"Needlework" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bought by Cardinal Wolsey in 1523 and have been hanging at Hampton Court for close upon four hundred years. They are old Flemish work, and should be supplemented by three others if the set were complete. These wonderful examples of ancient "art needlework" are the more interesting from the fact of their being links with the original Palace. It should be remembered to Cromwell's credit that, though they were duly valued as among the available Crown assets, he refused to permit of their removal, and ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... she loved it, seeing it makes the house green and pleasant even in winter. And at the back, looking into the gardens and orchards, was a pleasant porch, a very large one, grown with roses as well as ivy, wherein Althea and I have spent many a happy hour in summer-time, sitting there with our needlework or our lutes. I can see it in fancy, and would very fain be in it, looking on our lily beds and green walks and arbours, instead of these hot and dreary streets. But it's too likely I shall never see West Fazeby or any other ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... superabundance of catechism and plentiful needlework the child was treated to copious extracts from Lowth's Isaiah, Buchanan's Researches in Asia, Bishop Heber's Life, and Dr. Johnson's Works, which, after her Bible and Prayer Book, were her grandmother's favorite reading. ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... one of the magnificent works of old Bess of Hardwicke, who guarded the Queen of Scots here for some time in a wretched little bedchamber within her own lofty one: there is a tolerable little picture of Mary's needlework. The great apartment is vast and triste, the whole leanly furnished: the great gallery, of above two hundred feet, at the top of the house, is divided into a library, and into nothing. The chapel is decent. There is no prospect, and the barren face of the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... the coffers wherein were her robes of curious needlework which she herself had wrought. Then Helen, the fair lady, lifted one and brought it out, the widest and most beautifully embroidered of all, and it shone like a star, and lay ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... Rhode Island; but he'd never hearn of his having any brother. So with Mrs. Wheelwright—Mr. Syntax was equally a stranger to her. But she had seen some coarse pieces of embroidery from the rustic pupils of country boarding schools, and knew that they were needlework, of some sort. She therefore set herself to teaching that elegant branch of the fine arts. The first group attempted, was a family picture—a mother and her six children at the tomb of their deceased husband and father, under ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... Pinkerton, a female of uncertain age, as authors say, and possessed of the peculiarities common to persons of her class. They were not poor, nor were they rich, but made a good living, as the world goes, by taking in needlework. Young Mrs. Edson frequently dropped in to pass an hour in social converse with Mrs. Stanhope, who was a pleasant, agreeable woman. Miss Martha, too, always wore a smile on her sharp-featured face when the lovely young wife appeared at the cottage. As they were simple, unostentatious people, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... belle with a plenty of reindeer. The ladies, therefore, were very anxious to display these powerful attractions to the greatest advantage; and the best rooms in the house, instead of being adorned with caricatures of Dame Nature, in water-colors and needlework, were always hung round with abundance of homespun garments, the manufacture and the property of the females; a piece of laudable ostentation that still prevails among the heiresses ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... fellows had his back to me, showing the beautiful white markings on his wings as they lie closed and folded together. Near the end of them were white lines making on the black feathers a figure resembling what is known in needlework as a "crow's-foot," perhaps an inch in width, and, a little above this, two dainty waved bars met like a pair of eye-brows. The marking ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... in London," she stammered, moving forward and holding out her hand mechanically. "Please come and sit down." She cleared a chair of the miscellaneous needlework ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... nothing to what I shall yet do in needlework, O mother, when I am of age to be trusted with my first needle, and knighted by thy hands, and enrolled amongst the valiant ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... any skill in either, and their tastes did not interest her, nor hers interest them. She would far rather sit with Miss Patch, and talk or read to her, or be read to. Miss Patch was teaching her some different kinds of needlework, and while Jessie worked her teacher would read to her; and those readings in that peaceful room were ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... night, a threed must be sponne of flax, by a little virgine girl, in the name of the divell; and it must be by her woven, and also wrought with the needle. On the breste or fore part thereof must be made, with needlework, two heads; on the head of the right side must be a hat, and a long beard,—the left head must have on a crown, and it must be so horrible that it maie resemble Belzebub; and on each side of the wastcote must be made a crosse."—Discoverie of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... to this. Miss Richards bent over her needlework. She and Debby in all their years of intimacy, had but once before discussed the question. It had been Hester and Hester's future which had brought it up. The two women sat in silence for some minutes, when Debby said, "You ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... school even, for this seven-year-old boy was thought too delicate, and was taught at home by a governess with sandy curls, who brought books in a needlework bag that we all used to laugh at—I am sure I don't know why; but her teaching could not have amounted to much, for I went into the schoolroom one day, and found Tommy riding defiantly on the rocking-horse, ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... quietly sleeping, she soon returned, and folding up her finished work, laid aside the basket, then brought from a drawer a frame containing the delicate piece of needlework her father referred to, and began to pass the needle back and forth. Presently Guy came over to her side, and stood looking down at the work in her hands; ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... front to rear and a staircase went up at either side of the entrance, meeting in a bridge on the first floor. The huge drawing-room was on the ground floor to the right and was hung with tapestries representing birds and foliage. All the furniture was covered with fine needlework tapestry illustrating La Fontaine's fables, and Jeanne was delighted at finding a chair she had loved as a child, which pictured the story of ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the door; no little holiday accomplishments, which, in the day of need turn to useful trade; no water-colour drawings, no paintings on velvet, no fabrications of pretty gewgaws, no embroidery and fine needlework. She was helpless—utterly helpless; if she had resigned herself to the thought of service, she would not have had the physical strength for a place of drudgery, and where could she have found the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... attained literally a green old age, for his plumage was still fresh and thick. Very naturally, he had lost his houppe, and was almost totally bald. However, his eye was clear and bright enough to have read the finest print or followed the finest needlework; and it had the narquois, lightly skeptical look of those who have seen a great deal of life. In short, Nono was a stylish and eminently respectable old bird. That worthy person, Monsieur Chavreul, who treats the animals of the Jardin like a father, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... in the village library she had read, as well as those in the possession of her aunt. She had tried needlework, problems of patience, and the translation of a few chapters of an Italian novel into English in order to occupy her time. But those hours when she was alone in her little upstairs room with the sloping roof passed, alas! ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... and dressing-table. The former held an ewer and basin of silver-gilt, much grander articles than Amphillis had ever seen, except in the goldsmith's shop. In front of the curtain was a bench with green silk cushions, and two small tables, on one of which lay some needlework; and by it, in another yellow satin chair, sat the solitary inhabitant of the chamber, a lady who appeared to be about sixty years of age. She was dressed in widow's mourning, and in 1372 that meant pure snowy white, with chin and forehead so covered by barb and wimple that only the eyes, nose, ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... lay in her clothes all that night, and next day, not a word she said, and I was at my needlework all that day, in my own room, except when I went down to ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... chosen attendants and teachers, their lives were entirely absorbed by religious exercises, studies, and needlework. Rarely were they seen at Court functions, and rarer still in the city. If they were allowed a day's liberty in the country, they were jealously guarded, and every attempt at recognition and salutation, of such as they chanced to ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... contents of the bundle with the utmost care, but found no mark of any sort. The garments, although inexpensive, were beautifully neat and clean, and they displayed the most marvelous examples of needlework he had ever seen. Among the effects was a plush muff, out of which, as he picked it up, fell a pair of little knitted mittens—or was there a pair? Finding but the one, he shook the muff again, then looked through the ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... It is no disparagement to a highly-cultivated and laborious staff of public servants to say that he was the greatest Inspector of Schools that we have ever possessed. It is true that he was not, as the manner of some is, omnidoct and omnidocent. His incapacity to examine little girls in needlework he frankly confessed; and his incapacity to examine them in music, if unconfessed, was not less real. "I assure you," he said to the Westminster Teachers, "I am not at all a harsh judge of myself; but I know perfectly well that there have been much better inspectors than I." Once, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... in appearance and deportment than Pelagie and Suzette, but in character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and dry-hearted. A fourth maitresse I sometimes saw who seemed to come daily to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or some such flimsy art; but of her I never had more than a passing glimpse, as she sat in the CARRE, with her frames and some dozen of the elder pupils about her, consequently I had no opportunity of studying her character, or even of observing her person ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... Philip, and played some weary, dreary exercises on the spinnet to Dame Hilda, and dined (I mind it was on lamb, finches, and flaunes [custards]), and then Kate, I, and Maud, were set down to our needles. Blanche was something too young for needlework, saving to pull coloured silks in and out of a bit of rag for practice. We had scarce taken twenty stitches, when far in the distance ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... curtain, polished woodwork of chair and table, gleaming ebony and ivory cabinet. It touched Helen de Vallorbes' bright head and the strings of pearls twisted in her hair, her white neck, the swell of her bosom, and all that delicate wonder of needlework—the Flanders' lace—trimming her bodice. It lay on her lap, too, as she leaned back in the corner of the sofa, her hands pressed down on either side her thighs—lay there bringing the pattern of her ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... unanimous testimony of her contemporaries, a prodigy of learning, and perhaps the most learned woman that ever lived. The Frenchman Naud says of her, "You find in her alone all that the hand can fashion or the mind conceive. No one paints better, no one works better in brass, wax, and wood. In needlework she excels all women past or present. It is impossible to say in what branch of knowledge she is most distinguished. Not content with the European languages, she understands Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and writes Latin so well that no one who has devoted his whole ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... three years Sally might have earned more; but she was not now much above sixteen, and at sixteen, in the dressmaking, one does not earn a living. And while at first they thought that Mrs. Minto might get needlework to do, with which Sally could help, they found this out of the question. Mrs. Minto's eyes were weak, and she could not keep her seams straight. The machine they had was ricketty. Sewing, for her, was impossible. For a few days she was stunned with the new demand for which she was unprepared. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... closing day, exhibited fourteen pieced quilts all completed, and twenty were well along toward completion. Twenty garments have been finished and disposed of. All of the material has been sent from Northern friends and homes, and some of the girls have learned the first things of needlework, having learned to use needle, thread and thimble. One little girl when first given a needle said, "O see! there is a hole in one end of it." One ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... very uncomfortable, and longing for one of those explanations that are impossible between acquaintances and emotional between lovers. He felt also that if he ever spoke out and told her he loved her it would be in some such situation as the present. Margaret let her needlework drop and leaned back in the long chair, staring at a very uninteresting-looking tree on the other side of the garden. Claudius read in a steady determined tone, emphasising his sentences with care, and never once ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... work."(620) But the covering of the entrance was needle-work, as is said, "And thou shalt make an hanging for the door of the tent," etc., "of needle-work."(621) The words of R. Nehemiah. R. Nehemiah usually said, "every place where it is said cunning work (there were) two figures—in the needlework (there was) but one figure only." And the branches of the candlestick were right opposite to the breadth of the table. And the golden altar was placed in the middle of the house, and divided the house, and its half inward was right opposite to the ark; as is said, "And ...
— Hebrew Literature
... him tell her of his voyages; but he said he would not gainsay her a talk. Then they sat them down and talked. She was so clad that she had on a red kirtle, and had thrown over her a scarlet cloak trimmed with needlework down to the waist. Her hair came down to her bosom, and was both fair and full. Gunnar was clad in the scarlet clothes which King Harold Gorm's son had given him; he had also the gold ring on his arm which Earl ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... Peggy Quine came chirping around with a hundred inquiries about the packing of luggage which was then proceeding, with a view to the carriage that had been ordered for eleven o'clock. Mrs. Quiggin betrayed only the most languid interest in these hurrying operations, and settled herself with her needlework in a chair near to Jenny Crow. Jenny watched her, and thought, "Now, wouldn't she jump at a good excuse for ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... their tasks before she was born, and her father preferred his pen and his laboratory to the society of his daughter. She must preside at his table, but between whiles she could spend her time on the sea or the moors, in the library or with her needlework—the era ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... on his stout crutch-handled stick, and aided by his daughter's arm, as he proceeded down the hawthorn lane, sweet with the breath of May, exchanging greetings with whole families of the poor, the fathers in smock frocks wrought with curious needlework on the breast and back, the mothers in high-crowned hats and stout dark blue woollen gowns, the children, either patched or ragged, and generally barefooted, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... if it had been a sacred place, and looked around on the plain comfort: the home-made rugs, the fat, worsted pincushion, the quaint old pictures on the walls, the bookcase with its rows of books; the big white bed with its quilted counterpane of delicate needlework, the neat marble-topped washstand with its speckless appointments and its wealth ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... I'll say you do Your needlework with care, And stitch so true the wristbands new, Dear father's ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... nations." Description of Britain, book ii. chap. 15. By this account, the court had profited by the example of the queen. The sober way of life practised by the ladies of Elizabeth's court appears from the same author. Reading, spinning, and needlework occupied the elder; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... Feemy remained quiet at Ballycloran—spending the greater part of her time in her own room, but taking her meals, such as they were, with her father; she had no books to read, and she was unable to undertake needlework, and she passed the long days much as her father did—sitting from breakfast till dinner over the fire, meditating on the miseries of her condition. There was this difference, however, between them—that the old man felt a degree of triumph at his successful attempt to ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... fitly chosen! I myself was one of the last visitors to that awful storehouse of thy life's work, where an anchorite old man and woman took my shilling with a solemn wonder, and conducting me to a gloomy sepulchre of needlework dropping to pieces with dust and age and shrouded in twilight at high noon, left me there, chilled, frightened, and alone. And now, in ghostly letters on all the dead walls of this dead town, I read thy honoured name, and find that ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... taking care of her. In all kinds of ways, we see the little girl occupying herself in the activities and inclinations of her future existence. She practises housework; she has a little kitchen, in which she cooks for herself and her doll. She is fond of needlework. The care of her own person, and more especially its adornment, are not forgotten. I remember seeing a girl of three who kept on interrupting her elders' conversation by crying out "New clothes!" and would not keep quiet until these latter had been ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... lady's industry of needlework, plain or fancy, she got through an amazing quantity; but she was also, in her early years, of great use to her father, whose companion she had been in a literary life of great loneliness, by relieving him of much of his correspondence. The same diligent and endearing aid she afterwards ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... Needlework had a strenuous approver in Dr. Johnson, who said "that one of the great felicities of female life was the general consent of the world that they might amuse themselves with petty occupations, which contributed ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... various elegant employments. Three, at a table to the left, are making a mitre for the Bishop, as may be seen from the model on the table. Some are merely spinning or about to spin. One young lady, sitting rather apart from the others, is doing an elaborate piece of needlework at a tambour-frame near the window; others are making lace or slippers, probably for the new curate; another is struggling with a letter, or perhaps a theme, which seems to be giving her a good deal of trouble, but which, when done, will, ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... is more popular than Tank 14. Enthusiastic people will sit down here with needlework or luncheon, and calmly wait for a good view ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Morris he declares, was in his opinion "no mystic, but a sort of symbolist set in a medieval frame, and it appeared to me that all his love of the old times of which he wrote was chiefly of the setting; of tapestries well wrought; of needlework, rich colours of stained glass falling upon old monuments, and of fine work not scamped." To emphasize the preoccupation of Morris with the very handiwork, rather than with the mystic secrets, of beauty is not necessarily to diminish his name. ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... down a neat gilt frame which contained their curriculum, and which she asked her eldest daughter to copy for me. They had five studies each day, six days of the week, Sunday being a holiday. They began with arithmetic, followed it up with Japanese language, needlework, music and calisthenics, then took Chinese language, drawing, and Chinese history with the writing of the ideographs of their own language, which was one of the most difficult tasks they had to perform. The dignified way in which the ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... the little sitting-room at Burwood Catherine Elsmere and Mary were sitting, the one with her book, the other with her needlework, while the snow and wind outside beat on the little house. But Catharine's needlework often dropped unheeded from her fingers; and the pages of Mary's book remained unturned. The postman who brought letters up the dale in the morning, and took letters ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mistress had to live a week alternately at each house, and went from thence to her school, but she found this so uncomfortable that she ended by sleeping at home every night. She struggled on, teaching in various schools, doing needlework in after-hours, trying to improve herself, and always contending with great delicacy of health, which must have made it most trying to cope with what she calls in one of her letters "a little regiment of wild cats" for about seven years, when some of the friends ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... were passed, which I either failed to hear through the clamour then, or have forgotten now. I have a vague idea that several voices cried that I was to be sent to wash in somebody's pocket; that the work-basket wished to cram my mouth with unfinished needlework; and that through all the din the thick voice of my old leather ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... modelled statue of an "Eros" ornamented one corner. His uplifted torch served as a light which glimmered faintly through a rose-coloured glass, and shed a tender lustre over the room; but especially upon the bed, ornamented with rich Oriental needlework, where Zara lay fast asleep. How beautiful she looked! Almost as lovely as any one of the radiant spirits I had met in my aerial journey! Her rich dark hair was scattered loosely on the white pillows; her long silky lashes ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... strongly made Scotchwoman with a high forehead and fashionable rolls of sandy hair. Her face was thin and freckled, and one might have questioned whether its expression was shrewd, or self-important. She was clearly thinking of other matters than needlework. Her eyes travelled constantly to one or other of the doors in sight; and her lips had the pinched tension ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... book as an aid, every home in the land, no matter how humble, may be as handsomely embellished as the mansion of the most wealthy, and at a Trifling Cost. Plain and concise directions are given for doing Kensington and Outline Embroidery, Artistic Needlework, Painting on Silk, Velvet, and Satin, China Decorating, Darned Lace, Knitted Luce, Crazy Patchwork, Macreme Crochet, Java Canvas Work, Feather Work, Point Russe, Cross Stitch, Indian Work, and Turkish Drapery, Wax Flowers, etc., etc. Among the hundred ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... taught French because he vowed he hated France and the French and all their ways. She was taught to curtsy and to dance because it pleased him to have a woman walk well and he believed dancing kept the figure supple. She was taught needlework because he thought it seemly for a woman to sew and he liked the line of the head and neck bent over an embroidery frame. She was taught to knit because he remembered that his mother had told him that delicate finger tips were daintily ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... need; this is especially true of the judgments of parents respecting the instruction of their daughters, which I know they would wish to be confined to reading, writing, and arithmetic, and plain needlework, or any other art favourable to economy and home-comforts. Their shrewd sense perceives that hands full of employment, and a head not above it, afford the best protection against restlessness and discontent, and all the perilous temptations to which, through them, youthful females are exposed. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... exercised over him, her frank and simple comradeship were the brightest things for him in a life that was none too bright; and whenever he began to feel more than usually depressed he would come in here after business hours and sit with her, generally in silence, watching her as she bent over her needlework or poured out tea. She never questioned him about his troubles or expressed any sympathy in words; but he always went away stronger and calmer, feeling, as he put it to himself, that he could "trudge through another fortnight quite respectably." She possessed, without knowing it, ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... study of the Bible, of the doctrine and discipline of the Salvation Army and the rules and regulations governing the labours of its Social Officers. In addition, these Cadets attend practical classes where they learn needlework, the scientific cutting out of garments, knitting, laundry work, first medical aid, nursing, and so forth. The course at this Institution takes ten months to complete, after which those Cadets who have passed the examinations are appointed to various ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... the garden, and bringing thence her apron full of flowers to dispose about the large, somewhat gloomy, and scantily-furnished room. Mrs. Rothesay was sitting in the sunshine, engaged in some delicate needlework. In the midst of it she stopped, and her hands fell with ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... by the pouched turkey had been devoted to her whim. Every stitch was neatly set. I praised her beautiful needlework, and she said she ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... up the idea of going into the Church; he determined to take the doctor's degree and—who knows—perhaps marry Rieke. He read poetry to her while she did needlework. She let him kiss her as much as he liked, she allowed him to fondle and caress her; ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... real matrimonial disappointment. However, shy or not shy, they certainly ought to be explicit. It's too bad to miss a chance because we cannot interpret the metaphor in which some bashful swain thinks it decorous to couch his proposals; and I once knew a young lady who, happening to dislike needlework, and replying in the negative to the insidious question, "Can you sew a button?" never knew for months that she had actually declined a man she was really fond of, with large black whiskers, and two-and-twenty hundred a year. Women ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... balcony and railed-in patch of front lawn, they would sit beside an oil-lamp with a flowered china shade, Mrs. Schump, gnarled of limb and knotted of joint, ever busy, except on the most excruciatingly rheumatic of her days, at a needlework so cruel, so fine that for fifteen years of her widowhood it had found instant market ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... in a year or two, or three, hopelessly involved in debt, a life time of labor would fail to cancel. Many, from pride, resort to this means of getting a living, because—why I never could comprehend—taking boarders is thought to be more genteel than needlework or keeping a small store for the sale of ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... still very young there came to the island a Phoenician ship, laden with trinkets for barter. Now in my father's house was a Phoenician woman, tall and fair, and skilled in needlework. She was my nurse, and I was wont to run about the town with her. One day, as she was washing clothes not far from the ship, she was recognised by a Phoenician sailor as being of his own race, and ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... then Will went into the house alone, and found his mother as she sat in her wonted place, the usual needlework on her lap. As he crossed the room, she kept her eyes upon him in a gaze of the gentlest reproach, mingled with a smile, which told the origin of ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... bull-fighters, gamblers and horse-dealers, went barefoot in those days, scampering about the roads with the children of the gipsies encamped in El Alborchi. His daughter—the now well-behaved, the now modest, Remedios, who was passing day after day at complicated needlework under the tutelage of dona Bernarda—had grown up like a wild rabbit of the fields, repeating with shocking fidelity all the oaths and vile language she heard from the carters her father ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... already," said the autocrat, whose views concerning women's education had developed since his short stay in Cambridge. "Girls don't want Latin and Greek; they want music and needlework, and all that sort of thing. I don't want my sister to ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... he told me,' replied her mother, leaving her and taking up a piece of needlework that lay on the table. She could not be idle. 'That was what he told me,' she repeated thoughtfully. 'And I answered that he ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... feelings (and who is so happy as not to have known some of them) will understand why Alfieri became powerless, and Froissart dull; and why even needlework, the most effective sedative, that grand soother and composer of women's distress, fails to comfort me today. I will go out into the air this cool, pleasant afternoon, and try what that will do.... ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... received, Miss Temple? he inquired, with an interest and voice that caused Louisa Grant to raise her head from her needlework, with a quick ness at which she instantly blushed herself. I would offer my services to your father, if, as I suspect, he needs an agent in some distant place, and I thought it would give ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... was busy over some needlework, and the Squire deep in a book, so the boys slipped out of the room without any notice being taken, and perhaps half an hour passed away, when all of a sudden Mrs Inglis dropped her work and jumped out of her chair, while the Squire, leaping up, overturned his little reading-table, and with it ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... was already a set type, { from Holland as decoration. pieces made all alike, turned {Turned and carved frames and out by the hundreds. { stretchers; caned seats and { backs to chairs, velvet cushions, { velvet satin damask and { needlework upholstery, the { ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... believe he did; but he took to growin' that spring, and I chanced to ask him to supply me with a couple o' good holders, but I found I'd touched dignity. He was dreadful put out. I suppose he was mos' too manly for me to refer to his needlework. Poor Marthy! how she laughed! I only said that about the holders for the sake o' sayin' somethin', but he remembered it against ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... was of the length of a yard, jagged and pinked, and withal bagging, and strutting out with the blue damask lining, after the manner of his breeches. But had you seen the fair embroidery of the small needlework purl, and the curiously interlaced knots, by the goldsmith's art set out and trimmed with rich diamonds, precious rubies, fine turquoises, costly emeralds, and Persian pearls, you would have compared it to a fair cornucopia, or ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... whom Triffitt's young lady had introduced her great friend, with whom Carver had promptly become infatuated. These ladies, both very young and undeniably charming, spent the greater part of the working week at the School of Needlework, in South Kensington, where they fashioned various beautiful objects with busy needles; Sundays they gave up to their swains, and every Sunday ended with a little dinner of four at some cheap restaurant whereat you could get quite a number of courses at the fixed price of half a crown ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... never parted from her mother. Pious, though far from sanctimonious, she had no other education than that given to women by the Church. Judged, by ordinary standards, she was an accomplished wife, yet her ignorance of life paved the way for great misfortunes. The epitaph on the Roman matron, "She did needlework and kept the house," gives a faithful picture of her simple, pure, and ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... house. Those who talk of "public-houses" as if they were all one problem would have been both puzzled and pleased with such a place. In the front window a stout old lady in black with an elaborate cap sat doing a large piece of needlework. She had a kind of comfortable Puritanism about her; and might have been (perhaps she was) the original Mrs. Grundy. A little more withdrawn into the parlour sat a tall, strong, and serious girl, with a face of beautiful honesty and a pair of scissors stuck ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... displeased their father. They displease him! If you only knew the life they lead, dear creatures! a walk or ride with me and their companion, for I never let them go out alone, and, the rest of their time, at their studies, reading, or needlework—always together—and then to bed. Yet their duenna, who is, I think, a worthy woman, tells me that sometimes at night, she has seen them shed tears in their sleep. Poor children! they have hitherto known ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... first finger was smooth I'd refuse to take it! Beryl must needs weigh in with, "But, my dear Blanche, she wouldn't offer you her left hand! It's the left forefinger that gets punished in needlework." "The principle is the same," I answered coldly. "And besides, some people are left-handed." Beryl has decent qualities, I know, and one doesn't want to find fault with anyone just now, but she was always ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... description. The manner of making a charmed waistcoat is thus explained:—On Christmas night, flax thread was spun by a virgin girl, and afterwards woven by her. After the garment was sewn by the same little hands which had spun the thread and woven the cloth, two figures in needlework were wrought on it to resemble Beelzebub and the Cross. One of these vestments gave the wearer courage in the hour of danger: witches were unable to harm him, bullets could not hit him, the sword's edge was turned aside, and the pointed spear ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... had gone to his little room, she stayed thinking for a longer time than usual before resuming her needlework. So, it became decidedly his trade, this night work in which one risks receiving the bullets of Spain's carbineers!—He had begun for amusement, in bravado, like most of them, and as his friend Arrochkoa was beginning, in the same band as ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... ticking noisily in a black case, and two candlesticks of base metal placed on either side of it, completed the ornaments on the chimney-piece. Neither pictures nor prints hid the barrenness of the walls. I saw no needlework and no flowers. The one object in the place which showed any pretensions to beauty was a looking-glass in an elegant gilt frame—sacred to vanity, and worthy of the office that it filled. Such was Helena Gracedieu's sitting-room. I really ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... beautiful and dignified costume have been periods of fine needlework—one art leading to and helping on the ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... taken her brother's place, with a little pile of needlework beside her on the grass, when Lawford again opened his eyes under the rosy shade of a parasol. He watched her for a while, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... reverse of the natural Indian type; yet, true to her sex and the manners of her country, she was splendidly decorated, even in this state of dishabille and distress; the coverlet being of rich Indian manufacture, and resplendent with the dyes of the East—her gown and cap decorated with costly needlework—her fingers covered with a profusion of rings, while a cambric handkerchief, richly embroidered, in her right hand, had partly enveloped in its folds a large golden vinegarette, set ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... was a little meagre woman, who did not speak very good English, and who appeared to me to employ the major part of her time in bawling out from the top of the stairs to the servants below. I never saw her either read a book or occupy herself with needlework, during the whole time I was in the house. She had a large grey parrot, and I really cannot tell which screamed the worse of the two—but she was very civil and kind to me, and asked me ten times a day when I had last heard of my grandfather, Lord Privilege. I observed that she always did ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... and had come to a determination as to the line of conduct which he should pursue towards his wife. He went now to Lady Eversleigh's apartments, in order to inform her of his decision; but, to his surprise, he found the rooms empty. His wife's maid was sitting at needlework by one of the windows of ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... gathered about their window table in the attic room on the following afternoon. Keziah had brought their tea, and amid the litter of their needlework they drank it leisurely, enjoying a spell of rest. Both casements stood wide. Deb, at one end, gazed wistfully at the Malvern Hills; Frances, at the other, looked down on objects nearer home. Rose had purposely drawn her chair back farther into the ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... be. My father often referred to her as an example of the affection and love of a wife to her husband, and of a mother to her children. The only relic I possess of her handiwork is a sampler, dated 1743, the needlework of which is so delicate and neat, that to me it seems to excel everything of the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... Women of the court enter, insidiously plead the cause of Solomon, tempt her with his luxuries, and seek to shame her love for the Beloved. "Kings' daughters shall be among thine honorable women; thy clothing shall be of wrought gold; thou shalt be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework, with gladness and rejoicing shalt thou be brought and enter into the king's palace," sings one of the Women; but the Sulamite remains loyal, and only answers: "My Beloved pastures his flocks among the lilies. My Beloved is mine, and I am his." The temptation is interrupted by the procession ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... to be excused from any duties as a judge of curly-faced stock or as an umpire of ornamental needlework. After a person has had a fountain pen kicked endwise through his chest by the animal to which he has awarded the prize, and later on has his features worked up into a giblet pie by the owner of the animal to whom he did not award the prize, he does not ask for public ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... no-stakes euchre down in the front parlor or to remain quietly upstairs, a gas lamp on the table between them, Mr. Jett in a dressing gown of hand-embroidered Persian design and a newspaper which he read from first to last; Mrs. Jett at her tranquil process of fine needlework. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... the individual engaged in sedentary employment, such as book-keeping, teaching, needlework, etc., should dine later in the day, as it leaves a longer interval for digestion, which is much slower when the individual is confined in a close office or work-room, and where little exercise is taken.[5] Care should be taken in planning meals for this class to avoid ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... so she called herself—was just such another. A woman made for comfort, housewifery, and motherhood, and by no means for racing about Europe in charge of a disreputable parent. I could picture her settled equably on a garden seat with a lapdog and needlework, blinking happily over green lawns and mildly rating an errant gardener. I could fancy her sitting in a summer parlour, very orderly and dainty, writing lengthy epistles to a tribe of nieces. I could see her ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... afternoon she had been less restless. So that Mary Fisher, judging her to be fairly asleep, some five minutes earlier had folded her needlework together, and, leaving the chair where she sat sewing, went ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... from that of our mother Eve. The latter were obese in their figures, and the mingled perspiration and filth standing upon their skins were any thing but agreeable to the eye. The two senoras, with these handmaids near them, were sitting in front of the house, busily engaged in executing some needlework. ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... of Patty's booth were soon sold out, for they were choice bits of needlework and found ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... hearken to what lies on my mind; for my hawk flew up into a certain tower; and when I came thereto and took him, lo there I saw a fair woman, and she sat by a needlework of gold, and did thereon my deeds that are passed, and my ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... ware, and forge and polish arms of various kinds; they build ships of heavy tonnage, and also light and neat boats; and at Manilla they frame and finish-off beautiful carriages; they are also very clever workers in gold, silver, and copper; and the Indian women are specially expert in needlework, and in ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... heretofore been timid about burglars," Violet said, when they were seated in the boudoir, each busied with a bit of needlework, "but I fear that I shall be in future; for only think, mamma, how near they were to my husband and myself while we lay sleeping soundly in our own room! How easily they might have murdered us both before we were even aware of their presence ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... this evening in his library, in dressing-gown and slippers, his wife nearby engaged in some needlework. ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... still threatened her ears, one would have said that Editha looked relieved. She said, with well-feigned reluctance: "It is true that we have sometimes spoken of Brattahlid while I waited. Astrid looks favorably upon my needlework. Once or twice she has said that she would like ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... present the programme as well as a roll of the names of the twelve girls. And not a long interval elapsed before four plays were chosen; No. 1 being the Imperial Banquet; No. 2 Begging (the weaver goddess) for skill in needlework; No. 3 The spiritual match; and No. 4 the Parting spirit. Chia Se speedily lent a hand in the getting up, and the preparations for the performance, and each of the girls sang with a voice sufficient to split the stones and danced ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... she grew weaker, day by day, she began to set her house in order, as one might say, in a quaint, almost comical fashion, giving away everything she owned, down to her treasures of colored bottles and needlework's, mending her father's clothes, and laying them out in her drawers; lastly, she had Barney brought in from the country, and every day would creep to the window to see him fed and chirrup to him, whereat the poor old beast would look up with his dim eye, and try to neigh ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... not love, she had committed a crime against her sex, for which she had paid a heavy penalty: a sentiment, however, which did not mitigate her resentment against him. Often I saw her sitting with knitted brows, her needlework idle on her lap, evidently unravelling some complicated problem; presently she would either shake her head sadly as if the intellectual process were too hard for her and resume her needle, or if she happened to catch my glance, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... big kiss, and went back to the kitchen, where she resumed work upon her hat. It had lost its interest for her. She stitched quickly and roughly, not as one interested in needlework or careful for its own sake of the regularity of the stitch. Ordinarily she was accurate: to-night her attention was elsewhere. It had come back to the rows, because there is nothing either good or bad ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... Mr. N——, who, more intelligent than his colleague, does not need to read a book through to grasp its motive, and so he signs most of what is presented to him, and then they are sent to me. Reading, with short intervals for needlework or embroidery, constitutes my daily life, excepting for the interruptions for meals and the daily walk in the narrow prison yard. There is very little to attract in this solitary walk in a small paved court-yard, surrounded ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... native women come in and profess to do some of the housework, but it is a very troublesome arrangement, and ends in the ladies doing all the finer cooking, and superintending the coarser, setting the table, trimming the lamps, cutting out and "fixing" all the needlework, besides planning the indoor and outdoor work which the natives are supposed to do. Having related their proficiency in domestic duties, I must add that they are splendid horsewomen, one of them an excellent ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... time when he had not seen those small hands in motion—shaping garments, darning rents, repairing furniture, exploring the inner economy of clocks. "I make a sort of rag-carpet of the odd minutes," she had once explained to a friend who wondered at her turning to her needlework in the moment's ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... treasures guarded by near relations than a collection for public eyes to see; but that makes the poignant charm of it. I could have sobbed on a pink print frock with a cape, such as Jane Eyre might have worn at Thornfield, and on bits of unfinished needlework, simple lace collars, and water-colour sketches with which Charlotte tried to brighten the walls of her austere home. There was the poor dear's wedding shawl, and a little checked silk dress of which I'm sure she was innocently ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... educating, are 14l. a year; half to be paid in advance, when the pupils are sent; and also 1l. entrance-money, for the use of books, &c. The system of education comprehends history, geography, the use of the globes, grammar, writing and arithmetic, all kinds of needlework, and the nicer kinds of household work—such as getting up fine linen, ironing, &c. If accomplishments are required, an additional charge of 3l. a year is made for music or ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... creatures who had excited the admiration of our two young heroes on the preceding day: there they were, both of them, dressed most becomingly, and looking most bewitchingly lady-like, employed about some of those little matters of needlework, which afford no impediment to conversation, chatting away with their new acquaintance in the most ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... and rams, and the swords with pictures of wars and huntings echoed on their blades in many-coloured gold, and the necklets of amber from the North, which the Wanderer had chosen as gifts for Pharaoh's Queen and Pharaoh. He had silks, too, embroidered in gold, and needlework of Sidonian women, and all these the Queen Meriamun touched to show her acceptance of them, and smiled graciously and wearily. But the covetous Sidonian groaned, when he saw his wealth departing from him, the gains for which he had hazarded his life in unsailed seas. ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... or not? (Catherine quietly rises and presses the button of the electric bell by the fireplace.) What are you shewing off that bell for? (She looks at him majestically, and silently resumes her chair and her needlework.) My dear: if you think the obstinacy of your sex can make a coat out of two old dressing gowns of Raina's, your waterproof, and my mackintosh, you're mistaken. That's exactly what the blue closet contains at ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... Anson vocabulary—and Paulina became more than ever the foremost figure of the commemorative group. Laura and Phoebe, content to leave their father's glory in more competent hands, placidly lapsed into needlework and fiction, and their niece stepped into immediate prominence as the chief "authority" on the great man. Historians who were "getting up" the period wrote to consult her and to borrow documents; ladies with ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... how others do them, and the reasons for the doing of them in one way and not in another, used to occupy my thoughts back as far as I can remember. As a child I was fond of watching any one doing fine needlework or beautiful embroidery, and tried to imitate what I saw, going into minutest details. This fondness for exactness and detail, when, applied to piano study, led me to question many things; to wonder why I was told to do ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... answered nodding at a small basket decorated with silk fruit and overflowing with pieces of flimsy needlework. "But I've been dull. Where were ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... deep interest in the various exhibits of needlework, the embroideries from Siam, table covers and rugs from Norway, and the dolls dressed as brides; the fine lace-work and wood-carving from Sweden. There was needlework from France too, and there were large and very pretty ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... fortunate in possessing in the Victoria and Albert Museum monumental specimens of both lace and needlework. Among the sumptuous lace collection there are most perfect specimens of the art of lace-making, and priceless pieces of historic embroidery made when England was first and foremost in the world in ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... therefore, unspoilt, while writing was her delight, she kept it in complete subordination to the duties of life, which she performed with exemplary conscientiousness in the house of mourning as well as in the house of feasting. Even her needlework was superfine. We doubt not that, if the truth was known, she ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... are your particular tastes?" Again she looked at him inquiringly. "Do you like housekeeping, or needlework. Do ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... embroidery done by old women in former days, but now almost a lost art. Tambayang was used for the uppers of sleeves for fiesta, and it formed the scarf worn by mothers to carry the baby. There is a taboo on young women doing this special sort of needlework. ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... she was too vigorous; there was too much malice in her passionately-restrained gestures. The memory of her faded, and there came to his mind Jeanne's overworked little hands, with callous places, and the tips of the fingers grimy and scarred from needlework. But the smell of hyacinths that came up from the mist-filled courtyard was like a sponge wiping all impressions from his brain. The dense sweet smell in the damp air made him ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... not that inert apathy of idleness, that is sometimes by foolish, unthinking people mistaken for it; and I suppose, in the eyes of the vain and worldly, there was some degradation in Mary Mannering employing several hours of the day in needlework, for which, at the end of the week, she received a few shillings; but the gentle girl herself never fell that there could be disgrace in earning this trifle honestly, however humbly; although, in one of Harriet's letters, she professed to be quite "shocked" at the ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin |
