"Needle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... darning-needle, pen, and cooking-spoon, did not get off so easily; for the Professor was down on her with all manner of mirth-provoking accusations, criticisms, and insults even. He alluded to her domestic infelicity, her meddlesome disposition, sharp tongue, bad temper, and jealousy, closing, however, with a tribute ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... ease the heart can know, Which, like the needle true, Turns at the touch of joy or woe, But, turning, trembles too. A Prayer for ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... 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 ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... an engine, and indulge in the most abstruse speculations of philosophy, and could at once pass from the most sublime researches of geology and physical astronomy, the formation of our globe, and the structure of the universe, to the manufacture of a needle or a nail; who could discuss in the same conversation, and with equal accuracy, if not with the same consummate skill, the most forbidding details of art, and the elegances of classical literature; the most abstruse branches of science, and the ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... Adam! "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... again, and took up her wool-work, but her fingers trembled so that the needle missed the proper holes. Betty dropped down on to a stool at her feet, and they sat in silence while Mr. Crayshaw took the lamp to a side table and began to write. Presently Betty stole upstairs, and at nine o'clock Angel too rose, went over to her cousin, ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... the needle point of the black horn was no more than an arm's length from her stomach when she jumped aside with the lithe quickness of a prowler, swinging as she jumped and thrusting the spear with all her strength into ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... of the war the click of the knitting needle was heard everywhere; shop-girls knitted while waiting for customers, women knitted in trams and trains, at theatres, in churches, and, of course, in the home. The knitting is ceasing now for the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... instrument is also called a hot-wire ammeter because the oscillating currents flowing through a piece of wire heat it according to their current strength and as the wire contracts and expands it moves a needle over a scale. The ammeter is connected in the aerial wire system, either in the aerial side or the ground side—the latter place is usually the most convenient. When you tune the transmitter so that the ammeter shows the largest amount ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... can be called a floor—was more or less covered with mats made of springbuck skins. In the centre of the room stood a table made of the pretty buckenhout wood, which has the appearance of having been industriously pricked all over with a darning-needle, and round it were chairs and couches of stinkwood, and seated with ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... to listen to save the sighing of the east wind through the fine needle-like leaflets of the yew-trees; and the mist was rapidly shutting out every sight but the awful, pathetic form above us. Evening had closed in, night was coming gradually, yet swiftly. Every minute was drawing the darkness more densely about us. If we did not bestir ourselves soon, and ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... peak, 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 ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... to her left. It threw shadows over her features, accentuating their appealing sadness. He watched her, and thought of McPhail's words about the ghosts. He noted too, as the needle went in and out of the fabric, that her hands, though roughened by coarse work, were finely made, with long fingers and delicate wrists. He broke a silence ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... magnificence. She still sat in her nursery with her younger children as much as possible, darning all the stockings of the family; an occupation which Adeline thought very ungenteel, for she never condescended to use her needle at all. To make Mrs. Taylor a fine lady had been one of the least successful of Mr. Taylor's efforts; she was much too honest by nature to assume a character for which she was so little qualified. There was but one way in which she could ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... face of a thermo-electric pile, [Footnote: In the Appendix to the first chapter of 'Heat as a Mode of 'Motion,' the construction of the thermo-electric pile is fully explained.] which instantly converts the heat into an electric current. This current conducted round a magnetic needle deflects it, and the magnitude of the deflection is a measure of the heat falling upon the pile. This famous instrument, and not an ordinary thermometer, is what we shall use in these enquiries, but we ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... all he got neither, for she was a great one with her needle, and did texts better nor a Sailors' Home. Coe's cabin was more like a little Bethel than the inside of a trading ship, for there was six of them, and a red worsted dog extra, playing with a blue worsted ball, and "Jesus, Lover of my Soul" and "Where is my Wandering Boy To-night?" ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... She answers with a look of contempt, that men never care how money goes, and proceeds to tell of a dozen new chairs for which she is contriving covers, and of a couch which she intends to stand as a monument of needle-work. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... wish Dot could have joined us sometimes as we built our famous brick castles, or worked in Flurry's little garden, where she grew all sorts of wonderful things. When I was tired or lazy I used to bring out my needle-work to the seat under the cedar, and tell Flurry stories, or talk to her as she dressed her dolls; she was very good and tractable, and never teased me to play when ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... common saw. The two end grooves are light and narrow, the central ones wider and deeper. Into these inner grooves, the cords fit easily, and the book being taken, sheet by sheet, is firmly sewed around the cords, by alternate movements of the needle and thread, always along the middle of the sheet, the thread making a firm knot at each end (called the "kettle-stitch") as it is returned for sewing on the next sheet. Sometimes the backs are not sawed at all, but the sheets of the book are sewed around the cords, which thus ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... the Levant," 1849, says "the scenery of Meteora (Mt. Pindus in Albania) is of a very singular kind. The end of a range of rocky hills seems to have been broken off by some earthquake, or washed away by the Deluge, leaving only a series of twenty or thirty tall, thin, smooth, needle-like rocks, many hundred feet in height; some like gigantic tusks, some shaped like sugar- loaves, and some like vast stalagmites. These rocks are surrounded by a beautiful grassy plain, on three sides of which grow ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... lady a brooch or a pair of earings in a truss of hay. The house-door of the person to be complimented is pushed open, and there is thrown into the house a truss of hay or straw, a sheaf of corn, or a bag of chaff. In some part of this "bottle of hay" envelope, there is a "needle" as a present to be hunted for. A friend of mine once received from her betrothed, according to the Christmas custom, an exceedingly large brown paper parcel, which, on being opened, revealed a second parcel with a loving motto on the cover. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Needle-bush, n. name applied to two Australian trees, Hakea leucoptera, R. Br., N.O. Proteaceae; called also Pin-bush and Water-tree (q.v.) and Beefwood; Acacia rigens, Cunn., N.O. Leguminosae (called also Nealie). Both ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... were in the greatest despair, and we were gazing wistfully in the direction which the needle pointed out as the position of the 'Park,' now separated from us by an untravelled district of an unknown distance, we saw two figures with bows and arrows coming from the jungle. One of these creatures bolted back again into the bushes the moment he perceived us; the other ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... do?" said he, "a stranger in this great city—to set me a-finding what I never knew? A grain of wheat in a barn full of chaff, mayhap—a needle in a truss of hay—anything I might find but what was sheer impossible. And now am I like to be thrown to the dogs, like ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... left her and went away to her own dull world in the west wing, "there is a thing I can do if you will allow me. I can mend your tapestry hangings which have holes in them. I am quick at my needle, and should love to serve you in such poor ways as I can; and it is not seemly that they should be so worn. All things about you should be beautiful and ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... patience and gladness, of strength and weakness, — it was no wonder it touched her. Mrs. Landholm's eyes fell to her work and she took up her stocking again and went on darning; but there was a quick motion of her needle that told how ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... silly way of talking, he gave us so much matter for mirth, that, instead of bemoaning our ill-luck, we could not hold from laughing at every word he uttered. When the doctor wanted to sew up his wound, and had already made three stitches with his needle, the fellow told him to hold hard a while, since he did not want him out of malice to sew his whole mouth up. Then he took up a spoon, and said he wished to have his mouth left open enough to take that spoon in, in order that he might return alive to his own folk. These things he ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... for several minutes as Clifford resumed his work. He had been obliged to thread a needle and in the process had put the end of ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... 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
... to his Sublime Highness & the Janissaries: original Inventor and sole Proprietor of that Inestimable Instrument, the Circassian Needle, begs leave to acquaint the Nobility & Gentry of this City and its Environs that he is just arrived from Constantinople where he has inoculated about 50,000 Persons without losing a Single Patient. He requires ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... window at the gleaming needle of Ship II beside the flimsy-looking gantry. Full power was a ...
— Sound of Terror • Don Berry
... say she thought Nettle cloth more durable than any other linen." Goldsmith has recorded the "rubbing of a cock's heart with stinging Nettles to make it hatch hen's eggs." Some think the word "Nettle" an alteration of the Anglo-Saxon "Needl," with reference to the needle-like stings. Spun silk is now made in England from "Ramie" the decorticated fibre of Nettles after washing away the glutinous juice from under ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... rose, they would strike the Christians for no cause: and they allowed vs but halfe a pound of bread a man in a day without any other kinde of sustenance, water excepted. And when we came to the place whereas wee saw the Carmosell, we were not suffered to haue neither needle, bodkin, knife, or any other weapon about vs, nor at any other time in the night, vpon paine of one hundred bastonadoes: wee were then also cruelly manackled in such sort, that we could not put our handes the length of one foote asunder the one from the other, and euery night they searched our ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... parrot-fish rush off and hide themselves from view. But tear off a piece of congewoi, open it, and throw the sanguinary-coloured delicacy into the water, and presently you will see the parrot-fish dart out eagerly, and begin to tear it asunder with their long, irregular, and needle-like teeth, whilst the more cautious and lordly bream, with wary eye and gentle, undulating tail, watch from underneath a ledge for a favourable moment to dash out and secure ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... can be committed in small even as in great things. But it seems unreasonable for a man to be punished with eternal death for the theft of a small thing such as a needle or a quill. Therefore theft is not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... I attempted to sketch it in its whole extent, and gave to its most remarkable peaks separate names. A long flat-topped mountain I called "Lord's Table Range," after E. Lord, Esq., of Moreton Bay; and a sharp needle-like rock, which bore west-by-north, received the name of "Fletcher's Awl," after Mr. John Fletcher, whose kind contribution towards my expedition had not a little cheered me in my undertaking. Towards the east and north-east, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... French at it an' when she grabbed it up an' started back the kid opened 'is lungs an' near yelled the roof off. The woman ran into a house an' the door slammed an' shut off the shriekin' like liftin' the needle off a gramaphone disc. An' it left the main street most awful empty an' still wi' the jingle o' the teams' harness an' clatter o' the wagon wheels the only sounds. Another few shells came in an' one hit a house down the street in front of us. We ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... word, and though the Duke used all the arguments with her which he could think of, she bound my thumb with silk, and with a needle drew blood, with which she obliged me to sign a promissory note as follows: "I promise to Madame la Duchesse de Bouillon to continue united with the Duke her husband against the Parliament in case M. de Turenne approaches with the army under his command within twenty leagues of Paris and declares ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the laboring oar. The sail, at length, 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
... from strange families, from a solitary chamber where she sat and gained a knowledge of mankind—she knows and loves the romantic. Pardon, Miss, if the story has not excitement enough for you, who have sat over the needle and the muslin, and having had so much of life's prose, gasp ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... Aladdin creation, quite too delicate and beautiful for the open air. The filmy traceries of Gothic fretwork; the needle-like minarets; the hundreds of beautiful statues with which it is studded; the intricate and graceful architecture of every window and turret; and the frost-like frailness and delicacy of the whole mass, make an effect altogether upon the eye that must stand high on the list of new sensations. ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... along, wetting his dry lips, and stirring feebly among his dazed thoughts, hunting some other plan of action. There was a tiny burning spot on the left side of his occiput. It felt like a heated cambric needle which had been slipped into his scalp. Then he realized that he must go home, get ten dollars, and bring them back to Dr. Jallup. He started to run, but almost toppled over on ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... old wife drew a chess-board On the cover of a book, While the child transformed a needle ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... often so when maidens change and grow pale and dreamy, and sit brooding and thinking when erst they laughed and played. Kate is double the woman she was six months gone by. She will sit patiently at her needle now, when once she would throw it aside after one short hour; and she will seek to learn all manner of things in the still room and pantry that she made light of a short while back, as matters of no interest or concern to her. She would make an excellent housewife if she had the mind, as I have ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... would have its needle point directly to the real or true North. But practically no compass with which you will become familiar will be correct. It will have an error in it due to the magnetism of the earth. This is called Variation. It will also have an error in it due to the magnetism of the iron in the ship. This ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... still pointed in the direction of the island, and he was peering with an intensity that was painful at the spot where the dark break in the foamy breakers showed the entrance to the atoll, when he detected a black, needle-like column which rose from the beach at one side of the entrance. It was so thin that he could not make sure it was not some trick of his straining vision, and in doubt as to its reality, he relieved his ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... balance pans with a soft camel's hair brush. Then note (1) whether the balance is level; (2) that the mechanism for raising and lowering the beams works smoothly; (3) that the pan-arrests touch the pans when the beam is lowered; and (4) that the needle swings equal distances on either side of the zero-point when set in motion without any load on the pans. If the latter condition is not fulfilled, the balance should be adjusted by means of the adjusting screw at the end of the beam unless the variation is not more than one division ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... my elysian life. Soon after we returned, my dear lord began to write in earnest; and then commenced my leisure, because, till we meet at dinner, I do not see him. I have had to sew, as I did not touch a needle all summer, and far into the autumn, Mr. Hawthorne not letting me have a needle or a pen in my hand. We were interrupted by no one, except a short call now and then from Elizabeth Hoar, who can hardly be called an earthly inhabitant; and Mr. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... logs into the flames. Each time, Brown opened and closed the door as though an instant's heat were too precious to be lost. Brown's eyes were constantly upon the wavering needle ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... I replied. "I am a pretty good hand with a sail-needle. The Oulton fishermen used to teach me the stitches. I can do herring-bone stitch. I can even put a cringle ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... shirt was made of butterflies' wings; His boots were made of chicken skins; His coat and breeches were made with pride; A tailor's needle hung by his side; A mouse for a horse he ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... (now surrounding and sheltering a wide paddock and neat kitchen gardens) almost disappears under a growth of stunted, but sturdy trees; dwarf alders and squat firs that shake their white-backed leaves, and swing their needle clusters, merrily if the breeze is mild, obstinately if the gale is rousing and seem to proclaim: "Here are we, well and secure. Ruffle and toss, and lash, O winds, the faithless waters, we shall ever cling to this hospitable footing, the only kindly ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Sometimes they run naked shouting through the streets. Sometimes they lie down and froth at the mouth, and yelp as a fox yelps. And on some part of the body of the possessed a moving lump appears under the skin, which seems to have a life of its own. Prick it with a needle, and it glides instantly to another place. By no grasp can it be so tightly compressed by a strong hand that it will not slip from under the fingers. Possessed folk are also said to speak and write languages ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... it. I turned down hem, and cut off some threads, and laid down scissors, and took up my needle to thread afresh—in the Hotel de Saint Pol at Paris. And that needle was not threaded but in the Abbey of Saint Edmund's Bury in Suffolk, twenty days after. Yet if man had told me it should so be, I had felt ready ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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 in my face. It ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... encouraged. Addison, in one of his Spectators, commends the judgement of a King, who, as a suitable reward to a man that by long perseverance had attained to the art of throwing a barleycorn through the eye of a needle, gave him a bushel of barley.' JOHNSON. 'He must have been a King of Scotland, where barley is scarce.' F. 'One of the most remarkable antique figures of an animal is the boar at Florence.' JOHNSON. 'The first boar that is well made in marble, should be preserved as a wonder. When ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... daughters, the which were very fair, good, and well educated, and had afforded the good knight much pastime during his illness, for right well could they sing and play on the lute and spinet, and right well work with the needle. They were brought before the good knight, who, whilst they were attiring themselves, had caused the ducats to be placed in three lots, two of a thousand each, and the other of five hundred. They, having arrived, would have fallen on their knees, but were incontinently ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... question," said the doctor. "Where is the harm in a man's being a fine performer with a needle as well as a woman? And yet, answer me honestly; would you greatly chuse to marry a man with a thimble upon his finger? Would you in earnest think a needle became the hand of your husband as well as ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... this to fail they came to me (there being no other white person on the plantation, as it is now holidays) to know if I could stop the blood. I went and found that the poor creature must bleed to death unless it could be stopped soon. I called for a needle and succeeded in sewing it up as well as I could, and in stopping the blood. In a short time his master, who had been sent for came; and oh, you would have shuddered if you had heard the awful oaths that fell from his lips, threatening in the same breath "to pay him for that!" I left ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... was first of the royal house. Speak ye therefore before him the truth and the whole truth!" When the ladies heard Ja afar's words touching the Commander of the Faithful, the eldest came forward and said, "O Prince of True Believers, my story is one which, were it graven with needle-gravers upon the eye corners were a warner for whoso would be warned and an example for whoso can take profit from example."—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... hat band in it, presented by one dearer to him than life itself, and so we worked up quite a feeling for him, though of course he was very foolish to lose his train just for a hat, even if it did have the needle-work of his ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... suddenly pulled up. At that moment something flashed at the head of the column, and Stokes suddenly caught a glimpse of the faces of the captain and the subaltern in an aureole of light lit by the needle-like rays of an electric torch as they ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... stomach, tumor of the brain. He'd had them all, and many others. They had swarmed to him through the gouged skin-openings made by the gleaming needle. And each had brought the freedom of blackness, of death, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a whole week. But always life returned again, and the ...
— Life Sentence • James McConnell
... established here, and St. Wilfrid, the famous Archbishop of York, built the minster. Of this building only the crypt remains, consisting of a central chamber with niches in the walls, and a window known as "St. Wilfrid's Needle" looking into the passage outside. It is reached by steps and a long passage leading from the nave of the present cathedral. Only the chapter-house and vestry remain of Archbishop Thurstan's Norman church, erected in the place of the Anglo-Saxon one, for Roger, Archbishop of York, pulled it down ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... for a long time. Every few moments Kongoni would want another look at that compass. It happened that we were now going due north, and his notion was that the needle pointed the way to camp. We profoundly hoped that his faith in white man's magic would not be shattered. At the end of an hour the rain let up, and it cleared sufficiently to disclose some of the mountain outlines. They convinced us that we were in the main right; though just where, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... a dozen of brown stout in the boat with him on the passing day, as a present to each of the passing captains, would pass him, even if he were as incompetent as a camel (or, as they say at sea, a cable), to pass through the eye of a needle; that having once passed, he would soon have him in command of a fine frigate, with a good nursing first lieutenant; and that if he did not behave himself properly, he would make his signal to come on board of the flag-ship, take him into the cabin, and give him a sound horsewhipping, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... not know whether up till then I had had the least consciousness of possessing what is called the detective instinct. But, at the prospect of this quest, so much like that of the proverbial needle in a haystack, as I did not even know my sister's married name and something within me forbade my asking it, I experienced an odd sense of elation followed by a certainty of success which in five minutes ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... narrow-gauge road can go anywhere. It trails along the slope of shelving hills like a wild vine; it slides through gopher-hole tunnels as a thread slides through the eye of a needle; it utilizes water-courses; it turns ridiculously sharp corners in a style calculated to remind one of the days when he played "snap-the-whip" and happened to be the snapper himself. This is especially the case if one is sitting on the rear platform of the last car. We shot a canon ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... the band struck up, the seamen tramped round with the capstan bars to a merry tune, the topsails were sheeted home, and with a blue sky above us and bright water below, we stood down the Solent towards the Needle passage. It was a gay and beautiful sight. I had been so long on shore that I had almost forgotten all about a ship. The men looked so smart and active, for Mr Schank had taken care to get a picked crew, which some ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... that wimmen-folks had better stick to the needle and the duster, and not go pokin' about law business that didn't concern 'em. But the worst of it was," added Victoria, with some distress, "he won't accept any more fruit. Isn't he silly? He won't get it into his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... everything—especially selfhood;—you give up everything; you enter upon the heritage of No Thing;—and you find yourself heir to the Universe, to wonder, to magic. You do with all your complicated egoity as the camel did with his cameltiness before he could enter the needle's eye; then—heigh presto!—it is the Elixir of Life you have drunk; it is freedom you have attained of the roaming-place of Dragons!—It amounts, truly, to the same thing as Aryan Theosophy; but where the latter travels through and illuminates immense ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... the whole atmosphere tingled with it as with electricity. I couldn't read. I have never been able to play upon any musical instrument, much as I love music. I do not sing, either, except in a small-beer voice; and when I tried to sew I pricked my fingers with the needle. I went into the kitchen, consulted with Mary Magdalen as to the evening's dinner, weighed and measured such ingredients as she needed, saw that the two maids were following instructions, tried to make friends with Beautiful Dog, until ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... some philosopher that custom does not sanction such little occupations for masculine hands. It would be interesting to speculate how many embarrassing or disastrous consequences might have been averted if at a critical point in a negotiation or controversy a needle had had to be threaded or a dropped stitch taken up before a reply was made, to say nothing of an excuse for averting features at times ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... sit alone before the crackling fire of logs, for the night being cool, a table was drawn near to one side of the fire-place, and by this sat Mistress Fryker and her daughter Joanna, both engaged in some sort of needle-work. The blacksmith sat between the corner of the fire-place and this table, so that when he had finished smoking his after-supper pipe, he might put on his spectacles and read the weekly paper by the light of the big lamp. On the other side of the stranger, whose chair was in front ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... which the ground, with its mounds and bushes and heather, creeps stealthily, disappearing a few yards away. And out of the fog comes a fine, mist-like rain, which deposits itself in tiny gray beads on every blade and every pine needle, so that wherever any one goes there is a little ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... other four convicts were 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 ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Yet, oh horror! a wild impulse to kiss her took possession of him. In vain he struggled; he tried to step backwards, and instead went forwards, he tried to turn his head away, but those glowing eyes held and drew him as a magnet draws a needle. And as the needle rolls across the table ever more quickly towards the magnet, so did the unwilling Godfrey gravitate towards Madame Riennes. And now, oh! now her stout arm was about his neck, and now—he was impressing a fervent embrace upon ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... be readily removed from the archegonium by adding a little potash to the water in which it is lying, allowing it to remain for a few moments and pressing gently upon the cover glass with a needle. In this way it can be easily forced out of the archegonium, and then by thoroughly washing away the potash, neutralizing if necessary with a little acetic acid, very beautiful preparations may be made. If desired, these may be mounted ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... and began to sway softly from side to side as the huge air-planes beat the mist through which they moved, and the antennae of light pierced it. Still up they went, and on—yet swift enough to let Percy see one great pinnacle rear itself, elongate, sink down into a cruel needle, and vanish into nothingness a thousand feet below. The motion grew yet more nauseous, as the car moved up at a sharp angle preserving its level, simultaneously rising, advancing and swaying. Once, hoarse and sonorous, an unfrozen torrent roared like a beast, it seemed within twenty yards, and ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... free passage to the will of God, without resistance or deflection, as light travels through transparent glass; when his will responds to the touch of God's finger upon the keys, like the telegraphic needle to the operator's hand, then man has attained all that God and religion can do for him, all that his nature is capable of; and far beneath his feet may be the ladders of ceremonies and forms and outward acts, by which he climbed to that serene and blessed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... I tried to say pleasantly, "as on this occasion. I am at Mr. Tremont's service;" and I threaded my tapestry-needle. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... of choosing one who sews well, so that the services of a seamstress might be combined with the duties of a night nurse. There is always some mending to do in all families and a woman who is clever with her needle might make herself very useful to her employer. Thousands of women sew by artificial light in dressmaking establishments and factories; in all probability just as many women could be found to sew by artificial light in private homes. Perhaps at first the novelty of working ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... superintendence of his daughter, Mrs. Gibbons, before she went to the home provided for her. She was slightly unsettled at times, but was disposed to be industrious and cheerful. Having earned a little money by her needle, the first use she made of it, was to buy a pair of vases for Friend Hopper; and proud and pleased she was, when she brought them home and presented them! He always kept them on the parlor mantel-piece, and often told their history to people who ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... to come quite close to me, Maggie, as close as I am to you now, and take each needle—one after the other—between the finger and thumb of his right hand—keeping all the other fingers away from it, stick the point of it for a moment into his other palm, to show that it was sharp, and then to all appearance ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... had an excellent idea of his design before he ever touched the needle to the plate. Though he is often admired for his spontaneity, particularly in his landscapes,[9] this is a misconception. Benesch lists no fewer than 78 landscape drawings by Rembrandt in the years 1648-1650,[10] and there were perhaps many more, now lost or ...
— Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example • Peter Morse
... little house, which consisted of a sitting room "with bedroom off," and a kitchen whose floor was sand scoured; the few pieces of tinware could be used as mirrors. Miss Rhody seated herself by the open window and began to ply her needle. She did not sew swiftly and smoothly, in feminine fashion, but drew her long-threaded needle through the fabric in abrupt and forceful jerks. A light breeze fluttered in through the window, but it could not ruffle the wisp-locked hair that showed traces of a water-dipped comb and ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... And yet my sense Perceives even here thy influence. Even here thy strong magnetic charms I feel, And pant and tremble like the amorous steel. To lower good, and beauties less divine, Sometimes my erroneous needle does decline, But yet, so strong the sympathy, It turns, and points ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... third and preceding abdominal segments, and I find that these surfaces are marked with very fine concentric ridges; but so is the projecting thoracic collar into which the head articulates, and this collar, when scratched with the point of a needle, emits the proper sound. It is rather surprising that both sexes should have the power of stridulating, as the male is winged and the female wingless. It is notorious that Bees express certain emotions, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Colesberg, developed a haemothorax which quieted down, and he was removed to Bloemfontein; on arrival at the latter place the temperature rose, and other signs of fever suggested the development of an empyema; an exploring needle, however, only brought blood to light. After a short stay at Bloemfontein the symptoms entirely subsided, and the man was sent to Kroonstadt, when an exactly similar attack resulted, again quieting ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... to do my sewing in the barn I live in, I might as well not try at all. My fingers are so numb the minute I take off my mitts that I couldn't thread a needle." ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... all Peppersville took to the lake like a colony of ducks. It was splendidly exhilarating, and my crotchet needle had for some time previous been flying through tangled mazes of crimson worsted, to the great admiration of the household, in the manufacture of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Needle" was acted in 1552. It bears marks of an early time in its words being coarsely indelicate, but not amatory. The humour is that of blows and insults and we may observe the great value then attached to needles. It is "a right pithy, pleasant ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... as well as fortitude in the admiral to control. Having been three weeks at sea, and experienced the uniform course of the trade winds, they contended that, should they continue the same course for a longer time, the same winds would never permit them to return to Spain. The magnetic needle began to vary its direction. This being the first time that this phenomenon was ever noticed, it was viewed by the sailors with astonishment; they thought it an indication that nature itself had changed its laws, and that Providence was about to punish their ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... lower she bent, the needle point of the weapon pricking my skin, until her beautiful, evil face almost touched mine. Then, miraculously, the fire died out of her eyes; they half closed again and became languishing, luresome Ghazeeyeh eyes. She laughed softly, wickedly, ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... to the cottage. The afternoon sunlight lay in golden ribbons across the deserted street. Up in the high elms the robins were swaying and singing. An ancient buggy crawled past him and here and there an open window framed a housewife busy with her needle. But save for these signs of life, he reflected, he might be walking through the original Deserted Village. Come to think of it, Craig's Camp was a busy metropolis compared to Eden Village, only—Wade paused in front of his garden hedge and peered pleasurably ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... advanced, As dreaming of his youth and this his home. Slowly he passed between the gateless posts Before the unused front door, slowly too Beyond the side porch with its woodbine thick Draping autumnal splendor. Thus he came Before the kitchen window, where he saw A gray-haired woman bent o'er needle-work In gathering twilight. And without a voice, Rooted, he stood. He stirred not, but his glance Burned through the pane; uneasily she turned, And seeing that shaggy stranger standing there Expectant, shook her head, as though to warn Some chance, wayfaring ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... wonderful performance—quite as neat as Colman could have made it; and I suspect that Harold did not refrain from producing needle and thread from his fat miscellaneous pocket-book, and repairing her many disasters before they reached the domestic eye; for there was a chronic feud between Dora and Colman, and the attempts of the latter to make the child more like a young lady were passionately repelled, though ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with the application of Dr. Swift's complaint, 'that he is forced to die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.' My soul is no more fitted to the figure I make, than a cable rope to a cambric needle; I cannot bear to see the advantages alienated, which I think I could deserve and relish so much more than ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... cave originally described contained eggs, in most of which (judging by opacity) incubation was far advanced, while in several were young birds, some newly hatched, others apparently ready to depart from their gloomy, foul-smelling quarters. These latter clung so determinedly to their nests with needle-like toes that the force necessary to remove them would certainly ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the world's my sweetheart and I sort of want to squeeze 'er. Toffs 'ull get no chance of heaven, take 'em in the lump! Never laid in hay-fields when the dawn came over-sea, sir? Guess it's true that story 'bout the needle and the hump! Never crept into a stack because the wind was blowing, Hollered out a nest and closed the door-way with a clump, Laid and heard the whisper of the silence, growing, growing, Watched a thousand wheeling stars and wondered if they'd bump? What I say would stump ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... was slightly raised, thus making the disk a little higher than the level of the floor. I secured four skulls from here, besides a piece of excellently woven cloth of plant fibre, another piece interwoven with turkey feathers, and a fragment of a wooden needle. ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... money they had laid by for a rainy day. There would be no need for Aunt Mary to work for those hard shop-people any more. And Rhoda's eyes sparkled as she thought of packing up the last parcel of fine needle-work and taking it back with the message ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... 