"Sponge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will be interesting to the visitor to know something of the natural history of the sponge. It has been ascertained, beyond a doubt, that the sponge is an animal that sucks in its food and excretes its superfluities; that certain of its pores imbibe, while others exude; and that according to the relative positions of the two distinct sets ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... been without money. Distinctions had not counted largely in the pioneer world to which I belonged. I was proud of my family. I came of good stock, and knew it and felt it, but now here I was, wet as a sponge and without shelter simply because I had not in my pocket a small piece of silver with ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... admired her for being able to do it, considering the general scramble for Quarrier. But let that take care of itself; meanwhile, their sudden and capricious intimacy had aroused him from the morbid reaction consequent upon the cheap notoriety which he had brought upon himself. Let him sponge his slate clean and begin again a better record, flattered by the solicitude she ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... for any lover of the reasons of things this inordinate value, on the spot, of dauntless refinement of the Sherman image; the comparative vulgarity of the environment drinking it up, on one side, like an insatiable sponge, and yet failing at the same time to impair its virtue. The refinement prevails and, as it were, succeeds; holds its own in the medley of accidents, where nothing else is refined unless it be the amplitude of the 'quiet' note in the front of the Metropolitan ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... we carry the law of the Lord. If it only rests in the memory, any vagrant care may snatch it away. The business of the day may wipe it out as a sponge erases a record from a slate. A thought is never secure until it has passed from the mind into the heart, and has become a desire, an aspiration, a passion. When the law of God is taken into the heart, it is no longer something merely remembered: it is something loved. Now ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... gratitude. They will take places in which they know there is nothing to be done—they will borrow money they know they cannot repay—they will carry on a losing business with other people's capital—they will cheat the public in their shops, or sponge on their friends at their houses; but to say plainly they are poor men, who need the nation's help and go into an almshouse,—this they loftily repudiate, and virtuously prefer being thieves ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... crowd, but at present there is no one at the counter. It is long enough and broad enough for the business of twenty customers at once; so broad that the clerks on the other side are beyond arm's reach. But they have shovels with which to push the gold towards you, and in a small glass stand is a sponge kept constantly damp, across which the cashier draws his finger as he counts the silver, the slight moisture enabling him to sort the coin ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... land bastion protecting Constantinople. Turkey's military situation is thus hopeless, and it is not impossible that before these lines appear in print Turkey will have followed Bulgaria's example and will have thrown up the sponge. ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... itself and carry a storage reservoir underneath the growing crop. Finely pulverizing and packing the seed bed, makes it retain the greatest possible percentage of the moisture that falls, just as a tumbler full of fine sponge or of birdshot will retain many times the amount of water that a tumbler full of buckshot will. The atmosphere quickly drinks up the moisture from the soil unless we Prevent it. This we do by means of a soil "blanket," called a "mulch" This finely pulverized surface largely prevents the moisture ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... next zoophytes, The tribe that dwells upon the confine strange 'Twixt plants and fish; some are there from their mouth Spit out their progeny, and some that breed, By suckers from their base or tubercles, Sea-hedgehog, madrepore, sea-ruff, or pad, Fungus, or sponge, or that gelatinous fish, That taken from its element at once Stinks, melts, and dies a fluid; so from these, Through many a tribe of less equivocal life, Dividual or insect, up I ranged, From sentient to percipient, small advance, Next to intelligent, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... home and got supper, strained and skimmed milk, set a sponge for bread, and slept all night like a dormouse. George Tucker never went ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... understand the management of them, it is much the easiest way. If you arrange every thing with judgment, half a dozen loaves of bread, as many pies or puddings, rusk, rolls or biscuit may be baked at the same time. Some persons knead up their bread over night in winter, to do this, the sponge should be made up at four o'clock in the afternoon. If you wish to put corn flour in your bread, scald one quart of it to six loaves, and work it in the flour that you are going to stir in the rising, to make six loaves ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... the Doctor, "is doubly necessary; to sponge the body every morning with tepid water, and then rub it dry with a rough towel, will greatly contribute to preserve health. To put the feet into warm water for a couple of minutes just before going to bed, is very refreshing, and inviting to sleep; for ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... you. The tender Antoinette would dismiss everything from her memory; you would be less than a cipher for her. She would wipe away your kisses, my dear friend, as indifferently as she would perform her ablutions. She would sponge love from her cheeks as she washes off rouge. We know women of that sort—the thorough-bred Parisienne. Have you ever noticed a grisette tripping along the street? Her face is as good as a picture. A pretty cap, fresh cheeks, trim hair, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the fruit of the orange, like that of the lemon, is extracted at Grasse by rolling the orange over the pricks of an ecueille, an instrument with a hollow handle, into which the oil flows. The oil is sometimes taken up by a sponge. Where the oil is produced in larger quantities, as at Messina, more elaborate apparatus is employed. A less fragrant oil is obtained by distilling the raspings ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... him. Certainly it was true that washing was not one of the most important things in the world to him. In the morning he would lurch out of bed, put on a soiled shirt and trousers, dab his face with a decrepit sponge, take a tiny piece of soap from an old tin box, look at it, rub it on his fingers and put it hurriedly away again as though he were ashamed of it. Sometimes, getting out of bed, he would cry: "Have you heard the latest scandal? About ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... hung before my eyes in a dreadful picture—during the time when it seemed certain that her death in a garret, her burial in a pauper pit six coffins deep, was a hideous truth and no fancy, all the beauty with which Nature seemed at one time clothed was wiped away as by a sponge. The earth was nothing more than a charnel-house, the skies above it were the roof of the Palace of Nin-ki-gal. But now that Snowdon had spoken to me, the old life which had formerly made the world so beautiful and so beloved ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... never yet scheduled despair as a West End liability. But it is a month that puts wrinkles in the right of way clear across the desert and sows gray hairs in the roadmasters' records from McCloud to Bear Dance. That June the mountain streams roared, the foothills floated, the plains puffed into sponge, and in the thick of it all the Spider Water took a man-slaughtering streak and started over the Bad Lands across lots. The big river forced Bucks' hand once more, and to protect the main line Glover, third of the ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... subjects of interest to these wilderness communities, and ever watching, with eagle eye, over the safety of the Tawtry House inmates. He was a simple-hearted fellow, of sterling honesty, and a keen intelligence, that enabled him to absorb information on all subjects that came within his range, as a sponge absorbs water. Although of slender build, his muscles were of iron, his eyesight was that of a hawk, and as a rifle-shot he had no superior among all the denizens of the forest, white or red. During three years of mutual helpfulness, a strong friendship had sprung ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... cross, and, in the growing light, began to regain their confidence, tried to make ridicule of this plaintive ejaculation; but one who noticed His pale and parched lips was touched with pity, and took a stalk of hyssop, which was just long enough to reach the mouth of the Sufferer, and elevating a sponge dipped in vinegar, fulfilled thus unwittingly the ancient prediction, "They gave Me also gall for My meat, and in My thirst they gave Me ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... some of you saying, 'These gloomy views of yours will lead to nothing but absolute despair. You have been telling us that success is impossible; that we are bound to fight, and are sure to be beaten. What are we to do? Throw up the sponge, and say, "Very well! then I may as well have my fling, and give up all attempts to be any better than my passions and my senses would lead me to be."' And if there is nothing more to be said about the fight than has been already ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... isn't quarrelsome in this room, that's all!" said a third speaker, who had hitherto been silent, "because if she is, I shall feel it my duty to give her a taste of Home Rule that she may not appreciate. And if she snores I shall squeeze my sponge over her, so you may tell her what she has to expect. There's nothing like training these youngsters properly ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... birds to be found in the woods of the Bahamas; they include flamingoes and the beautiful hummingbird, as well as wild geese, ducks, pigeons, hawks, green parrots and doves. The waters of the Bahamas swarm with fish; the turtle procured here is particularly fine, and the sponge fishery is of importance. In some islands there are rich salt ponds, but their working has decreased. The portion of Nassau harbour known as the Sea Gardens exhibits an extraordinarily beautiful development ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... the fact that the ground was like a sponge, that the little cart-track, which was the only approach to the house, was filled up with water, and that rain still fell, Mr. Carlyle made his way to the highest point of the moor to look about him. It was not often he could see so fine a sight, ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... she stood thus, looking in timid appeal from one to another of the faces about her. These faces were blank enough as they returned her gaze. The glad expectancy was wiped from them as with a sponge. It was the Master ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... and his eye sought the galley. "Eat more?" he spluttered. "Yesterday the meat was like brick-bats; to-day it tasted like a bit o' dirty sponge. I've lived on biscuits this trip; and the only tater I ate I'm going to see a doctor about direckly I get ashore. It's a sin and a shame to spoil good ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... copper, iron, zinc and coal mines, which have never been developed. In fact, strange as it may appear, none of these valuable mines is worked at all. The vegetable productions have been considered so valuable that in order to cultivate them the minerals have been neglected. There are also extensive sponge fields, which are very valuable, but which have not been touched, owing to several causes, chiefly the lack of capital. The same can also be said of the quarries of white stone, ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... the long procession of miners walking around the room before taking their seats on the benches. At their head was Happy Halliday, who carried in his hands a number of slates, the one on the top having a large sponge attached. These were all more or less in bad condition, some having no frames, while others were mere slits of slate, but all had slate-pencils ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... these circumstances, it is my duty to be considerate toward you, and not to bear too hardly on your small failings. I decline, therefore, altogether to take offense at the tone of your letter; I give you the full benefit of the natural generosity of my nature; I sponge the very existence of your surly communication out of my memory—in short, Chief Inspector Theakstone, I forgive you, ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... drenched, irritable. But now and then the absurdity of my situation overcame me and I laughed. Water ran down my head and off my nose, trickled down my neck under my coat. I felt like a great sponge. And suddenly I ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of town into country through an extensive sponge of suburbs, which was so characteristic a feature of the great cities of the nineteenth century, existed no longer. Nothing remained of it here but a waste of ruins, variegated and dense with thickets of the heterogeneous growths that had once adorned ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... McTeague began his week's work. He glanced in the glass saucer in which he kept his sponge-gold, and noticing that he had used up all his pellets, set about making some more. In examining Miss Baker's teeth at the preliminary sitting he had found a cavity in one of the incisors. Miss Baker had decided to have it filled with gold. McTeague remembered ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... afterwards to discover, was mainly by the force of suggestion. She assumed the absurd premises of modernity, drew her own preposterous conclusions and Jerry drank them in, absorbed them as he did all information, like a sponge. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... the cover was printed in golden letters Practical Handbook of Bee Culture. Only for one instant did the master spy glare at this strangely irrelevant inscription. The next he was gripped at the back of his neck by a grasp of iron, and a chloroformed sponge was held in front of ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... good deal of noise, but Susy, lying on her back in the centre of the big bed, was impervious to sound. Antonia filled the sponge with cold water, and, standing at the foot of the bed, dashed it at Susy. The first application only made the sleeper groan and snore heavily, but at the second she opened her eyes, and at the third ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... of the horses after their companion at last drew her attention. They had not been watered since the previous evening. Cuddling close the frightened baby, the girl fetched a basin and one of the water cans, to sponge out the dusty nostrils of the animals and give each ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... a great many of them," added the surgeon. "The country in this vicinity is like a sponge, it is so full of springs, which feed the great river. The Neckar rises a few miles north of us. We are, therefore, on the summit of the water-shed of Europe; for of two drops of rain which fall side by side near us, one may find its way into the Danube, and be carried down to the Black Sea, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... it was very easy—after we had you out of the way. Like a sensible man, you knew you were licked and threw up the sponge to save yourself unnecessary punishment. It has been my experience that only a very wise man has sense enough to do that; consequently, despite your youth and impetuosity, I seem to see the glimmer of a very brilliant commercial future for ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Right here in Dutchess County we are the consistency of a wet sponge. Rain for five days, and ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... hands and feet. Don't you see the nails?' And the child would say, 'Yes,' and look at the nails very intently. 'The soldiers climbed up by a ladder,' she would say. 'Don't you see the ladder? And by and by, when in his fever he called for some drink, they reached something up to him by a sponge fastened to the end of a long pole. Do you see the pole?' The child would look at all these things, and would get a much more clear and vivid idea of the transaction than it would be possible for so ignorant a mother to communicate to it in any ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... the door closed afore you could wink a'most, and then, while the tramp lay in a corner 'aving brandy, Mrs. Smith got a bowl of water and a sponge and knelt down bathing 'er ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... when they stop firing, and we think the gunners are asleep, crawl out and make for the guns. When we get there we can make our way among them, keeping on the ground so that the sentry cannot see us against the sky; and then with a sponge full of water we can give a squeeze on each of the touchholes, so there would be no chance of their going off till the charges were drawn. Then we could make our way back and tell Gubbins the guns are disabled, and he can take out a party, carry them ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... office by the blandishments of Stalky and McTurk and the extreme rigor of study law. Once installed, he discovered, as others have done before him, that his duty was to do the work while his friends criticized. Stalky christened it the "Swillingford Patriot," in pious memory of Sponge—and McTurk compared the output unfavorably with Ruskin and De Quincey. Only the Head took an interest in the publication, and his methods were peculiar. He gave Beetle the run of his brown-bound, tobacco-scented library; prohibiting nothing, recommending nothing. There Beetle found a ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... became serious again—"and I have heard she was a sister vessel of the other. So much for size and appearance; but every shroud, and port, and sail, about yonder craft, is registered on my back in a way that no sponge will ever wash out." ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... an address, and found that the fragments formed a crucifix, the cross at each side to which the thieves were nailed, the block supporting the crucifix, the block on which the dice were thrown, the sponge and the reed, as if in imitation of a celebrated painting ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... Carolina, a blue ground, bearing a silver crescent, fell on the beach outside the parapet. Sergt. William Jasper, seeing this, leaped on the bastion, walked calmly through the storm of flying missiles, picked up the flag, and fastened it upon a sponge-staff. Then standing upon the highest point of the parapet, in full view of the ships and the men in the fort, he calmly fixed the staff upright, and returned to his place, leaving the flag proudly waving. The next day the governor of the colony visited the fort, and seeking ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the poem in the book. There was a moment's suspense while Conscience and Sheer Wickedness fought the matter out inside him, and then Conscience, which had started on the encounter without enthusiasm, being obviously flabby and out of condition, threw up the sponge. ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... the curiosity of all was strongly excited to know who the murdered man really was who had been so unaccountably inducted in the uniform of their lost companion, they were resolved to satisfy themselves without further delay. A basin of warm water and a sponge were procured from the guard-room of Ensign Fortescue, who now joined them, and with these Captain Blessington proceeded ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... comically knowing a smile, could not but attract attention. Some laughed, some sighed, some stopped to question, many dropped pennies and some put nickels, and even a dime or two into Joey's cap, while one stout and good-humored woman opened the paper bag she carried and put a sponge cake in each hand. But at this point, seeing that the policeman in charge of the crossing had more than once cast a questioning eye upon them, Joey decided to move on. "We'll have ter hurry anyhow," ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... exclaimed suddenly, "that pontoon train is not coming back to camp. Do you see, after moving to the point where it passed through this range, it has turned to the north again and not to the south. Hurrah! Buller is not going to throw up the sponge this time. The Boers have not done with us yet." This indeed was the case. The general, seeing that Railway Hill was too strong to be carried by assault, unless with an enormous loss of life, had caused the river to be reconnoitred some distance farther up, and this ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... old-world villages, with plaster walls and pottery roofs and lichen-covered church spires. By the last day of August all this had disappeared. The loveliest suburbs in Europe had been wiped from the earth as a sponge wipes figures from a slate. Every house and church and windmill, every tree and hedge and wall, in a zone some two or three miles wide by twenty long, was literally levelled to the ground. For mile after mile the splendid trees which lined the highroads ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... which are of course used only in winter, receive outside air at a low temperature, holding little moisture; This it sucks up, like a sponge, from the walls and furniture of a house. If it is taken into the human lungs, it draws much of its required moisture from the body, often causing dryness of lips and throat, and painfully affecting the lungs. Prof. Brewer, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... I said. "The females don't throw up the sponge in their early forties nowadays, like they used to do. In fact far from it. Didn't I see Squire Bellamy's lady riding astride to hounds but yesterday week, in male trousers and a tight coat—and her forty-six if a day? You're ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... to water hanging baskets is to have them so arranged that they may be taken down easily and allowed to soak until thoroughly wet in a tub or pail of water—which will take some time, as the moss will be like a dry sponge. Let them drain until dripping ceases ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... cut a sponge cake in slices, place it in the dish, mix the yolk of an egg with a teacupful of milk, pour it over the cake, then strew two ounces of grated cocoanut over it; next beat the white of the egg to a froth, add a teaspoonful of pounded ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... executed relief (embossed)—the cheaper ones of plain stiff paper similar to drawing paper (these are to be substituted for and used as outline map blanks), the others covered with a durable waterproof surface, that can be quickly cleaned with a damp sponge, adapted to receive a succession of markings and cleansings. Oceans, lakes, and rivers, as well as land, appear in the same color, white, so as to facilitate the use of the map as a ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 17, March 4, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... plotted against their victorious enemy, Peter the Great.[1] Swedish attacks without and popular uprisings within rendered the Polish pan (dubbed among Jews poriz, rowdy or ruffian) as reckless as he was irresponsible. The Jew became for him a sponge to be squeezed for money, and a clown to contribute to his brutal amusements. The subtle and baneful influence of the Jesuits succeeded, besides, in introducing religion into politics and making the Jew the ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... Friends who knew of my inquiries sent me from Maillane, as I have said, information that gave great satisfaction to my naturalist's curiosity. It was accompanied by a measure of haricots which were utterly and outrageously spoiled; every bean was riddled with holes, changed into a kind of sponge. Within them swarmed innumerable weevils, which recalled, by their diminutive size, the lentil-weevil, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... spots, pour upon the article to be cleaned a sufficient quantity of the Magic Annihilator rubbing well with a clean sponge, and applying to both sides of the article you are cleaning. Upon carpets and coarse goods, where the grease is hard and dry, use a stiff brush and wash out with clear cold water. Apply again if necessary. One application is all that is needed for any fresh grease spots, but for ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... that he had forgotten something. It wasn't the spare sponge; it wasn't the extra shaving-brush; it wasn't the second pair of bedroom slippers. Just for a moment the sun went behind a cloud as he wondered if he had included the reserve razor-strop; but no, he distinctly ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... just got to find out that folks aren't going up and down the streets holding out the glad hand. That's what I say, Mr. Jerry, if people feel so friendly inside why don't they show it outside? Gee whiz!" he stopped to squeeze the water out of the big sponge. "Wouldn't it be a great old world if they did, if folks were what Mary Rose ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... flour round from the bottom of the hole you have formed with the hand, till that part of the flour is quite thick and well mixed, though all the rest must remain unwetted; then sprinkle a little flour over the moist part, and cover with a cloth: this is called "sponge," and must be left half an ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... looked very inviting and Betty offered a share most hospitably, and in spite of its only being a quarter before eleven when the feast began, the chicken sandwiches entirely disappeared. There were only four, and half a dozen small sponge-cakes which proved to be ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... you are better than I. You show it in your every action; you turn up your nose at me because I am an American. Well, what if I am? Where would you be if it were not for me? And where would he be? You'd starve if it were not for me. You hang to me like a leech—you sponge on ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... night. Cooler breeze, Bud some better & slept. Sway has badly swollen neck. May be rattler bite or perhaps bee. Bud wanted cigarettes but smoked last the day before he took sick. Gave him more liver pills & sponge off with water every hour. Best can do under circumstances. Have not prospected ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... money, and very little on any other subject. On what other subject could a pleasant votary of pleasure, such as Sir Lionel, wish to hold conversation with a worn-out old miser from the city? He had regarded his brother as a very full sponge, from which living water might probably be squeezed. But the sponge, it seemed, was no longer squeezable by him in any way. So he left Hadley as quickly as he could, and betook himself to Littlebath with a somewhat saddened heart. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... a little spring. He himself drank, and then made a cup of his hand for the woman, so that she might not have to lay down her burden. The gnawl water acted like magic—it seemed to replenish all the cells of his body as though they had been thirsty sponge pores, sucking up liquid. Tydomin ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... magnificence described by his faithful gentleman usher, Cavendish. He would come out of his chamber, we read, about eight o'clock in his cardinal's robes of scarlet taffeta and crimson satin, with a black velvet tippet edged with sable round his neck, holding in his hand an orange filled with a sponge containing aromatic vinegar, in case the crowd of suitors should in commode him. Before him was borne the broad seal of England, and the scarlet cardinal's hat. A sergeant-at-arms preceded him bearing a great mace of silver, and two gentlemen carrying silver plates. At the hall-door ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of the nurses for whom he had pleaded—was bending over the bed with a sponge and a basin of tepid water. As I entered she turned upon me a ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... defects in his work, and then on a paper beside him make a few marks to illustrate what he had said. If the artist had genius enough then to imitate him, well and good; if not, Turner simply went away and left him. His own ways of working were remarkable. He often painted with a sponge and used his thumbnail to "tear up a sea." It mattered little to him how he produced his effects so long as he did it. His impressionistic style confused many of his critics, and it is told how a fine lord once looked at a picture be had made, and snorted: "Nothing but daubs, nothing ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... please—three or four—from the dresser there." A footman brought the towels. She knelt, folded two on her lap, and, resting Raoul's foot there, drew the stocking gently from the wound. "A basin and warm water, not too hot. Polly, you will find a small sponge in the, second drawer . . ." She nodded towards the medicine chest. "One of you, make up a better fire and set on a fresh kettle ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... nitrate of copper in spirits of wine. Light the solution, and it will burn with a beautiful emerald green flame. Pieces of sponge soaked in this spirit, lighted and suspended by fine wires over the stage, produces the lambent green flames now so common in incantation scenes; strips of flannel saturated with it, and applied round copper swords, tridents, &c., produce, when lighted, ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... ask me to pass the sponge over Elmer Moffatt of Apex City? Cut the gentleman when we meet? That the size ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... Linet two grains, of Musk three, of Ambergreece four, and the oyl of Bems a pretty quantity; grinde them all upon a Marble stone fit for that purpose; then with a brush or sponge rake them over, and it will sweeten them very well; your Gloves or Jerkins must first be washed in red Rose-water, and when they are almost dry, stretch them forth smooth, ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous
... keep warm—these were the problems presented. I doubt if there was much washing in cold water before parade, and, as for shaving, I know a portion of the breakfast tea was often used for this purpose. Sponge and shaving brush froze stiff as matters of habit. To secure fuel provided constant occupation and frequent stumbling-blocks. On our arrival most rigid orders had been issued not to burn our neighbours' fences and I am able to say that ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... House-rent, in a prudently chosen situation, need not be high. When I shall have saved one thousand francs, I will take a tenement with one large room, and two or three smaller ones, furnish the first with a few benches and desks, a black tableau, an estrade for myself; upon it a chair and table, with a sponge and some white chalks; begin with taking day- pupils, and so work my way upwards. Madame Beck's commencement was—as I have often heard her say—from no higher starting-point, and where is she now? All these premises and this garden are hers, bought with her ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... distressfulness of the foregoing possibilities, it is time that I returned to my hero. After issuing, overnight, the necessary orders, he awoke early, washed himself, rubbed himself from head to foot with a wet sponge (a performance executed only on Sundays—and the day in question happened to be a Sunday), shaved his face with such care that his cheeks issued of absolutely satin-like smoothness and polish, donned first his bilberry-coloured, spotted frockcoat, and then his bearskin overcoat, descended ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... that she did not venture to taste the Charlotte-Russe, fearing it might turn out to be nothing but sponge-cake and custard, without jelly or whipped cream. But if it was all like this, nobody could complain of it;" and, absorbed in the gratification of her palate, Miss Debby gave her auditor a ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... I begin to steal over to the slate with the sponge in my hand I feel like a murderer. It happens that I go around it for a day or two. Do you know, one day I bit off a finger of my right hand so as not to draw any more, but that, of course, was only a trifle, for I started to learn drawing with my ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... fascinating hour in the "Mouse Trap" is in the late afternoon, when no one is there, and the ebony hand-maiden in the big back kitchen is taking the fat, delicious-smelling cakes from the oven. Drop in some afternoon and sniff the fragrance that suggests your childhood and "sponge-cake day." You will feel that it is a trap no sane mouse would ever think of leaving! On a table beside you is a slate with, obviously, the ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... Yes, success at any price. 'Bravo,' said I to myself, 'here is the sort of fellow for me.' You wanted money. Where was it all to come from? You have drained your sisters' little hoard (all brothers sponge more or less on their sisters). Those fifteen hundred francs of yours (got together, God knows how! in a country where there are more chestnuts than five-franc pieces) will slip away like soldiers after pillage. ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... of few words and many deeds. He leaped through an embrasure, walked the whole length of the fort in a heavy fire from the ships, caught up the flag, brought it safely back, and fastened it to a sponge-staff. Then, in the midst of cheers,—in which I fancy the British also joined,—he fastened the rescued banner upon the bastion. The following day the Governor came to the fort, asked for Sergeant Jasper, presented him with his own sword, and ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... great whistle. He then realized that for some time he had been vaguely aware of kindling and stove sounds. The bare little room had become bitterly cold. A gray-blackness represented the world outside. He lighted his glass lamp and took a hasty, shivering sponge bath in the crockery basin. Then he felt better in the answering glow of his healthy, straight young body; and a few moments later was prepared to enjoy a fragrant, new-lit, somewhat smoky fire in the big stove outside his door. The bell ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... disc—probably cloud-scuds sustained by a highly rarefied atmosphere—permitted only a very dreamy idea of lofty mountains stretching beneath them in shapeless proportions, of smaller reliefs, circuses, yawning craters, and the other capricious, sponge-like formations so common on the visible side. Elsewhere the watchers became aware for an instant of immense spaces, certainly not arid plains, but seas, real oceans, vast and calm, reflecting from their placid depths the dazzling fireworks of ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... can't come and stay with you, you know," she said as she rose in response to the gong which was now summoning her. "I'm simply crazy to stay at Artemis Lodge, but I couldn't sponge on a perfectly absolutely strange girl." Then fearing that this might sound ungracious, she added hastily, "Though there isn't anyone I'd like to ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... of my lights and started with stiffening fingers to fumble at the valves of my gas tank. When reaching into my trouser pockets for matches, I was struck with the astonishing degree to which my furs had been soaked in these few minutes. As for wetness, the fog was like a sponge. At last, kneeling in the buggy box, I got things ready. I smelt the gas escaping from the burner of my bicycle lantern and heard it hissing in the headlight. The problem arose of how to light a match. I tried various places—without ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... he said to my grandmother. "Fetch me a drop o' water and a sponge, Miss Bawn. The cut's not a deep one. There's nothin' wrong with his Lordship, and we needn't frighten the life out o' him, wirrasthruin', when he comes back to himself. Don't tell any ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... and sponges attached, going over the floor at a swift rate, scouring and sponging dry as it went. Two vessels, one containing soap suds and the other clear water, were connected by small feed pipes with the brushes. As soon as the drying sponge became saturated, it was lifted by an ingenious yet simple contrivance into a vessel and pressed dry, and was again ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... to about five-eighths of an inch and five-thirty-seconds of an inch deep. When I get to the ends of the back I loosen the wood, and use the file more freely at the end of the bench. But this is a matter left entirely to the workman. When this is nicely done, I wet a sponge and damp all I have gone over, surface and edge alike, and let it thoroughly dry, and when it is so, I employ medium cut file 63, half round, seven-eighths of an inch broad, and make the edge of the wood clean, and so even all round, that my first finger or thumb passes over the surface without ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... was just day-break, and time to prepare for the morning prayer before sun rise, the officer who stood nearest to the head of the bed put a sponge steeped in vinegar to Abou Hassan's nose, who immediately turning his head about, without opening his eyes, discharged a kind of phlegm, which was received in a little golden basin before it fell on the carpet. This was the usual effect of the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... was holding the pen between his thumb and the palm. I have seen thousands slain in battle, and assisted at every conceivable surgical operation, but I cannot recall any sight which gave me such a thrill of disgust as that great brown sponge-like hand with the single member protruding from it. He used it skilfully enough, however, for, dashing off his signature, he nodded to the clerk and strolled out of the office just as Mr. White sent out word that he was ready to ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... made matters worse, and after a few more wretched months during which his farm deteriorated, and his business went still further to wreck, owing largely to his own distress of mind, Brand threw up the sponge. He sold his small remaining interest in his farm, which did not even suffice to pay his debts, and went out of it a bankrupt and broken man, prematurely aged. A neighbouring squire, indignant with what was commonly supposed to be the secret influences at work in the affair, offered him the ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the house a pin fastening the back of her print gown had become inextricably entangled in the maze amid which she moved, and fearing Willie's wrath if she should sunder her fetters she had been forced to stand captive and helplessly witness a newly made sponge cake burn to a crisp in the oven. She had hoped the ignominious episode would not reach the outside world; but as Wilton was possessed of a miraculous power for finding out things the story filtered through the ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... plan is to damp the back of the stuff with a wet sponge. The work, instead of being nailed on to a board, may just as well be laced to a frame by the tape. In the case of raised embroidery there must be between it and the wood, not a cloth merely, but a layer ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... almost invariably composed of Estelle Foote, a successful rival in a class candidacy for the sponge-and-basin monitorship; Sydney Prothero, infallible of spitball aim; Miss Lare with her spectacles very low on her nose and a powdering of chalk dust down her black alpaca; Flora Kemble with infinitely fewer friendship bangles on her silver ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... the bully. "I'll tell yer, Mr. Slate, you're covered with bad marks what I don't like, an' I'm just the sponge to wipe ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... on her knees packing a trunk, and her husband was telephoning to the drug-store for a sponge-bag and a ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... morning, the starry sky—or so it seemed, for the drowsy watchman had not observed the approach of any cloud—brimmed over in a deluge; and for three days it rained without remission. The islet was a sponge, the castaways sops; the view all gone, even the reef concealed behind the curtain of the falling water. The fire was soon drowned out; after a couple of boxes of matches had been scratched in vain, it was decided to wait for better weather; and the ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... tempered, and that the better it was tempered the more compact it would become; the size of the pores being made, of course, less in the same proportion. Well, then, I saw the reason I was in search of, at once. For we know a wet sponge is longer in drying than a wet piece of green wood, because the pores of the first are bigger. A seasoned or shrunk piece of wood dries quicker than a green ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... well understood by them all. She was anxious enough to submit to her new master, and she felt that the time was coming. Her mother had yielded so much, and Mountjoy had yielded. Harry was saying to himself at this very moment that Mountjoy had thrown up the sponge. She, too, was declaring the same thing for her own comfort in less sporting phraseology, and, what was much more to her, her mother had nearly thrown up the sponge also. In the worse days of her troubles any ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope |
