"Reed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... upon the north side of the tree; in the Middle and Eastern States, it fixes it upon the south or east side, and makes it much thicker and warmer. I have seen one from the South that had some kind of coarse reed or sedge woven into it, giving it an open-work appearance, like ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, which, if a man lean on it, will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh King of Egypt to all who ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... young, over six feet in height, slender and erect as a reed, and only his head drooped as his rifle came into position. Some one said to the man whose shot, so far, was the ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... in an absurd position actually stopped the Rollins speech, and—Lord help me!—I thought that mouth could only be closed by bon-bons and a man's kisses—any man's, par exemple. And her poor old catspaw of a pater stood helpless before my little hurricane—a very reed shaken by the wind. Then my sea-breeze spoke again: 'But the doctor will shed vials of wrath upon me for letting you see strangers.' (It must have cut the Rollins sore to be called a stranger to me!) 'But these kind friends could not realize your being ill, so I was fain to let them see my Apollo ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... where Fafner goes to drink, and fashions it into a pipe. He tries upon it to imitate the bird-note. "If I can sing his language," is his reasoning, "I shall understand, no doubt, what he sings!" After repeated attempts, charmingly comical, and much vain mending of the reed with the edge of Nothung, he grows impatient, is ashamed of his unsuccess before the "roguish listener." He tosses away the silly reed and takes his silver horn. "A merry wild-wood note, such as I can play, you shall hear! I have sounded it as a call ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... may linger, without blame, over the shining meres, the golden reed-beds, the countless water-fowl, the strange and gaudy insects, the wild nature, the mystery, the majesty—for mystery and majesty there were—which haunted the deep fens for many a hundred years. ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... promises have been interpreted, promises have been openly and dispassionately denied. We should not forget these things. One should not rely too much on the leaders; the country's youth should be our hope. No; a leader is apt to prove a broken reed. It is an old law that whenever a leader reaches a certain age he pauses—yes, he even turns right about face and pushes the other way. Then it is up to the young to march on, to drive him ahead or ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... into prison for prophesying that he would bring ruin on himself, Nebuchadnezzar soon marched upon him, and besieged Jerusalem; and his friend, Pharaoh Hophra, left him to his fate, showing himself the broken reed that Jeremiah had said he would prove. The siege of Jerusalem lasted a year, and no one suffered more than the prophet, who was thrown into a noisome prison, and afterwards lowered into a pit, where he nearly died; but not for ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the smoking flax, and tie up the bruised reed!" he was saying to himself aloud, when in ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... you, they hadn't climbed over the first stave, when there come a skirl of wind and spindrift of snow as almost took them off of their feet; and, on the going down of it, Jem Sloke, as played the hautboy, dropped the reed from his mouth, and called out, 'Sakes alive! if we fools ain't been standin' outside a gentleman's gate all the time, and not ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... though not in the least knowing where to go, finally seeking to drive away the nervous fears that assailed her in her lonely, creaking bedroom, where rats were gnawing at the woodwork, by thinking hard of Mr. Jessup, who on this occasion proved to be but a broken reed, pitted against the stern ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... with a bloated, cruel face, sodden with drink and inflamed with all fierce and inhuman passions; a strong man, who held the trembling girl by the shoulder as if she were a reed, and gazed into her face with eyes of fiendish triumph; an angry man, who poured out a torrent of furious words, reproaching, threatening, by turns, as he found his victim once more within his grasp, just when he had ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... of a stream which, all beset with willows, wound about the bottom. Sheep and neat were pasturing about the dale, and moreover a long line of smoke was going up straight into the windless heavens from the midst of a ring of little round houses built of turfs, and thatched with reed. And beyond that, toward an eastward-lying bight of the dale, they could see what looked like to a doom-ring of big stones, though there were no rocky places in that land. About the cooking-fire amidst of the houses, and here ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... in the song contest. Her family would see her name and her song in print on the Ivy Day program, and May Hayward, a friend of hers and T. Reed's in their desolate freshman year, was to be in the mob in ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... you will persuade those who are hardened in guilt to die to save another?—Is that the reed you ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... materials, the wonderful ink, of which we have not the like today, the fine sheets of papyrus,—Pliny tells how they were sometimes too rough, and how they sometimes soaked up the ink like a cloth, as happens with our own paper,—and the carefully cut pens of Egyptian reed on which so much of the neatness in writing depended, though Cicero says somewhere that he could write with any pen ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the Cashmere gate, which was to be blown open by the engineers. The fourth column, eight hundred and sixty strong, was made up of detachments of European regiments, the Sirmoor battalion of Ghoorkas, and the Guides. It was commanded by Major Reed, and was to carry the suburb outside the walls, held by the rebels, called Kissengunge, and to enter the city by the Lahore gate. In addition to the four storming columns was the reserve, fifteen hundred strong, under Brigadier Longfield. ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... way the Africans in the Congo used it was a very quaint one. They would hollow out a little hole in the ground, making a little dome over it; then in went a few hemp-tops; and on to them a few stones made red hot in a fire. Then the dome was closed up and a reed stuck through it. Then one man after another would go and draw up into his lungs as much smoke as he could with one prolonged deep inspiration; and then go apart and cough in a hard, hacking distressing way for ten minutes at a time, and then ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... black Genoese—but the left had moved before them, and made doubtful Richard's echelon. They knelt, pulled bowstrings to the ear. The sky grew dun as the long shafts flew; the oncoming tide of men flickered and tossed like a broken sea, and the Soldan's green banner dipped like a reed in it. A second time the blast of arrows, like a gust of death, smote them flat: Richard's voice rang sharply out—'Passavant, chivalers! Sauve Anjou!'—and a young Poictevin knight, stooping low in his saddle, went rocking down the ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... be still preserved somewhere in Massachusetts a whispering reed through the long hollow length of which lovers were wont to whisper messages of tenderness to each other while separated by a room's length and the inevitable chaperonage of the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... the next morning where I found my room a garden of flowers given to me by Mrs. Reed, Mrs. Lawford and Lady Drummond. I addressed a ballroom that night full of empty chairs and chandeliers, but was consoled by my flowers, and the ladies with whom I afterwards went to supper; and I hope and think ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... tidal bodies of supporters. Neptune has done something. One thinks he has done much, at a rumour of his inefficiency to do the utmost. Spy you insecurity?—a possibility of invasion? Then indeed the colossal creature, inaccessible to every argument, is open to any suggestion: the oak-like is a reed, the bull a deer. But as there is no attack on his shores, there is no proof that they are invulnerable. Neptune is appealed to and replies by mouth of the latest passenger across the Channel on a windy night:—Take heart, son John! They will have poor stomachs for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 1. Johnny Reed was a little boy who never had seen a snowstorm till he was six years old. Before this, he had lived in a warm country, where the ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... which were familiar sights to them in 1621. Those sturdy oaken chairs of Governor Carver, Elder Brewster, and Edward Winslow; the square, hooded wooden cradle brought over by Dr. Samuel Fuller; and the well-preserved reed one which rocked Peregrine White, and whose quaint stanchness suggests the same Dutch influence which characterizes the spraddling octagonal windmills—they would quickly recognize all of these. Some of the books, too, chiefly religious, some in classic tongues, William Bradford's Geneva Bible printed ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... I once spent two weeks in a Mediterranean steamboat, on board of which were more than two hundred pilgrims, for the greater part wild Bedouins, going to Mecca. They had a minstrel who sang and played on the darabuka, or earthenware drum, and he was aided by another with a simple nai, or reed-whistle; the same orchestra, in fact, which is in universal use among all red Indians. To these performers the pilgrims listened with indescribable pleasure; and I soon found that they regarded me favorably because I did the same, being, of course, the only Frank on board who paid any attention to ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... bend and writhe When roars the wind through gap and braken; But 'tis the tenderest reed of all That trembles first ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... caught by a storm in the open country, Willis, never take shelter under a tree; face the storm bravely, and submit to be deluged by the rain. Dread even bushes, if they are isolated. An entire forest is less dangerous than a single reed ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... themselves, or some wandering Arab traders may have taught them; but I have another idea, as you shall hear. Be that as it may, there the neat houses stand—grey walls, brown thatch, small swept yards of trodden earth before them within the rings of neat reed fencing. Great willows grow along the bank and trail their hanging tendrils in the water, and the brown kiddies swing from them and go splashing into the stream with shouts of delight. The place is remote, ...
— The Priest's Tale - Pere Etienne - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • Robert Keable
... confer A natural bowl. So henceforth she would seem No nation, but the poet's pensioner, With alms from every land of song and dream, While aye her pipers sadly pipe of her Until their proper breaths, in that extreme Of sighing, split the reed on which they played: Of which, no more. But never say "no more" To Italy's life! Her memories undismayed Still argue "evermore;" her graves implore Her future to be strong and not afraid; Her very statues send their ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... would trust his word. Since it is so, my lord, be pleased to favour me with a small note, in writing, of the bargain we have made. Having said this, he pulled his ink-horn from his girdle, and taking a small reed out of it, neatly cut for writing, he presented it to him, with a piece of paper he took out of his letter-case, and, whilst he held the ink-horn, Bedreddin Hassan wrote these words: 'This writing is to testify, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... salvation from my lips when a youth, He graciously offers it to me in mine age. He has chastised to purify, and I go to join the spirits of our lost family. In a little while, my child, you will be alone. I know you too well not to foresee you will be a pilgrim through life. The bruised reed may endure, but it will never rise. You have that within you, Harvey, that will guide you aright; persevere as you have begun, for the duties of life are never to be neglected and"—a noise in the adjoining room interrupted the dying man, and the impatient ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... a reed, the great god Pan From the deep, cool bed of the river: The limpid water turbidly ran, And the broken lilies a-dying lay, And the dragon-fly had fled away, Ere he brought it out ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... find such characters as these in Ptah-hotep's hand-book, but interesting scenes are brought near to us by the writing-reed of that primaeval Chesterfield. We find ourselves taking supper at the table of a great man. His subordinates sit round, scarcely daring to raise their eyes from their food, not speaking to their host until spoken to. He serves the food that is before him according to ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... Mercer was talking. Several times a day he heard him in conversation with the guard, and not infrequently Mercer went down to the Landing, twirling a little reed cane that he had not dared to use before. He began to drop opinions and information to Kent in a superior sort of way. On the fourth day word came that Doctor Cardigan would not return for another forty-eight hours, and with unblushing conceit Mercer intimated that ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... only in a very dim way to perceive these impulses, but we can become so sensitive to God that He pierces us, brings us to the ground with a breath, and we bend and yield before His lightest wish as a reed bends ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... thanks! It suddenly occurred to me that we might be dead against one another as rivals, and a friendship of many long—days be snapped like a—like a reed.' ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... Reed's Sectional Covering for steam surfaces; any one can apply it; can be removed and replaced without injury. J. A. Locke, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... who found Bentham exasperating imbibed draughts of mingled poetry and philosophy from Coleridge's monologues at Hampstead. Carlyle has told us, in a famous chapter of his Life of Sterling, what they went out to see: at once a reed shaken by the wind and a great expounder of transcendental truth. The fact that Coleridge exerted a very great influence is undeniable. To define precisely what that influence was is impossible. His writings ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... dismiss the debate on the Navy with one or two further observations. Sir Edward Reed, though he knows a good deal about ships—for he has had something to do with them all his life—is not an authority whom one can implicitly accept. He is not a politician who has prospered according to what he believes and what are doubtless ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... The reed-like murmur ended in a terrific shriek. There was a silent movement, and Sybil felt the clammy form snatched up from her side and ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... began to struggle again, like a madman; but his efforts only served to bury him deeper in the tomb that the poor doomed lad was hollowing for himself; not a log of wood or a branch to buoy him up; not a reed to which he might cling! He felt that all was over! His ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... dream'd; but Arthur with a hundred spears Rode far, till o'er the illimitable reed, And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle, The wide-wing'd sunset of the misty marsh Glared on a huge machicolated tower That stood with open doors, whereout was roll'd A roar of riot, as from men secure Amid their ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... inevitable. Thus came the seventh day of our abandonment. In the course of the day two soldiers had glided behind the only barrel of wine that was left; pierced it, and were drinking by means of a reed. We had sworn that those who used such means should be punished with death; which law was instantly put in execution, and the two transgressors ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... papers in my possession, to have supplied him with some anecdotes and quotations; and I observe the fair hand of Mrs. Thrale as one of his copyists of select passages. But he was principally indebted to my steady friend Mr. Isaac Reed, of Staple-inn, whose extensive and accurate knowledge of English literary history I do not express with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful; indeed his labours[132] have proved it to the world; and all who have the pleasure of his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... candleberry tree, much cultivated in tropical countries for the sake of its nuts. The nuts or kernels, when dried and stuck on a reed, are used by the Polynesians as a substitute for candles and as an article of food; they are said to taste like walnuts. When pressed, they yield largely of pure palatable oil, as a drying oil for paint, and known as artists' oil. The cake, after the oil has been expressed, is a favorite ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... portion still remains," in the words of the formula, and accordingly the Whirlwind is called down from the treetops to carry the remnant to the uplands and there scatter it so that it shall never reappear. The hunter prays to the fire, from which he draws his omens; to the reed, from which he makes his arrows; to Tsul'kal, the great lord of the game, and finally addresses in songs the very animals which he intends to kill. The lover prays to the Spider to hold fast the affections of his beloved one in the meshes of his web, or to the Moon, which looks ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... purchasers. Market-gardeners, fishermen, fowlers and gazelle-hunters, potters, and small tradesmen, squatted on the roadsides or against the houses, and offered their wares for the inspection of their customers, heaped up in reed baskets, or piled on low round tables: vegetables and fruits, loaves or cakes baked during the night, meat either raw or cooked in various ways, stuffs, perfumes, ornaments,—all the necessities and luxuries of daily life. It was a good opportunity for ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... be at the mercy of such ruffens!" exclaimed one of these ladies again, as she swayed like a reed ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... heavy wooden clubs, and bows of the same, arrows of reed with wooden points, hardened in the fire, darts with pieces ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... gentle spirit who would not break a bruised reed—who went about doing good—was wont to blaze forth with hot indignation against sordidness and systematized injustice. Hear His fierce denunciation of the "scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites" who devoured ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... every nook and corner of the State was flooded with anti-suffrage literature, a great deal of it emanating from U. S. Senator Reed of Missouri, of such a vile, insinuating character that when placed by the "antis" upon the desks of the legislators they quickly passed protesting resolutions with only five dissenting votes. These called attention to the splendid work ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... we became interested in chestnuts as a possible commercial crop. We purchased a quantity from J. Russell Smith, interplanting them in a vineyard we expected to pull out as it was getting too old. Two years later, through the cooperation of Clarence Reed, Dr. Gravatt, also others at Beltsville, Maryland, we got some 2,000 seedlings of various types, some being hybrids. As some of these bore we planted what we thought were the best nuts in a nursery and at present have about 3000 chestnut trees ranging from three years old up to 16 ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... retaliation For having guarded a whole Nation. Hence e'ery lofty Plant that stands 'Twixt Berwick Walls and Dover Sands, The Oak itself (which well we stile The Pride and Glory of our Isle), Must strike and wave its lofty Head. And now salute an Oaten Reed, For surely Oates deserves to be Exalted far 'bove any Tree. The Agyptians once (tho' it seems odd) Did worship Onions for their God, And poor Peelgarlick was with them Esteem'd beyond the richest Gem. What would they ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... on bonnie Doon! An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune! Come, join the melancholious croon O' Robin's reed! His heart will never ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Egyptian writing is at least as old as Menes, the founder of the Empire; perhaps three thousand years before Christ." No other human records, whether of India or China, go back so far. Lepsius saw the hieroglyph of the reed and inkstand on the monuments of the fourth dynasty, and the sign of the papyrus roll on that of the twelfth dynasty, which was the last but one of the old Empire. "No Egyptian," says Herodotus, "omits taking accurate note of extraordinary and striking events." Everything ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... as these, The wary bow-man, matched against his peers, Long doubting, singles yet once more the best. Who is it that can make such shafts as Fate? What archer of his arrows is so choice, Or hits the white so surely? They are men, The chosen of her quiver; nor for her Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained stick At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked: Such answer household ends; but she will have Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound Down to the heart of heat; from these she strips All needless stuff, all sapwood; hardens them, From circumstance ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... metal, and leave a fish. 2. Syncopate an article of food, and leave an ornament. 3. Syncopate a map, and leave a vehicle. 4. Syncopate a pungent spice, and leave a small bay. 5. Syncopate a wading bird, and leave a reed. 6. Syncopate a short, ludicrous play, and leave a part of the body. 7. Syncopate another part of the body, and leave a wild animal. 8. Syncopate a domestic animal, and leave articles of clothing. 9. Syncopate a small animal, and leave to ponder. 10. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... as death, and trembled like a reed; I gave her my hand, and she kept it in the folds of her dress and wrung it till I could have cried aloud. 'Then, sir,' said she at last, 'you speak to deaf ears. If this be indeed so, what have I to do with errands? What do I ask of ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... suitable marriage, and then everything will be all right for you. It doesn't matter about me. I can live. But you—" Mrs. Carter's strained eyes indicated the misery she felt. Berenice was moved by this affection for her, which she knew to be genuine; but what a fool her mother had been, what a weak reed, indeed, she was to lean upon! Cowperwood, when he conferred with Mrs. Carter, insisted that Berenice was quixotic, nervously awry, to wish to modify her state, to eschew society and invalidate her wondrous charm by any sort of professional life. By prearrangement with Mrs. Carter ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... your own Disposition, that you have long looked on the Roman-Catholics of these Kingdoms as a discountenanced and pitiable People. That you would choose to allow to others the same Latitude of Conscience that you like for yourself. That it is not a Part of Humanity to break a Reed already bruised. That such a Treatment would be blameable respecting any Individual; how much more so, in Prejudice of a whole People. That those Papers are pointed with a Keenness of Enmity, for which the Talents, which you are pleased to ascribe, cannot sufficiently apologize. And, that ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... was only a question of time. His apprenticeship was not finished yet; he must be content to serve a little longer. When she had tasted the bitterness of her new life, its helplessness, its desolation, with only such a broken reed as Austin Lovel to lean upon, she would turn to him naturally for comfort and succour, as the fledgling ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... into the reed and rush at the brim of the water, and Birdalone stepped ashore without more ado, and the scent of the meadow-sweet amongst which she landed brought back unto her the image of Green ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... more than St. Domingo ever yielded in the palmy days of slavery. He wanted wool, and his flocks soon overspread the plains of Australia, tendering him the finest fleeces, and his shepherds improved their leisure not in playing like Tityrus on the reed, but in opening for him mines of copper and gold. He had his eye on California, but Fremont was too quick for him, and he now contents himself with pocketing a large proportion of her gold, to say nothing of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... Wood, that it is easily cut down with a Hedging-Bill; it is about four Yards high, without any Branches; its Leaves much like those of our Fig-Trees, but twice as big, and are joined to the top by Stalks of a Foot and a half long, and hollow like a Reed. They being about thirty in number, grow at the top of the Trunk all round about it; the lowest are ripest and largest, they are green, and of the bigness of one's Fist. The Pulp, which is but half an Inch thick, is like that of a Melon, but of a sweet ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... developed that it was considered best to postpone it. By June 27 the outlook was so favorable that the amendment was brought before the Senate. Senators Poindexter (Wash.) and Thompson (Kans.) spoke in favor, Brandegee (Conn.) in opposition. A wrangle over "pairs" followed and Reed (Mo.) launched a "filibuster." After he had spoken two hours Chairman Jones saw that the situation was hopeless and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... still popularly used. The patient should stand upon the leg corresponding to the side on which there is water in his ear, and then, with head leaning to that side, should hop or kick out with the other leg. The water may be drawn out by means of suction through a reed. In order to get foreign bodies out of the external auditory canal, an ear spoon or other small instrument should be wrapped in wool and dipped in turpentine, or some other sticky material. Occasionally he has seen sneezing, especially if the mouth ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... following page, is the summary of many chapters of 'Modern Painters:' and of the aims kept in view throughout 'Munera Pulveris.' The three kinds of Desert specified—of Reed, Sand, and Rock—should be kept in mind as exhaustively including the states of the earth neglected by man. For instance of a Reed desert, produced merely by his neglect, see Sir Samuel Baker's account of the choking up of the bed of the White Nile. Of the sand desert, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... traces and follow them up. Fortunately the underwood was perfectly free from thorns, or they would have had their clothes torn to shreds, even had they been able to penetrate it. It was generally of a reed or grass-like nature, so that they could push it aside or trample it down; and under the more lofty trees the ground was often for a considerable distance completely open, when they made more rapid progress. They seldom, however, went far from the ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... with greenery, where Sidney Lanier and his brother Clifford used to spend their schoolboy Saturdays among the birds and rabbits. Near by flows the Ocmulgee, where the boys, inseparable in sport as well as in the more serious aspects of life, were wont to fish. Here Sidney cut the reed with which he took his first flute lesson from the birds in the woods. Above the town were the hills for which the soul of the ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... delicate cobwebby texture—they call it the "supplejack," I think. Tree ferns everywhere—a stem fifteen feet high, with a graceful chalice of fern-fronds sprouting from its top—a lovely forest ornament. And there was a ten-foot reed with a flowing suit of what looked like yellow hair hanging from its upper end. I do not know its name, but if there is such a thing as a scalp-plant, this is it. A romantic gorge, with a brook flowing in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... course was gone—the feasters fell back on their couches—there was a pause while they listened to the soft voices of the South, and the music of the Arcadian reed. Glaucus was the most rapt and the least inclined to break the silence, but Clodius began already to think ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... through the town, along the river bank and into the sacred precincts of the "beloved square." Ah! here he had stood this evening with what different hope and heart. Here in front of the eastern cabin he had sat beside the wily Tsiskwa of Citico, who might hardly make feeble shift to sway a reed, and yet with sharp sarcasms had stabbed him again and again ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the people; sheltering himself from their clamours in the stronghold of privilege. Hence it was, that when he coalesced with others, he found no support on which he could lean with safety, and by which he could assist the monarch. His staff was but a reed on which, if he leant, it pierced his hand. This Chatham felt; and though he clung tenaciously to office, from the fear of displaying his weakness and incapacity, he only acted, when he did act, behind the scenes. Ministerial ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... 'gainst you prepare, What if the valiant Turks and Persians bold, Unite their forces with Cassanoe's heir? Oh then, what marble pillar shall uphold The falling trophies of your conquest fair? Trust you the monarch of the Greekish land? That reed will break; and breaking, wound ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... you in it; but being once embarked, all the cords draw; great provisions are then required, more hard and more important. How much easier is it not to enter in than it is to get out? Now we should proceed contrary to the reed, which, at its first springing, produces a long and straight shoot, but afterwards, as if tired and out of breath, it runs into thick and frequent joints and knots, as so many pauses which demonstrate that it has no more its first vigour and firmness; 'twere better ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... your sloth has been expelled by labour and exercise; for the contrary is a bad sign, when after a short time your lapses from zeal become many and continuous, as if your zeal were dying away. For as in the growth of a reed, which shoots up from the ground finely and beautifully to an even and continuous height, though at first from its great intervals it is hindered and baffled in its growth, and afterwards through its weakness ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the discipline of the convict ships, were Captain Brown and Dr. Reed, of the Morley: they endeavoured, by precept and example, to inculcate morality. Coercion had been found ineffectual, and the women, when restricted, filled the vessel with clamour and profaneness; but these gentlemen adopted a system of mental influence, and their prisoners, whatever was ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... from her bosom. Up to this time she had entertained a feeble expectation that her husband might be kept away from some other cause than the one she so dreaded; but now that prop became only as a broken reed, to pierce her with ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... God Pan, the god of the open air, was a great musician. He played on a pipe of reeds. And the sound of his reed-pipe was so sweet that he grew proud, and believed himself greater than the chief musician of the gods, Apollo, the sun-god. So he challenged great Apollo to make better music ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... time, Angela saw that river flowing placidly through a rural landscape, the rich green of marshy meadows in the foreground, and low wooded hills on the opposite bank, while midway across the stream an islet covered with reed and willow cast a shadow over the rosy water painted by the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... did you come in? Ah! you were sitting in the corner behind the books! Only a reed such as you are could squeeze in through that cranny! What is ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... cave. The encounter thou speakest of with those two excellent youths—the younger Pandavas—is like unto the act of a fool that wantonly trampleth on the tails of two venomous black cobras with bifurcated tongues. The bamboo, the reed, and the plantain bear fruit only to perish and not to grow in size any further. Like also the crab that conceiveth for her own destruction, thou wilt lay hands upon me who am ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... and Lancaster, England. In 1847, an effort was made to establish an institution in some degree commensurate with the wants of the unfortunate class for whom it was intended. In this movement, Dr. John Conolly, the father of the non-restraint system in the treatment of the insane, Rev. Dr. Andrew Reed, Rev. Edwin Sidney, and Sir S.M. Peto have distinguished themselves by their zeal and liberality. Extensive buildings were rented at Highgate, near London, and at Colchester, for the accommodation of idiotic pupils, while ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... As the lower reed start the refrain, the higher enter in pursuit, and then the two groups sing a melodic chase. But the whole phrase is a mere foil to the pure melody of the former plaint that now returns in lower strings. And all so far is as a herald to the passage of intimate sentiment (Andante ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... scientific explanation. Built in the first place to be as nearly as possible non-conducting, with an impervious "puddled" bottom, the pond is renewed every night to a certain extent by the dew which trickles down each grass and reed stem into the reservoir beneath, and to a much greater extent by the mists which drift over the edge to descend in rain on the Weald. The pools might well ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... receipts for fruit sold would be as high as $100. That taken to town would bring from $5. to $8. per box, the boxes being a little larger than those in present use. An Indian woman, widow of a Mr. Reed, claimed a vineyard near the orchard, and laid claim to the whole property, so Stockton gave her $1000 for a quit ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... us, difficulties confront us; but these things must not induce us to give up. A Congressman who had promised Thomas B. Reed to be present at a political meeting telegraphed at the last moment: "Cannot come; washout on the line." "No need to stay away," said Reed's answering ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... and to lay the foundation of a future work, rather than to operate on a very extended scale himself. In this manner was accomplished the prophecy of Isaiah, "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... God through all its darkness grope, And find within its deadened heart to sing These songs of sorrow, love and faith, and hope? How did it catch that subtle undertone, That note in music heard not with the ears? How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown, Which stirs the soul or melts the heart ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... in. An Indian woman stood with her back to him, bending over a table. She was as slim as a reed, and had the longest and sleekest black hair he had ever seen, done in two heavy braids that hung down her back. In another moment she had turned her round, brown face, and her teeth and eyes were shining, but she spoke no word. Thoreau did not introduce ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... the power of higher learning he still held supreme. But by days of hard work in the college halls, and nights of meditation out in the silent sanctuary spaces of the prairies round about him, he had been learning how to compute the needs of men as the angel with the golden reed computed the walls and gates of the New Jerusalem—according to the measure of ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and said, "Hast thou seen the son of Amram?" The tree replied, "Since the day on which he came to me to get a writing reed, wherewith to write the Torah, I have ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... was the creation of the animal kingdom. Singing was always the chief magic for creating anything. In like manner, they rose to the fourth stage or earth; some say by a pine tree, others say through the hollow cylinder of a great reed or rush. ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... Vineyard Lavender and Old Lace Flower of the Dusk The Master's Violin At the Sign of the Jack-o'-Lantern Love Letters of a Musician A Spinner in the Sun The Spinster Book Later Love Letters of a Musician The Shadow of Victory Love Affairs of Literary Men Myrtle Reed Year Book ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... upon the floor, which was covered with oiled paper and grass mats. There was absolutely no furniture. The walls were covered with clean white paper. Each man in the room was smoking a pipe, which consisted of a brass bowl and a reed stem over three feet long. All wore long white robes, though one of the occupants had hung his ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... wish to draw water for use, the women come with twenty or thirty of their water-vessels in a bag or net on their backs. These water-vessels consist of ostrich egg-shells, with a hole in the end of each, such as would admit one's finger. The women tie a bunch of grass to one end of a reed about two feet long, and insert it in a hole dug as deep as the arm will reach; then ram down the wet sand firmly round it. Applying the mouth to the free end of the reed, they form a vacuum in the grass beneath, in which the water collects, and in a short ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... place of the long reed spear, which is apt to be weak and awkward to carry, we would substitute two darts of cornel-wood; (10) the one of which the skilful horseman can let fly, and still ply the one reserved in all directions, forwards, backwards, (11) and obliquely; add to that, these smaller ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... rejoined Fresco, to whom his niece's airs and graces were mighty displeasing, 'if disagreeable folk be so distasteful to thee as thou sayest, never mirror thyself in the glass, so thou wouldst live merry.' But she, emptier than a reed, albeit herseemed she was a match for Solomon in wit, apprehended Fresco's true speech no better than a block; nay, she said that she chose to mirror herself in the glass like other women; and so she abode in her folly ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... come over to "improve the occasion" with some slight allusion to the engrossing topic of "Southern Rights." This combined appeal to the domestic and political emotions of Pineville was irresistible. The Second Baptist Church was crowded. After the religious service there was a pause, and Judge Reed, stepping forward amid a breathless silence, said that they were peculiarly honored by the unexpected presence in their midst "of that famous son of the South, Colonel Starbottle," who had lately returned ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... "such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great."(1094) The firmament appears to open and shut. The glory from the throne of God seems flashing through. The mountains shake like a reed in the wind, and ragged rocks are scattered on every side. There is a roar as of a coming tempest. The sea is lashed into fury. There is heard the shriek of the hurricane, like the voice of demons upon a mission ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... rest were forced to yield; But though he still retained his skin, He nearly fainted with chagrin, To think that in that bloody tide So many of his rats had died. Fierce anger blazed within his breast; He would not stop to eat or rest; But spurring up his fiery steed, He seized a sharp and trusty reed— Then, wildly shouting, rushed like hail To cut off little mouse-king's tail. The mouse-king's face turned red with passion To see a rat come in such fashion, For he had just that minute said That every thieving rat ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... Unbidden to your eye, oh! do not blush To own it, for it speaks the gen'rous heart, Full to o'erflowing with the fervent gush Of its sweet waters. Hark! I hear the rush Of many feet, and dark-browed Mem'ry brings Her tales of by-gone pleasure but to crush The reed already bending—now, there sings The syren voice of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... unconnected with each other or any ridge of hills or mountains. This is doubly striking in Lower Mesopotamia or Babylonia, proverbial for its excessive flatness. The few permanent villages, composed of mud-huts or plaited reed-cabins, are generally built on these eminences, others are used as burying-grounds, and a mosque, the Mohammedan house of prayer, sometimes rises on one or the other. They are pleasing objects in ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... Island—especially about the Vale, the Grand Mare and L'Eree—which might still afford a home for Moorhens, Water Rails, and even Bitterns, and all that class of wading birds which delight in swampy land and reed beds. Though no doubt, as Mr. MacCulloch said, many orchards have been destroyed to make room for more profitable crops or for orchard-houses, still there are many orchards left in the Island. I think, however, many, if not all the cherry orchards ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... a Reed that's shaken by the wind, Or what is it that ye go forth to see? Lords, Lawyers, Statesmen, Squires of low degree, Men known, and men unknown, Sick, Lame, and Blind, Post forward all, like Creatures of one kind, With first-fruit ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... meetings" to which I dragged him, promising to show him something of working-men's life. We arrived too early. But the Secretary told us that the garden was lighted up for drill, and that the working-men's battalion was drilling there. It was under the charge of Sergeant Reed, a medal soldier from the Crimea. At that time England was in one of her periodical fits of expecting an invasion. For some reason they will not call on every able-bodied man to serve in a militia;—I thought because they were afraid to arm all their people,—though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... will soon teach you this: the only thing you need to be told is to watch carefully the lines of disturbance on the surface, as when a bird swims across it, or a fish rises, or the current plays round a stone, reed, or other obstacle. Take the greatest pains to get the curves of these lines true; the whole value of your careful drawing of the reflections may be lost by your admitting a single false curve of ripple from a wild duck's breast. And (as in other subjects) if you ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... morning. Every Indian has a fire near his hammock. The women are so chilly, that I have seen them shiver at church when the centigrade thermometer was not below 18 degrees. The huts of the Indians are extremely clean. Their hammocks, their reed mats, their pots for holding cassava and fermented maize, their bows and arrows, everything is arranged in the greatest order. Men and women bathe every day; and being almost constantly unclothed, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... and his feet rested upon the whirlwind, and a lion was crouching upon his right hand and upon his left. And the figure spoke to the patesi, but he did not understand the meaning of the words. Then it seemed to Gudea that the sun rose from the earth and he beheld a woman holding in her hand a pure reed, and she carried also a tablet on which was a star of the heavens, and she seemed to take counsel with herself. And while Gudea was gazing he seemed to see a second man who was like a warrior; and he carried a slab of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... the' accursed stream she dwells, She may no longer move me, by that law, Which was ordain'd me, when I issued thence. Not so, if Dame from heaven, as thou sayst, Moves and directs thee; then no flattery needs. Enough for me that in her name thou ask. Go therefore now: and with a slender reed See that thou duly gird him, and his face Lave, till all sordid stain thou wipe from thence. For not with eye, by any cloud obscur'd, Would it be seemly before him to come, Who stands the foremost minister in heaven. This islet all around, there ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... officer with his arm in a sling timidly inquires the price of a captain's commission, and turns wearily away on finding the preposterous price (L3,694) is wholly beyond his means. Fortunately for us (for events proved that in trusting to French assistance we were leaning on a broken reed indeed!) the Russian rank and file, besides being badly led, were as inferior to our own in endurance and pluck as they were superior to us in the mere matter of numbers. Justly wondering why forty thousand men, supported ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... upon the "weed-prairies," or those where the tall reed-grass rises above the withers of a horse—its culms matted and laced together by the trailing stems of various species of bindweed, by creeping convolvulus, cucurbitacese, and wild pea-vines. In the dry season, when a fire lays its hold upon vegetation of this character, there is danger indeed—where ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... reality. His principal qualities were the real arbiters in the selection of subjects which he made. God has not given to us all the same voice. The largest trees—the oaks—require the help of storms to make their voices heard, while the reed only needs the ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Charka nor Dingarn would marry, and no man could take a wife without the king's permission. Dingarn wore his head closely shaven, whereas the married trained their woolly hair to fasten over a circle of reed, so as to look much as if they had an inverted saucepan on their heads. Besides this they wore nothing but a sort of apron of skin before and behind, except when gaily arrayed in beads, or ornaments of leopard's fur and teeth, for dancing or for battle. Their wealth was ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... land, ascended the hill, and came into position by a low stone wall surmounted by rails. Lieutenant Walden's company was nearest the Mystic River. Captain Daniel Moore's came next in line. The regiment with Colonel Reed's New Hampshire regiment extended to the foot of the hill, in the ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Dan prayed, his skepticism falling away from him like a discarded garment in this valley of the shadow, which sifts out hearts and tries souls, until we all, grown-up or children, realize our weakness, and, finding that our own puny strength is as a reed shaken in the wind, creep back humbly to the God we have vainly dreamed ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a message to you, senor, from the governor," Ned said. "It is here in this hollow reed. He gives you but few particulars, but I believe tells you that you may place every confidence in me, and that I have ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... left, now with its tangled wicked head betwixt its forefeet, and now pawing eight feet high in the air, with scarlet, furious nostrils and maddened eyes, the yellow horse was a thing of terror and of beauty. But the lithe figure on his back, bending like a reed in the wind to every movement, firm below, pliant above, with calm inexorable face, and eyes which danced and gleamed with the joy of contest, still held its masterful place for all that the fiery heart and the iron muscles of the ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sense of his own guilt come back to him. He looked around. It was the beach, there, under his feet; and a few steps away was the tavern of his mother. The blackening rotting boat, rising from the reed enclosures around it, called up a flood of memories from the past. There they had played together, he and Tonet, running about over the sands. Tonet was on his shoulder, pulling at his hair in angry petulant disgust at not having his own way. ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... art and strength prevailed, and gradually the canvas was distended, and bellying as it filled, was drawn down to its usual place by the power of a hundred men. The vessel yielded to this immense addition of force, and bowed before it like a reed bending to a breeze. But the success of the measure was announced by a joyful cry from the stranger, that seemed to burst ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... reed, the great god Pan, From the deep, cool bed of the river. The limpid water turbidly ran, And the broken lilies a-dying lay, 10 And the dragon-fly had fled away, Ere he brought it out ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... on some cut-and-dry employment, and behold them gone! But Grez is a merry place after its kind: pretty to see, merry to inhabit. The course of its pellucid river, whether up or down, is full of gentle attractions for the navigator: islanded reed-mazes where, in autumn, the red berries cluster; the mirrored and inverted images of trees; lilies, and mills, and the foam and thunder of weirs. And of all noble sweeps of roadway, none is nobler, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... useful in the country where it grows. It is a kind of reed, and grows very tall. It has joints like the joints of a corn stalk. It is not solid like a corn stalk, but is hollow inside. It is so thick and strong that the people make houses of it and ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw
... answered, Olalla! and the dumb, unfathomable azure answered, Olalla! The pale saint of my dreams had vanished for ever; and in her place I beheld this maiden on whom God had lavished the richest colours and the most exuberant energies of life, whom He had made active as a deer, slender as a reed, and in whose great eyes He had lighted the torches of the soul. The thrill of her young life, strung like a wild animal's, had entered into me; the force of soul that had looked out from her eyes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not on earth, 'twill pierce the heart, At best a broken reed, And oft a spear where hope expires, And peace as ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... been traced to the Arabic "succar," which is the Persian "shachar." The sugar-cane is a jointed reed, crowned with leaves or blades; it contains a soft, pithy substance, full of sweet juice. The people of Egypt eat a great quantity of the green sugar-canes, and make a coarse loaf-sugar, and also sugar-candy and some ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... June twenty-ninth, Captain Glazier was cordially welcomed by Colonel F. H. Ellsworth, proprietor of the Reed House, who showed him many attentions while his guest. The lecture was delivered to a full house at the Academy of Music, the introduction being made by Hon. C. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... forest, without touching so much as with a hoof the gloomy-looking heath. Accustomed to the surrounding darkness, the eye of Bolko was at length able to discern—not without a creeping of horror—the ruddy and unsteady reed-grass. The moor and the Gold Spring were on one side of him. Pale stripes of fog, like ribbed vaults, were spread above him, giving a sacredness to the air, with which all other things strangely contrasted. The mind of Bolko, against his will, reverted to Auriola; his heart beat, as though ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... me—we shall send them all to hell!" cried Barnabas, swinging his club in his herculean arm as if it had been a reed. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... the centre of the yoke a pole is attached. At the other end of this pole is the plough itself, which consists of a wooden stake with an iron point and a handle. The driver holds the handle in one hand and his goad in the other (a long reed with an iron point), and so they toil along, making a long scratch as they go. A man follows the plough, and drops in single grains of Indian corn, about three feet apart. The furrows are three feet from one another, so that each stalk occupies some nine square feet of ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... others, and was placed in the centre of the town, with an avenue of trees, and a clear space before it for tribal dances or meetings. Ackbau also lived in a large house. On the reserve around the queen's palace, the older men spent most of the day in gossiping, or playing upon reed pipes, which furnished their sole musical instrument. The younger men made nets, mended weapons, or shaped stones for their slings. The natives in this island did not appear to understand the use of the bow and arrow, their only weapons being clubs, slings, and spears. The spears ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... and run. But I said to live in His ideas—His, without Whom nothing was made that was made; Who caused creation to revolve slowly out of chaos" (she looked around at the manifold life of tree and flower and bird as she spoke); "Who will not break the reed of our customs as long as there is any true substance left in it to make ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... really deserves short shrift in a book on public speaking, for, delude yourself as you may, public reading is not public speaking. Yet there are so many who grasp this broken reed for support that we must here discuss the "read ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... (p. 331), 22 inches by 12, was crossed by twenty-three brass tubes (half the number would suffice and only eleven are shown in the figure), each having a slit along it from which gas can issue. In this way twenty-three low flat flames were obtained. A sounding reed a fixed in a short tube was placed at one end of the rectangle, and a 'sensitive flame,' [Footnote: Fully described in my 'Lectures on Sound,' 3rd edition, p. 227.] f, at some distance beyond the other end. When the reed sounded, the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... Milly Reed eagerly. "The Countess of Jesmond, and the house-party at Coss have come to hear our Mamselle. That dark, handsome man next the countess is Count Mirloff, the Russian poet. Just ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... came up ever stronger and nearer, so that the winged sounds seemed to come into the vast building and hover above the tables and seats of honour, preparing the way for the guests. Nearer and nearer came the harps and the pipes and the trumpets and the heavy reed-toned bagpipes, and above all the strong rich chorus of the singers chanting high the evening hymn of praise to Bel, god of sunlight, honoured in his departing, as in his coming, with the music of the youngest and most ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... on these occasions, is a sort of spungeous reed, which may furnish, according to its length, a number of calumets, each of which is about a foot long, to be lighted at one end, the other serving to suck in the smoak at the mouth, and is suffered to burn within ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... the way to the cathedral blocked up by a throng of people who had come out to see me, I could not help saying, "What went ye out for to see? a reed shaken with the wind?" In fact I was so worn out that I could hardly walk through the building. The next morning I was so ill as to need a physician, unable to see any one that called, or to hear any ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... foolishness of placing too much confidence in corners, and deciding by the law of averages that the bar was the only safe place in the Settlement, availed himself of its sanctuary in times of danger. On the third day he learned that the law of averages is a weak reed to lean on; for on slipping round a corner, and mistaking a warning signal from the Wag, he whisked into the bar to whisk out again with a clatter of hobnailed boots, for I was in there examining some native curios. "She's in THERE next," he gasped as he passed ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Majesty's surveying ship, gave us a passage to Labuan, where the Bishop wanted to hold a confirmation. This ship was going to Manilla, and from thence to Hong Kong, before she returned to Singapore, and, through the kindness of Captain Reed, we accompanied her. At Labuan I caught the fever of the country, but it did not come out for ten days, by which time we were at Manilla. We anchored off Manilla on Christmas-day evening: it had been a very wet day, but cleared up at night, and we sat on deck watching ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... was more entertained by this repartee than one would have supposed likely, considering its advanced age and simple character. But in her sisterly affection she took Mr Jonas to task for leaning so very hard upon a broken reed, and said that he must not be so cruel to poor Merry any more, or she (Charity) would positively be obliged to hate him. Mercy, who really had her share of good humour, only retorted with a laugh; and they walked home in consequence without any angry passages of words upon the way. Mr Jonas ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the first chapel was entirely buried in the sands. In 1420 the second church was rebuilt; the older church, even its site, was forgotten. At the close of the eighteenth century the second church itself was threatened by the same peril; the planting of reed-grass was not then understood as a means of binding the sand. This time the parishioners moved their church to a greater distance, establishing their church town at the present Perranzabuloe, where the materials of the second church were ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... hitherto made himself of the least possible use, with the best possible intentions, between the dining-hall and the kitchen. And yet he was clever enough among horses, or anywhere outdoors. My mother, though she wondered at my choice and trembled to think how fragile a reed I should have to rely on, was yet not sorry, I fancy, at the prospect of ridding her house of poor blundering Nicolas in a kind and creditable way. I had reason to think Nicolas better suited for this ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of steel indeed. The bar quivered like a reed in his grasp, his eyes darted hither and thither, he stood an inch taller than at other times. He was like the war-horse that ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... been my duty to do! But whensoever God may take me hence, to reckon yourselves then comfortless, as though your chief comfort stood in me—therein would you make, methinketh, a reckoning very much as though you would cast away a strong staff and lean upon a rotten reed. For God is, and must be, your comfort, and not I. And he is a sure comforter, who (as he said unto his disciples) never leaveth his servants comfortless orphans, not even when he departed from his disciples by death. But he both sent them a comforter, ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... connected with the Broadstairs Lifeboat which deserves passing notice here. It was raised by the late Sir Charles Reed, in 1867, the proceeds to be distributed annually among the seamen who save life on that coast. The following particulars of this fund were supplied by Sir Charles ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... glided over each ripple, and reed, and closing water-lily; over her face, where the hood had fallen back from her loosened hair; over one hand trailing the water, and the other touching the flower at her breast; and, just ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so. Mistress Final told me this morrow early. Nay, I doubt she's more of the reed family, and 'll bow down her head like a bulrush. Sens Bradbridge'll bend afore she breaks, and Mistress Benden 'll break ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... were either made of reeds (calami) or of quills (pennae). The quill was introduced after the reed, and largely, though not entirely, superseded it. Other implements of the expert scribe were a pencil, compasses, scissors, an awl, a knife for erasures, a ruler, and a weight to keep ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... pleasantest recollections, we sailed for Messina, Sicily, and from there went to Naples, where we found many old friends; among them Mr. Buchanan Reed, the artist and poet, and Miss Brewster, as well as a score or more of others of our countrymen, then or since distinguished, in art and letters at home and abroad. We remained some days in Naples, and during the time went to Pompeii to ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... sloth ere we lifted spear, 'But hid in the heart of the people as the fever hides in the mere, 'Waiting only the war-game, the heat of the strife to rise 'As the ague fumes round Oxeney when the rotting reed-bed dries. 'But now we are purged of that fever—cleansed by the letting of blood, 'Something leaner of body—something keener of mood. 'And the men new-freed from the levies return to the fields again, 'Matching a hundred battles, cottar and lord and thane. 'And they talk aloud ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... his cabin 'mid the pine-tops green, The well-known woods, clear brook, and pastures gay; And thinks of friends and parents left behind, Of sylvan revels, dance, and festive song; And hears the faint reed swelling in the wind; And his sad sighs the distant notes prolong! Thus went the swain, till mountain-shadows fell, And dimm'd the landscape to his aching sight; And must he leave the vales he loves so well! Can foreign wealth, and shows, his heart delight? No, happy ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... kind of rustic drum consisting of a skin stretched over the mouth of a jar, with a reed fastened at the center. This rubbed up and down with the moistened hand produces a ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... Kate, that same evening, looking up into Beauchamp's face with a beauty in her own such as he had never beheld there, a beauty more than her face could hold, and overflowing in light from her eyes, he would have found this poor reed of comfort break in his hand and pierce his heart. Nor could all his hatred have blinded him to the fact that Beauchamp looked splendid—his pale face, with its fine, regular, clear-cut features, reflecting the glow of hers, and his ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... reached the residence of Captain Richardson, the proprietor of Sausolito, about nine o'clock in the morning. In travelling this distance we passed some temporary houses, erected by American emigrants on the mission lands, and the rancho of Mrs. Reed, a widow. We immediately hired a whale-boat from one of the ships, lying here, at two dollars for each passenger, and between ten and eleven o'clock we ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... horrors that came of the loosened passions of an untaught populace. A child was born to her—a girl whom she named after the dead friend of her own girlhood. And then she found that she had leant upon a reed. She was neglected; and was at last forsaken. Having sent her to London, Imlay there visited her, to explain himself away. She resolved on suicide, and in dissuading her from that he gave her hope ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... from the spooler are placed on a large frame, called a creel. The creels have an average capacity of about 600 spools, and there are usually 16 to 20 in one tier. The threads from the spools are drawn between the dents of an adjustable reed, then under and over a series of rollers. From here they are led down to the beam, upon which they are wound. The revolving of the beam unwinds the yarn from the spools and winds it regularly and evenly upon the beam itself. There is a device for ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... its own fulness would have been confused, is owing the especial power of his drawings. Nothing can be more closely analogous than the method with which an old Lombard uses his chisel, and that with which Prout uses the reed-pen; and we shall see presently farther correspondence in their feeling about the enrichment of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... earthquake. I have seen one of those wretched wooden spires with which we very shabbily finish some of our stone churches (thinking that the lidless blue eye of heaven cannot tell the counterfeit we try to pass on it,) swinging like a reed, in a wind, but one would hardly think of such a thing's happening in a stone spire. Does the Bunker-Hill Monument bend in the blast like a blade of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... frown o' the great— Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat— To thee the reed is as the oak; The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... "Reed-that-bends," he said, addressing the young culprit by name, and in his proper language, "though the Great Spirit has made you pleasant to the eyes, it would have been better that you had not been born. Your tongue is loud in the village, but ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... self-contempt,—calmly to turn away from all, to say 'enough!' and folding impotent arms upon the empty breast, to save the last, the sole honour he can attain to, the dignity of knowing his own nothingness; that dignity at which Pascal hints when calling man a thinking reed he says that if the whole universe crushed him, he, that reed, would be higher than the universe, because he would know it was crushing him, and it would know it not. A poor dignity! A sorry consolation! ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... love! But how can one love such a man—a broken reed, whom one can never depend on? Don't you know what it came to...? [Looks round at the door, and continues hurriedly] All his affairs in a muddle, everything pawned, nothing to pay with! Then their uncle sends 2,000 roubles to pay the interest ...
— The Live Corpse • Leo Tolstoy
... myself. I have neglected the plainest lessons of reason and experience. I have staked my happiness without calculating the chances of the dice. I have hewn out broken cisterns; I have leant on a reed; I have built on the sand; and I have fared accordingly. I must bear my punishment as I can; and, above all, I must take care that the punishment does not extend ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... a woman who suffered from metastasis of milk to the stomach, and who, with convulsive action of the chest and abdomen, vomited it daily. A peculiar instance of milk in a tumor is that of a Mrs. Reed, who, when pregnant with twins, developed an abdominal tumor from which 25 pounds ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Love tunes the shepherd's reed; In war, he mounts the warrior's steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen, In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... murder, was committed on a vessel of the United States while engaged in a lawful commerce, nothing is known to have occurred to impede or molest the enterprise of our citizens on that element, where it is so signally displayed. On learning this daring act of piracy, Commodore Reed proceeded immediately to the spot, and receiving no satisfaction, either in the surrender of the murderers or the restoration of the plundered property, inflicted severe and merited chastisement on ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... about her, Uncle Ulick to whom she could turn, or on whom she could depend. And he, though he would not have stooped to this, was little better, she knew, than a broken reed. The sense of her loneliness, the knowledge that those about her used her for their own ends—and those the most unworthy—overwhelmed her; and in proportion as she had been proud and ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... "A broken reed on which to rely, madame. Sir Reginald Eversleigh will not lend you money. Since this house has become a place of evil odour, to be avoided by men who have money to lose, you are no longer of any use to Sir Reginald. He will not ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon |
