inside the dog's open maw. She pulled what seemed to be a white rubber cap from one of his grinders. Quickly and skilfully, with a fine knitting needle, the countess ripped from this rubber casing what the girl thought looked like a twist ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... in doubt as to which of the two plans they should lend their support to. "Are you sure we'll catch 'em, Cap?" inquired one, doubtfully, "there are so powerful many forks to this river, it's like hunting for a needle in a haystack." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to do it; but Sonny, he wouldn't begin to allow it. We all tried to indoose 'im. I offered him everything on the farm ef he'd thess roll up his little sleeve an' let the doctor look at his arm—promised him thet he wouldn't tech a needle to it tell he said the word. But he wouldn't. He 'lowed thet me an' his mama could git vaccinated ef we wanted ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... to me that you would certainly prefer me to spend my free time in work instead of in prayer, as was my custom; so I plied my needle industriously without even raising my eyes. No one ever knew of this, as I wished to be faithful to Our Lord and do things ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... saved her pence instead of spending them, but she so seldom had any money that she chiefly relied on her own ingenuity. Year by year it became more difficult to make anything which would "do for a boy;" but it was easy to please Darling, and "Mother's" unabated appreciation of pincushions, and of needle-books made out of old ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... remains: Her feet are beautiful, her eyes are beautiful, her arms and breasts are paradise, her charm is potent beyond all charm that has ever dazzled men; and, as the pole willy-nilly draws the needle, just so, willy-nilly, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Mark's normal condition. He got into a quarrel with Octavius and settled it by marrying Octavia, Octavius' sister, but this was not a love match, for he at once returned to Cleopatra, the author of Cleopatra's needle ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... in the chair and (if I remember the process correctly) squeeze the bulb attached to the needle until the latter becomes red hot. Then, grasping the book-ends in the left hand, carefully trace around the pencilled design with the point of the needle. It probably will be a picture of the Lion of Lucerne, and you will let the needle slip on the way round the face, giving it the appearance ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... to bed, let her drink water and honey, and if afterwards she feels a beating pain in her stomach and about the navel, she has conceived. Or let her take the juice of cardius, and if she brings it up again, that is a sign of conception. Throw a clean needle into the woman's urine, put it into a basin and let it stand all night. If it is covered with red spots in the morning, she has conceived, but if it has turned black and rusty, she ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... cafes, and about a hundred houses were all of it.[6] Can you believe, there were but two dry-goods stores! And what fabulous prices we had to pay! Pins twenty dollars a paper. Poor people and children had to make shift with thorns of orange and amourette [honey locust?]. A needle cost fifty cents, very indifferent stockings five dollars a pair, and ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... and vanished. We approached the bed and examined it—a half-tester, such as is commonly found in attics devoted to servants. On the drawers that stood near it we perceived an old faded silk kerchief, with the needle still left in a rent half repaired. The kerchief was covered with dust; probably it had belonged to the old woman who had last died in that house, and this might have been her sleeping room. I had sufficient curiosity to open the drawers: there were ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... merely a dialogue, and not a drama. But Gammer Gurton's Needle, which was first acted about the year 1560, certainly deserves the name of a comedy. However antiquated in language and versification, it possesses unequivocal merit in the low comic. The whole plot turns on a lost needle, the search for which is pursued with the utmost assiduity: the poverty of the persons of the drama, which this supposes, and the whole of their domestic condition, is very amusingly portrayed, and the part of a cunning beggar especially is drawn with much humour. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... ever fanned The colors of that tender band; Its office is beside the bed, Where throbs some sick or wounded head. It does not court the soldier's tomb, But plies the needle and the loom; And, by a thousand peaceful deeds, Supplies ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... spool of thread," said Mrs. Snooks, "and I haven't a needle to my name. Henney dropped my thimble down the well last week, and as for buttons, the only ones I own are on the children's clothes. But if you want any of them things, Mr. Wylie, you'll find a right good assortment at Dowd's. He keeps a good ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... strips of fat, salt pork or bacon through uncooked meat. To lard, introduce one end of the lardoon (the small strip of fat) into a larding needle and with the pointed end take up a stitch one-half inch deep and one-half inch wide. Draw the needle through carefully so that the ends of the lardoon may project evenly over the surface of the meat. Oftentimes, however, thin slices of fat, salt pork or bacon are ...
— Fifty-Two Sunday Dinners - A Book of Recipes • Elizabeth O. Hiller
... arose and spread its wings to the wind. Still he had no power to direct his course when the lofty promontory sunk from sight, or the orbs above him were lost in clouds. But the secret of the magnet is, at length, revealed to him, and his needle now settles, with a fixedness which love has stolen as the symbol of its constancy, to the ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... will be found to give the same sensation every time. Substitute a metal point a few {198} degrees warmer than the skin, and a few spots will be found that give the sensation of warmth, these being the warmth spots. Use a sharp point, like that of a needle or of a sharp bristle, pressing it moderately against the skin, and you get at most points simply the sensation of contact, but at quite a number of points a small, sharp pain sensation arises. These are the pain spots. Finally, if the skin is explored with ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... at home vexing about the delay of my painters, and about four in the afternoon my wife and I by water to Captain Lambert's, where we took great pleasure in their turret-garden, and seeing the fine needle-works of his wife, the best I ever saw in my life, and afterwards had a very handsome treat and good musique that she made upon the harpsicon, and with a great deal of pleasure staid till 8 at night, and so home again, there being a little pretty witty child that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... answer. Some time after they had gone he arose from the ground and stumbled home. That night he put a paper novel into the stove. Next morning, before going to the depot, he removed an iron spike from the Lady May's compass box. The needle swung back ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... been shot in the back of the head with some peculiar implement," he said. "The bullet is very long—almost like a needle—and it seems to have penetrated very nearly to the base of ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of Kerstin was ever handy with her needle," she objected. "It has always been a great trial to your mother that I have not the patience to stitch endless seams and make rainbow skirts. Our son shall be Birger; but we must think of a better name for ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... black, white and yellow slaves were busy with needle, shuttle and spindle, vying with each other as they worked at the garments for the expected infant. Laeta stretched out her hand and took a little cap which an old slave laughingly offered her. She placed it on her closed hand and laughed in turn. It was a ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... old now. My feet ain't so sure as they used to be. But I can get about. I can get around to cook and I can still see to thread a needle. My daughter has a good home for me." (I was conducted into a large living room, comfortably furnished and with a degree of taste—caught glimpses of a well furnished dining room and a kitchen ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... few serious cases," he said. "Occasionally there is a little sedition but for the most part it is only needle pricks. They are quiet now. They know why," and, slowly shaking his head, von Bissing, who is known as the sternest disciplinarian in the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... one, mon cher ami, (The finger shield of industry) Th' inventive Gods, I deem, to Pallas gave What time the vain Arachne, madly brave, 30 Challeng'd the blue-eyed Virgin of the sky A duel in embroider'd work to try. And hence the thimbled Finger of grave Pallas To th' erring Needle's point was more than callous. But ah the poor Arachne! She unarm'd 35 Blundering thro' hasty eagerness, alarm'd With all a Rival's hopes, a Mortal's fears, Still miss'd the stitch, and stain'd the web with tears. Unnumber'd punctures small yet sore Full ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... from the time I left Truckee till I returned. The mountains, which rise abruptly from the margin, are covered with dense pine forests, through which, here and there, strange forms of bare grey rock, castellated, or needle-like, protrude themselves. On the opposite side, at a height of about 6,000 feet, a grey, ascending line, from which rumbling, incoherent sounds occasionally proceeded, is seen through the pines. This is one of the snow-sheds of the Pacific Railroad, which shuts out from travelers ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... straight lines, but these also are instrumental phenomena, due to diffraction of light by the steel bars that support the small mirror in the tube of reflecting telescopes. In a word, the stars are so remote that the largest and most perfect telescopes show them only as extremely minute needle-points of light, without any ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale |