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 were aided by the conclusion of peace with England, which, by re-establishing ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... an implied blame running through this speech, that Molly felt like needle-points all over her. Lady Cuxhaven came up at this moment. Her tone was as deep, her manner of speaking as abrupt and authoritative, as her mother's, but Molly ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a horse of steel Wound up with a ratchet-wheel. Every beast I'd put to rout Like the man I read about. I would singe the leopard's hair, Stalk the vampire and the adder, Drive the werewolf from his lair, Make the mad gorilla madder. Needle-guns my work should do. But, if beasts got closer to, I would pierce them to the marrow With a barbed and poisoned arrow, Or I'd whack 'em on the skull Till my ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... rose and dressed. This was Sunday, her busiest day, she must be in Notre-Dame for the early masses. There was a worn place in a chasuble that needed some touches of her needle; Father Anselm had asked her to see to it. And this duty done, there was the special Sunday sale of candles and rosaries and little red guidebooks of the church ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... Ring The Swineherd How to tell a True Princess The Blue Mountains The Tinder-box The Witch in the Stone Boat Thumbelina The Nightingale Hermod and Hadvor The Steadfast Tin-soldier Blockhead Hans A Story about a Darning-needle ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... you just now. I thought you said that, had you the strength of a man, you should prefer the plough and the book to the needle. Whence, supposing you a female, I inferred that you had a woman's love for the needle and a fool's hatred ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... brave. Over my Doublet a Soldado Cassacke of Scarlet, larded thicke with Gold Lace; Hose of the same, cloake of the same, too, lasht up this high and richly lined. There was a Lady, before I went, was working with her needle a Scarffe for mee; but the Wagtaile has ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... be sold by Joshua Mauger, at Major Lockman's store in Halifax, several negro slaves, viz., a very likely negro wench, of about thirty-five years of age, a Creole born, has been brought up in a gentleman's family, and capable of doing all sorts of work belonging thereto, as needle-work of all sorts and in the best manner; also washing, ironing, cooking, and every other thing that can be expected from such a slave: also two negro boys of about 12 or 13 years old, likely, healthy, and well-shaped, and understand some English. Likewise two ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... moment a burst of noisy music, drowned their voices; and the needle-seller's horse, which was just before us, making a sudden start, the poor needle-vendor was thrown off his balance, and jerked out of his cart on to a heap of flints by the road-side, while his horse began to kick. Giving the reins to my father, ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... strips. He then fastened a couple of these together, and, taking off his coat—a stout cotton summer one—began to sew the loop inside, under the left arm. His hands shook violently, but he accomplished his task satisfactorily, and when he again put on his coat nothing was visible. Needle and thread had been procured long ago, and lay on the table in a piece of paper. The loop was provided for a hatchet. It would never have done to have appeared in the streets carrying a hatchet, and if he placed it under the coat, it would have been necessary to hold ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... liked to walk slowly up and down, and to talk to her softly of things obscure, cryptic, cabalistic. The plashing rain, the moaning wind, made just the monotonous accompaniment that seemed fitting; and the lovely girl, listening, with needle half-drawn, and sensitive, sensuous face lifted to his own, made a situation in which he knew ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... physiological operation. I showed myself a ready pupil to my masters' teaching and used to paralyze a Buprestis or a Weevil almost as well as a Cerceris {14} could have done. Why should I not to-day imitate that expert butcher, the Tarantula? With the point of a fine needle, I inject a tiny drop of ammonia at the base of the skull of a Carpenter-bee or a Grasshopper. The insect succumbs then and there, without any other movement than wild convulsions. When attacked by ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... despatches and letters for England, the William Harris weighed with a light wind from the northward, and was towed out to sea by our boats. The day proving calm, we employed it in swinging the Hecla, in order to obtain the amount of the deviation of the magnetic needle, and to fix afresh the iron plate for correcting it. On the following morning, the wind being southerly, the pilots came on board, and the Hecla weighed to run through the north passage; in doing which ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... resistance, and devoid of friends, Germany thought she could discern her sheet-anchor of salvation in the Wilsonian gospel, and it was the preacher of this gospel himself who implicitly characterized her salvation as more difficult than the passage of a camel through the eye of a needle. The crimes perpetrated by the Teutons were unquestionably heinous beyond words, and no punishment permitted by the human conscience is too drastic to atone for them. How long this punishment should endure, whether ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... have a wide prospect before us. To the left, on a clear day, Boston Stump is visible, the Tower on the Moor rises above the woods, beyond that Tattershall castle and church; in the dim distance the graceful spire of Heckington points, like a needle, to the sky. Straight in front of us woods on woods band and bar the prospect, relieved by the spires of Old Woodhall and Horsington. To the right, the horizon is crowned by the almost pyramidal shape of Lincoln Minster, the seeing eye also detecting the lesser pyramid ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... lips burn and sear My body like a living coal; Obeyed the power of those eyes As the needle trembles to the pole; And did not care although I felt The strength ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... paper again, and Elsie bent over her work, her face flushed, and her little hand trembling so that she could scarcely hold her needle. ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley |
