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verb
Sheaf  v. i.  To collect and bind cut grain, or the like; to make sheaves. "They that reap must sheaf and bind."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sheaf" Quotes from Famous Books



... sealskin jacket. Dad is almost certain to ask me about it, for he never made me such a handsome present before. Poor dad! he was so proud the night he brought it home. He said, 'Look here, Poll, I paid a whole sheaf of fivers for this, and although it cost me a good round eighty guineas, I'm told it's cheap at the price. Put it on and let me see how you look in it,' he said. And when I had it on he twisted me round, and chucked me under the chin, and said I was a 'bouncer.' ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... the absolute power of anything to support life. A sheaf of wheat of given quality and weight has in it a measurable power of sustaining the substance of the body; a cubic foot of pure air, a fixed power of sustaining its warmth; and a cluster of flowers of given beauty a fixed power of enlivening ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... then! nor spare The red steeds as ye fare! Yet if daylight shall fail, By the fire-light of bale Shall we see the bleared eyes Of the war-learned, the wise. In the acre of battle the work is to win, Let us live by the labour, sheaf-smiting therein; And as oft o'er the sickle we sang in time past When the crake that long mocked us fled light at the last, So sing o'er the sword, and the sword-hardened hand Bearing down to the reaping the ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... a conference with Mr. Edmonds, the most influential member, some said, next to the president, Cameron Jordan, a cousin of the old and respected physician. The result of this conference was that Bill McCormack held in his fat, red hands a sheaf of papers which allotted the streets to the four classes and took the decision quite ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... are an art of combination, and an exertion of the reasoning powers. Ideas are therefore labours; and for those who will not labour, it is unjust to complain, if they come from the harvest with scarcely a sheaf in ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... place this field is," he said, "on a summer evening, while the sunset lets fall upon it the last innocuous arrows of its golden sheaf. When I am wearied to death with work or vexation—which, alas! is too often—I always run down here, and it gives me a ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... men, ferocious looking, in great crested headgear of plumes. Their bodies were adorned with cow-hair circlets, but, save for a short kilt of cat's-tails and hide, they were quite unclad. They carried large shields of the Zulu pattern, and a sheaf of gleaming spears—some light, others heavy and strong with ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... of this bust Hilary rested his forehead on his hand. In front of him were three open books and a pile of manuscript, and pushed to one side a little sheaf of pieces of green-white paper, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... they to do with a stereoscopic camera containing an automatic pistol? It was not to be burnt in a grate like a sheaf of MS. They thought about it for some time with anxious faces; for it was getting on towards evening now, though the sun was out again, and it was lighter than the early afternoon; but Mr. Upton might be back any minute. It was Phillida who ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... mending the iron implements of agriculture, such as the ploughshare, axe, sickle, goad and other articles. For doing this he is paid in Saugor a yearly contribution of twenty pounds of grain per plough of land [105] held by each cultivator, together with a handful of grain at sowing-time and a sheaf at harvest from both the autumn and spring crops. In Wardha he gets fifty pounds of grain per plough of four bullocks or forty acres. For making new implements the Lohar is sometimes paid separately and is always supplied with the iron and charcoal. The hand-smelting iron industry ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... flows onward to the Source Supreme, Where things that ARE replace the things that SEEM, And where the deeds of all past lives abide. Once at thy door Love languished and was spurned. Who sorrow plants, must garner sorrow's sheaf. No prayers can change the seedling in the sod. By thine own heart Love's anguish must be learned. Pass on, and know, as one made wise by grief, That in thyself dwells heaven and hell ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... detective. And he pulled a sheaf of telegram forms out of his pocket, and leisurely began to write a message which before he signed his name to it had run ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher

... 27. 'Light will be thrown,' &c. We have still to deplore that the Letters of Lamb are even at this later day either withheld or sorrowfully mutilated; e.g. among the Wordsworth Correspondence (unpublished) is a whole sheaf of letters in their finest vein from Lamb and his sister. Some of the former are written in black and red ink in alternate lines, and overflow with all his deepest and quaintest characteristics. His sister's are charming. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... unreprinted poetry by Edgar Poe was in existence. Most, if not all, of the specimens issued in my articles have since been reprinted by different editors and publishers, but the present is the first occasion on which all the pieces referred to have been garnered into one sheaf. Besides the poems thus alluded to, this volume will be found to contain many additional pieces and extra stanzas, nowhere else published or included in Poe's works. Such verses have been gathered from printed ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... sheaves Of happy harvest meadows; and the grasses and the leaves Shall lift and lean between me and the splendor of the sun, Till the noon swoons into twilight, and the gleaners' work is done— Save that yet an arm shall bind me, even as the reapers do The meanest sheaf of harvest—when my ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley

... himself incapable of even the most petty routine work. He sat to his desk at eight o'clock and began the perusal of a sheaf of letters, comprising a certain correspondence, which Collins brought him. The first three he read carefully; the following two rather hurriedly; of the next one he seized only the salient and essential ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... has come! Why fight and make us suffer so long?" But the Rector was not listening. His eyes were on the mast, where he remembered hearing that terrible groaning sound, when he was under water. And, in fact, the pole had been fractured and was leaning alarmingly. At the peak he could still see the sheaf of grass that had been hung up there for the christening and the bunch of dry flowers that the hurricane was whipping about at the end of one last strand. "Pare! Pare!" Pascualet, his face covered with blood and terrified at the catastrophe he felt impending, ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... these chains of domestic union. Do not let us unbind the human sheaf, and scatter its ears to all the caprices of chance and of the winds; but let us rather enlarge this holy law; let us carry the principles and the habits of home beyond set bounds; and, if it may be, let us ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... beheld a field, Part arable and tilth, whereon were sheaves New reaped; the other part sheep-walks and folds; I' the midst an altar as the land-mark stood, Rustick, of grassy sord; thither anon A sweaty reaper from his tillage brought First fruits, the green ear, and the yellow sheaf, Unculled, as came to hand; a shepherd next, More meek, came with the firstlings of his flock, Choicest and best; then, sacrificing, laid The inwards and their fat, with incense strowed, On the cleft wood, and all due rights performed: His offering soon propitious fire from Heaven Consumed with ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... heir was bequeathed by that friend called yesterday. The soul increases in knowledge and culture, because as it passes through life's rich fields memory plucks the ripe treasure on either hand, leaving behind no golden sheaf. Philosophy, therefore, opposes that form of poetry that portrays yesterday by the falling tower, the yellow leaf, the setting sun. Memory is a gallery holding pictures of the past. Memory is a library holding wisdom for to-morrow's emergencies. Memory is a banqueting-hall on whose walls ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... was slow in coming, and before he spoke Count Sagan strode into the room. He carried a sheaf of papers; his imperious temper was wont to rush every business through to which he ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... the gradually decreasing square of corn, narrowing it by a broad band each time, the wheat fell flat on the short stubble. Roger stooped, and, gathering sufficient together, took a few straws, knotted them to another handful as you might tie two pieces of string, and twisted the band round the sheaf. He worked stooping to gather the wheat, bending to tie it in sheaves; stooping, bending—stooping, bending,—and so across the field. Upon his head and back the fiery sun poured down the ceaseless and increasing heat of the August day. His face grew red, his neck ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... priestess, and the enthroned goddess, as has been already described in the approach of Flora. Cornucopiae ornamented the chair of the deity, and the canopy was adorned with the gifts of autumn. The whole was surmounted by a sheaf of wheat. She held the sickle as her sceptre, and a tiara composed of the bearded grain covered her brow. Reapers followed, bearing emblems of the season of abundance, and gleaners closed the train. There was the halt, the chant, the chorus, and the song in praise ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... armies met. There on Northumbria's day Settled what seemed, yet was not, endless night There Faith and Virtue, deathless, seemed to die: There holy Oswald fell. For God he fought, Fought for his country. Walled with lances round, A sheaf of arrows quivering in his breast, One moment yet he stood. 'Preserve,' he cried, 'My country, God!' then added, gazing round, 'And these my soldiers: make their spirits thine!' Thus perished good King Oswald, King and Saint; Saint by acclaim of nations canonised ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... ways Have pulled some easy sprays From the down-dropping bough Which all may reach, and now I knot them, bud and leaf, Into a rhymed sheaf. ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge

... and Bow-may also, but a shaft rattled on his helm withal and another smote a Woodlander beside him, and pierced through the calf of his leg, as he turned and stooped to take fresh arrows from a sheaf that lay there; but the carle took it by the notch and the point, and brake it and drew it out, and then stood up and went on shooting. ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... took Julian for a walk. He waited to speak to his beloved Mr. Tappan, who was in his field. Julian picked up one sheaf after another, and carried them to him, calling, "Mr. Tappan! Mr. Tappan! Here are your oats!" Mr. Tappan turned at last, smiling, and thanked him for his help. The afternoon was so beautiful that every incident seemed like a perfect jewel on a golden crown. The load of yellow sheaves, the rainbow ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... great manager of the Universal Theatre enlisted Paul as an actor, and he assumed the double role of an unappreciated author and a sighing lover. In the first capacity he had in his desk ten short stories, a couple of novels, three dramas and a sheaf of doubtful verses. These failed to appeal to editor, manager or publisher, and their author found himself reduced to his last five-pound note. Then the foolish, ardent lad must needs fall in love. Who his divinity was, what she was, and why ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... ruddy faces of the children, their bright hair, even their voices, were subdued. Fanny, apparently, hadn't moved; the light at her shoulder was reflected in the cut steel buckles of her slippers; she had slight but graceful ankles. He recognized this, drawing a sheaf of reports from his brief- case; but, after a perfunctory glance, he dropped them beside him ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... in 1808 Sir Humphry Davy constructed his battery of 2,000 cells, and thus succeeded in exalting the tiny spark obtained in closing the circuit into the luminous sheaf of the voltaic arc. He also observed that the spark passed even when the poles were separated by a distance varying from 1/40 to 1/30 of an inch. This appears to have been subsequently forgotten, as we find later physicists questioning the possibility of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... a column headed "A Cornish Poet" says: "A new sheaf of verse of quiet remarkable interest.... They all proclaim Mr Moore to be a real poet ... his true vocation is to interpret the souls of the people he obviously knows and loves so well. He knows their humour and their half articulate ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various

... have heard," said a youth to his sweetheart, who stood While he sat on a corn sheaf, at daylight's decline,— "You have heard of the Danish boy's whistle of wood: I wish that the Danish boy's ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... It concerns you, principally; you, and your antecedents." North took a sheaf of papers from his pocket, and produced a fountain pen. "Did you ever hear of ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... of great utility in the various operations of husbandry, and still prove exceedingly convenient in situations almost, or altogether, inaccessible to wheel-carriages. The long crooks are used for the carriage of corn in sheaf from the harvest-field to the mowstead or barn, for the removal of furze, browse, faggot-wood, and other light materials. The writer of one of the happiest effusions of the local muse,*[10] with fidelity to nature equal to Cowper or Crabbe, has introduced the figure of ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... and soled with a matted felt, perhaps a half-inch thick. Another struck somewhere abaft the mast, and then McCord reappeared above and began to stagger down the shrouds. Under his left arm he hugged a curious assortment of litter, a sheaf of papers, a brace of revolvers, a gray ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... those condemned, but not all. I don't care for the name Penny Whistles; I sent a sheaf to Henley when I sent 'em. But I've forgot the others. I would just as soon call 'em 'Rimes for Children' as anything else. I ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... were in the far niente, floating on the Grand Canal in beautiful Venice, while the young beauty selected Alice's letter from a sheaf handed to them by the porter of the Hotel Danieli, who ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... out of Castleisland, but though I had a sheaf of threatening letters, I never met with any insults or received a threat ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... went away, returning with a sheaf of photo-enlargements and a number of blocks of lucite in which specimens were mounted. Everybody examined them. Anna de Jong, as a practicing psychologist, had an M.D. and to get that she'd had to know a modicum of ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper

... is not of Nature or National Assembly, but of Art and Antinational Intriguers. Such malign individuals, of the scoundrel species, have power to vex us, while the Constitution is a-making. Endure it, ye heroic Patriots: nay rather, why not cure it? Grains do grow, they lie extant there in sheaf or sack; only that regraters and Royalist plotters, to provoke the people into illegality, obstruct the transport of grains. Quick, ye organised Patriot Authorities, armed National Guards, meet together; unite your ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... hot and charged with odours of cheap cologne, of powder, of human bodies, and of perspiration-soaked garments. The very gaslights screamed above the din as if they found it contagious. Large crayon portraits decorated the walls, that of the late Mr. Kelly having attached to its frame the sheaf of wheat that had lain on his coffin. On the walls also were the large calendars of insurance companies, and one or two china plaques in plush frames. A bead portiere hung between the two parlours, constantly clicking and catching as the guests swarmed ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... the novel, Master," said Mark. He stepped forward, mounted the single step to Weaver's dais, and laid a sheaf of papers on the desk. "This is a preliminary attempt which one called Peter Smith has made ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight

... side of him, waiting. For one long second no one moved, and then Dr. Dowson reached into his desk drawer and produced a sheaf of papers. ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

... touching his white albino eyebrows and the tip of his nose, every sentence punctuated with a roar of laughter, cheers and protests, he sat down. Among the speakers I heard that night were Mr Beresford Hope and Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the latter of whom offered to the House quite a sheaf of carefully prepared impromptu. Again I got my guinea, and again I was asked to appear on the following night, and at the end of that week, the defaulting member of the staff not having again put in an appearance, I was formally enrolled for the rest of the session. I do not ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... in gold by Malise himself, and filling out his almost girlish waist to manlier proportions. From this depended a row of tags of soft leather. Close chain-mail covered his legs, to which at the knees were added caps of triple plate. A sheaf of arrows in a blue and gold quiver on his right side, a sword of metal on his left, and a short Scottish bow in his hand completed the attire of a fully equipped and efficient archer ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... there was no Winkelried! Perhaps we can afford to "rehabilitate" villains of every description, but need therefore the heroic be reduced to dshabill? That we cannot so well afford. We can give up William Tell's apple as easily as we can the one in Genesis, but Winkelreid's "sheaf of Austrian spears" is an essential argument against original sin, being an altogether original ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... to match. But here,—here was the Big Young Gobbler, the pride and glory of the poultry yard, no longer ruffling it in black and red, but shining in rich golden brown, with strings of nut-brown sausages about his portly breast. Here was cranberry sauce, not in a bowl, but moulded in the wheat-sheaf mould, and glowing like the Great Carbuncle. Here was an Alp of potato, a golden mountain of squash, onions glimmering translucent like moonstones, the jewels of the winter feast, celery tossing pale-green plumes—good gracious! celery enough for a hotel, Mr. Sam thought; here beside each plate ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards

... delighted Hawke. While Abercromby dreamed of the lovely lady of the Silver Bungalow, Major Alan Hawke leisurely examined a sheaf of letters from Europe which had been thrust in his pocket by ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... my little fellow, you need not tremble so; if you were a thief you would not be a gleaner. Come here, my boy." He then took him to a sheaf of corn, and filled ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman

... have attempted secession. Even under this government of inquisitors and butchers no community, save those of Lyons and La Vendee, makes any sustained effort to break up the State, withdraw from it and live by itself. The national sheaf has been too strongly bound together by secular centralization. One's country exists; and when that country is in danger, when the armed stranger attacks the frontier, one follows the flag-bearer, whoever he may be, whether usurper, adventurer, blackguard, or cut-throat, provided only ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... bearers would stand still and smite the earth all together with the blazing straw of the torches, while they cried, "A sheaf of a peck and a half!" (Gearbe a boissiaux). If two torchbearers happened to meet each other on their rounds, they performed the same ceremony and uttered the same words. When the straw was burnt out, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... Indian, and almost as dark, from exposure to the weather and incessant campaigning. He was fresh from the blood and desolation of Acadia, where France, indeed, lost her ancient colony, but St. Luc reaped a full sheaf of glory at Grand Pre, in the Bay of Minas, by the capture of an army of New Englanders. The rough old soldier was just now all smiles and gaiety, as he conversed with Monseigneur de Pontbriant, the venerable Bishop ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... I hope—because they've an unkind way of stopping them. Not but what you might get rid of one or two if you make haste. But they're ugly things to track a chap out by, you know. Why, I knew a young fellow, much your age and build, borrowed a whole sheaf of 'em and went up north, and made up his mind he'd have a high old time. He did slip through a fiver; but—would you believe it?—the next he tried on, they were down on him like shooting stars, and he's another two years to do on the ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... of the tunnel, their bags and packets stacked around them. Small children lay asleep like cut corn, heads hanging and nodding in all directions, or propped against each other in such an intricate combination that if one should move the whole sheaf of tired heads slipped lower ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... you and the gray-haired party." He reached in a breast pocket and brought out a thin sheaf of unmounted photographs and handed them to her. "Mrs. Propbridge, just take a look at these and then tell me if you blame me for assuming that there's bound to be trouble when ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... sheaf of arrows, the other telegrams sped over the country, and most of them went straight to the mark. A mining engineer in Montana got one, and pulled up stakes at once. A rising young lawyer in Minneapolis found it necessary to look up ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... so immediately pressing that I cannot have the pleasure of attending you. Besides, I am not upon the best of terms with King Pluto. To tell you the truth, his three-headed mastiff would never let me pass the gateway; for I should be compelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams along with me, and those, you know, are forbidden things ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... hour the noise removed to the Wheat-sheaf, a public-house at the distance of a few doors, in the bed-chamber of the landlord and landlady, to the great affright and terror of them both. Such was the manner of interrogating the spirit: the answer was given ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... out to his carriage, and the others followed in twos and threes. A young man, pale, with nervous mouth, strongly-marked features and clear dark eyes, looked up from a sheaf of letters which ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... causes of division were those which life bore within its bosom. For life is tendency, and the essence of a tendency is to develop in the form of a sheaf, creating, by its very growth, divergent directions among which its impetus is divided. This we observe in ourselves, in the evolution of that special tendency which we call our character. Each of us, glancing back ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... one-sided fashion. We meet indeed with several legislative restrictions on this dangerous right of requisition of the Roman superior magistrates: for instance, the rule already mentioned, that in Spain there should not be taken from the country people by requisitions for grain more than the twentieth sheaf, and that the price even of this should be equitably ascertained;(11) the fixing of a maximum quantity of grain to be demanded by the governor for the wants of himself and his retinue; the previous adjustment of a definite and high rate of compensation for ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... carefully preserve these chains of domestic union; do not let us unbind the human sheaf and scatter its ears to all the caprices of chance and of the winds; but let us rather enlarge this holy law; let us carry the principles and the habits of home beyond its bounds; and, let us realize the prayer of the Apostle of the Gentiles when he exclaimed to the new-born children ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... as now, One eye beheld their light shine full as fame's, One hand unveiled it: this did none but thou. Love, stronger than forgetfulness and sleep, Rose, and bade memory rise, and England hear: And all the harvest left so long to reap Shone ripe and rich in every sheaf and ear. ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... looking very gloomy, burdened with two plates, two mugs, and a sheaf of knives and forks under his arm, he certainly did not give one the impression of a very rakish character, and Horace could scarcely refrain from smiling as he tried to picture him ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... that he rode down in his auto to the water front, chartered one of Crowley's launches, and was put aboard the strange yacht. It is further known that when he returned to the shore, three hours later, he immediately despatched a sheaf of telegrams to his nine fellow-captains of industry who had received letters from Goliah. These telegrams were similarly worded, and read: "The yacht Energon has arrived. There is something in this. I advise you ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... the hazel eyes which had met his so blankly sprang suddenly alive—recognition, knowledge, fear, entreaty, flashed across them in one moment's breathless space—then they grew blank again and Mary Coombe fell senseless beside her sheaf of daisies. ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... if thou hast been weeping, Let go the thoughts that bind thee to thy grief: Lie still, and watch the singing angels, reaping The golden harvest of thy sorrow, sheaf by sheaf; Or count thy joys like flocks of snow-white sheep That one by one come creeping Into the quiet fold, until thou sleep, ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... self-moving mass of fragrant bloom and verdure. Oftener, however, the bundle reached only halfway down the back of the rustic nymph, leaving in sight her well-developed lower limbs, and the crooked knife, hanging behind her, with which she had been reaping this strange harvest sheaf. A pre-Raphaelite artist (he, for instance, who painted so marvellously a wind-swept heap of autumnal leaves) might find an admirable subject in one of these Tuscan girls, stepping with a free, erect, and graceful carriage. The ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... shallow vat or tank, and if it could lie in the vat overnight it was a benefit. Then the pomace was put in a press. This was simple in construction. At the bottom was a platform grooved in channels; a sheaf of clean straw was spread on the platform, and with wooden shovels the pomace was spread thick over it. Then a layer of straw was laid at right angles with the first, and more pomace, and so on till the form was about three feet high; the top board was put ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... not mean, Where I reap thou shouldst but glean; Lay thy sheaf adown and come, Share ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... the postman's knock, The morning was bright and sunny, And showed me a sheaf of circulars, stock Attempts to get hold of ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams

... Themistocles, off the coast of Greece, shattered the Persian's Armada?—when Caesar, finding his army hard pressed, seized spear and buckler, fought while he reorganized his men, and snatched victory from defeat?—when Winkelried gathered to his heart a sheaf of Austrian spears, thus opening a path through which his comrades pressed to freedom?—when for years Napoleon did not lose a single battle in which he was personally engaged?—when Wellington fought in many climes ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... aided by the elevation at which it was planted, flung a twentypound stone some two hundred and forty yards in the air; it bounded after that, and knocked some dirt into the Lord Anthony's eye, and made him swear. The next stone struck a horse that was bringing up a sheaf of arrows in a cart, bowled the horse over dead like a rabbit, and spilt the cart. It was then turned at the besiegers' wooden tower, supposed to be out of shot. Sir Turk slung stones cut with sharp ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... of his gondola on to the hotel steps, the proprietor came forward to meet him with a sheaf of telegrams. Lord Arthur snatched them out of his hand, and tore them open. Everything had been successful. Lady Clementina had died quite suddenly on the night ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... everything, doesn't he, sir?" asked Pratt, as he took an address book from the desk, and picked up a sheaf of telegram forms. ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... hand held a thick time-table; New York, New Haven and Hartford stared him in the face. The leaves fell apart as his hand for the first time shook, and between them—ah! there they were! "Memoranda, etc.," was written on the top paper. Thrusting the slender sheaf into his pocket, he threw the time-table on the desk and drew the bolt slowly, peering out between the bronze curtains ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... herself that evening in her husband's study with a sheaf of visiting cards in her hand. She thought it possible that she might obtain further illumination by ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... Chief picked up a sheaf of papers, mostly standard charts and position reports, I judged, and frowned at them thoughtfully. "I've some work ...
— Vampires of Space • Sewell Peaslee Wright

... along the hillside, what far bliss Lets the crisp hair-plaits fall so low they kiss Those lucid shoulders? Must a morn so blithe Needs have its sorrow when the twang and hiss Tell that from out thy sheaf one shaft makes writhe Its victim, thou unerring Artemis? Why did the chamois stand so fair a mark, Arrested by the novel shape he dreamed Was bred of liquid marble in the dark Depths of the mountain's womb which ever teemed With novel births of wonder? Not ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... out and he marched away like a king with thoughts of state in mind. I thought his beard was grayer than it had been, but oh, sahib, he strode as an arrow goes, swift and straight, and splendid. Lonely as an arrow that has left the sheaf! ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... a table was brought in and placed at the end of the room. The dancing was stopped temporarily, and the dancers lined up against the walls. Noel, armed with a sheaf of note-paper went the round, tearing off slips and distributing them as ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... Soeur Therese took an ear of corn from a sheaf they had brought her. It was so laden with grain that it bent on its stalk, and after gazing upon it for some time she said to the Mother Prioress: "Mother, that ear of corn is the image of my soul. ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... we halted with a jerk. Ward was lounging in a big chair with a pillow behind his shoulder, and over by the open window where the sun danced along the casement was Cynthia Carper setting a sheaf of roses ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post

... frame of the portico became occupied by a figure, and one so appropriate, in its wig and obsolete habiliments, to the old-world surroundings that it seemed to complete the picture, and I lingered idly to look at it. The barrister had halted in the doorway to turn over a sheaf of papers that he held in his hand, and, as he replaced the red tape which bound them together, he looked up and our eyes met. For a moment we regarded one another with the incurious gaze that casual strangers bestow on one another; then there was a flash of mutual recognition; ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... Chambers stood the old "Wheat Sheaf Inn." It was built with timber to resist the dreaded subsidence, but to no purpose. Money was frequently spent in making good the damage done. One year it had to be raised no less than nine feet! A year after part of the building disappeared, then ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... Burne-Jones drew the figures; H. Dearle, a pupil, and Philip Webb drew backgrounds and animals, but Morris held in his own hands the arrangement of all. It was as though a gardener brought in a sheaf of cut roses and the master hand arranged them. Mr. Dearle directed some compositions with ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... as if a thousand steam-pipes had burst, something unspeakable seemed preparing, yet nothing happened. Some lava lumps were thrown out, to fall back or stick to the rocks, where they slowly died out. All at once a sheaf of fire shot up, tall and glowing, an explosion of incredible fury followed; the sheaf dispersed and fell down in marvellous fireworks and thousands of sparks. Slowly, in a fiery stream the lava flowed back to the bottom. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... or historically. The cure was frequently to be met with, and not sorry to talk with a person better informed than most of his parishioners: it was for Gilbert another field to glean from, and on such occasions he generally managed to bring home a sheaf with him. It was most remarkable to see how well he got on with the Roman Catholic clergy, although his religious opinions were never hidden from them, and his attitude by no means conducive to hopes of conversion; but on the other hand, he was not aggressive, and did not turn ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... flesh. His father noticed in those days that the inner pocket of his coat was stuffed with papers; he would see Lucian walking up and down in a secret shady place at the bottom of the orchard, reading from his sheaf of manuscript, replacing the leaves, and again drawing them out. He would walk a few quick steps, and pause as if enraptured, gazing in the air as if he looked through the shadows of the world into some sphere of glory, feigned by his thought. Mr. Taylor was almost alarmed ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... was roused by a tug at her petticoats. The two-year-old, attracted like some wild animal by her stillness, had scrambled through the railings, and was trying to pull its fat little body up by one hand on to the bench beside her. Its other hand grasped firmly a sheaf of fresh grass. It was clean and pretty, and something in its baby face sent a pang to Audrey's heart. She loosened its chubby fingers, hoping it would toddle away; but it gave a wilful chuckle, and stood ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... dust, and makes these rocks resound, For fortune placed me in unfertile ground; Far from the joys that with my soul agree, From wit, from learning—far, oh far, from thee! Here moss-grown trees expand the smallest leaf, Here half an acre's corn is half a sheaf. Here hills with naked heads the tempest meet, Rocks at their side, and torrents at their feet; Or lazy lakes, unconscious of a flood, Whose dull brown Naiads ever sleep ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various

... samples of the writing of the various typewriters, as you requested," Baker replied, "and I thought that instead of waiting until to-morrow, it would be better to bring them to you to-night." He took a sheaf of papers from his pocket. "There are thirty-two in all. What are you going to do with them?" He placed the ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks

... which has never been surpassed; in painting and sculpture the Early Masters, mystics in poetry and in prose, in music plain chant, in architecture the Romanesque and Gothic styles. And all this held together and blazed in one sheaf, on one and the same altar; all was reconciled in one unique cluster of thoughts: to revere, adore and serve the Dispenser, showing to Him reflected in the soul of His creature, as in a faithful mirror, the still immaculate treasure of ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... her sheaf of correspondence, and singled out one letter. "From dear Lady Latimer," she said, and tore it open. But as she read her countenance became exceedingly irate, and at the end she tossed it over to Miss Hague: "There is ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... reap-ed joys thou art the heavy sheaf Which must be lifted, though the reaper groan; Yea, we may cry till Heaven's great ear be deaf, But we must bear thee, ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... to the edge of the fields and watched the busy reapers. They saw that after each sheaf was bound, and each pile of corn was stacked, a little grain fell, unnoticed, to the ground. Ruth said to Naomi: "Let me go to the field and glean the ears of corn after them." And Naomi said to her, "Go, my daughter." And she went, and came and gleaned ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... had asked those mechanics what they were doing with that railway car they would have seemed to suspect me of meaning that it was my property and that they had stolen it. Or perhaps they would have seemed merely to resent my idle curiosity. If so, why not? When I walk abroad with a sheaf of manuscript in my hand, mechanics do not stop me to ask 'What's that? What's it about? Who's going to publish it?' Nor is this because, times having changed so, they are afraid of seeming to condescend. They always did ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... spread out so daintily in Herrick's "Hesperides." He thought, at first, if I could bear a few roc's eggs beaten up by a mermaid on a dolphin's back, I might be benefited. He decided that a gruel made from a sheaf of Robin Hood's arrows would be strengthening. When suffering pain, "a right gude willie-waught," or a stiff cup of hemlock of the Socrates brand, before retiring, he considered very good. He said he had heard recommended a dose of salts distilled from the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... true kinsmen of the Vikings, the admirals who were famous figures in Dundonald's fiery youth and famous memories in Dundonald's noble age. And as the admirals were, so were the captains, so were the men. Fearney sticking the surrendered swords in a sheaf under his arm; Walton calmly informing his superior that "we have taken or destroyed all the Spanish ships on this coast: number as per margin," are typical figures in a tradition of a courage so superlative ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... only her bruised pride, her bleeding heart, her relentless incorruptible conscience; and over the conclusion, she shed no tears, made no moan, allowed no margin for pity. Early on that Spring morning, she had received a glowing sheaf of La France and Duchess de Brabant roses, accompanied by a brief note announcing Mr. Dunbar's return, and requesting an interview at noon. The tone of her reply was markedly cordial, and after offering congratulations upon his birthday, she begged his acceptance ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... different with the farmer, who tills his own land. He is working to some end. Every tree he cuts, every sheaf he reaps and gathers in, is so much gain to him; and even these pedlars must have a measure of enjoyment when their sales are good. They are gaining their ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... reading and rereading her letter, and presently returned and laid a sheaf of paper ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... house on the list were not at home, so a sheaf of cards were left, and the carriage sped on another mile to Number 2, where the family were discovered superintending the arrangements of bedding-out plants round the front lawn. They greeted the visitors with easy cordiality, consulted them on the knotty question of geraniums ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... in the dining-room, busy with a great sheaf of letters. She gave a quick glance at the chair which Barbara had filled only a moment ago, as if realizing for the first time that she had been ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... it will be the crowning miracle and the fiery scourges will turn into angels' feathers. It is the word of Zechariah fulfilled. 'In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf.'" ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill



Words linked to "Sheaf" :   bale, package, parcel, pack, faggot



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