"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... themselves of pretty good metal, in that not even Happy Tack, confirmed pessimist that he was, ever put the least suspicion of Luck's honesty into words. They were not the kind to decry a comrade when his back was turned. And they had worked with Luck Lindsay and had worked ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... mustn't talk like that, you've nearly cracked his skull as it is. Don't you go on that tack, or it'll ...
— Sarreo - 1901 • Louis Becke
... A.M. next day and breakfasted on porridge, weka, fried heart, "hard-tack" and cocoa. Leaving the hut shortly afterwards we climbed on to the hills and travelled south for several miles in order to fix the position of some lakes and creeks. There was one lake in the vicinity about half ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the handle of the Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the carpet, the ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... they went along the shore, until the wind began to change and carry them out into the lake. Here the ice was, however, far from safe, and they began to tack back. ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... through the streets. When the hoarse reverberations of the thunder, a hundred times re-echoed, lost themselves in the distance, there was heard the soughing of the wind as it drove the raindrops with a continuous tick-tack against the concha-panes of the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... floating menagerie. Twice a day the bugles sounded the call for breakfast and dinner, and the soldiers ceased to sprawl, and squatted on the deck around square tin cans filled with soup or red wine, from which they fed themselves with spoons and into which they dipped their rations of hard tack, after first breaking them on the deck with a blow from a bayonet or crushing them ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers. Redcoats. Too showy. That must be why the women go after them. Uniform. Easier to enlist and drill. Maud Gonne's letter about taking them off O'Connell street at night: disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith's paper is on the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or halfseasover empire. Half baked they look: hypnotised like. Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed: ed. The King's own. Never see him dressed up as a fireman or a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... "He describes a ship at sea, bound for the port of Heaven, when the man at the head sung out, 'Rocks ahead!' 'Port the helm,' cried the mate. 'Ay, ay, sir,' was the answer; the ship obeyed, and stood upon a tack. But in two minutes more, the lead indicated a shoal. The man on the out-look sung out, 'Sandbreaks and breakers ahead!' The captain was now called, and the mate gave his opinion; but sail where they could, the lead ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... we first of all reach our conclusions. That is the starting-point. Then, amazed at our own temerity in doing so, we hasten to tack on a few reasons as a kind of apology to ourselves for our own intrepidity, a tardy concession to intellectual decency and good order. But whether we recognize it or not, we do most things because. As Pascal told us long ago, 'the heart has reasons which the reason does not know. It is the heart ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... dignity—what is known in England as 'respectability'—struggling with poverty. Perhaps the ancient clock, whose worm-eaten case reaches from the floor to the ceiling, and whose muffled but cheery tick-tack is like the voice of an old friend, impressed me in favour of this poor home as soon ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... knew to be incorrigible. The sons-in-law muttered, and the brothers glanced at their wives with mocking smiles. From that moment every one ceased to take any interest in the haughty girl's prospects of marriage. Her old uncle was the only person who, as an old sailor, ventured to stand on her tack, and take her broadsides, without ever troubling ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... stigmatized the Bolshevists as cutthroats; one had pledged itself never to have relations with them, but the Prinkipo invitation bespoke a resolve to cancel these judgments and declarations and change their tack as an improvement on doing nothing at all. The scheme was also an error in substance, because the sole motive that could warrant it was the hope of reconciling the warring parties. And that hope was doomed to disappointment ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... star twinkle or a blade of grass sharpen itself I could compose myself to rest. I thought once that I heard a sound like the sail of a catboat flapping as it veered about in a breeze, but I decided that it was probably only a tack in the carpet. ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... of bells, Tabors, or signals made from castled heights, And with inventions multiform, our own, Or introduc'd from foreign land; but ne'er To such a strange recorder I beheld, In evolution moving, horse nor foot, Nor ship, that tack'd by sign from land ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... reason why the legs appear too long. To correct this, take your needle and thread, fasten the end round the bone inside, and then push the needle through the skin just opposite to it; look on the outside, and after finding the needle amongst the feathers, tack up the thigh under the wing with several strong stitches. This will shorten the thigh and render it quite capable of supporting the weight of the body ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... order in ahead of yours, and these refreshments is going through by express. I've raised your ante. Money no object, understand? I'll boost the price again if I have to, and keep on boosting it.' Then he warned me not to start anything or he'd tack two letters onto the front of my name. He'd do it, too. I took it on the run, and here ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... lineman in question carefully unpacked his bag of tools. His first efforts were directed toward the steel transom which covered the trapdoor opening out on the roof. This, he discovered with a grunt of disappointment, resisted even his short, curved steel lever, pointed at one end, like a gigantic tack-drawer. Restoring this lever to the bottom of his leather tool-bag, he made his way to the southeast corner of the building, where a tangle of insulated wires, issuing from the roof beneath his feet, merged into one compact cable, which, in turn, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... but-habit. Frequent recurrence of but makes the reader's thought "tack" or change its course too often. There are ways to avoid an excessive use of but and however. When one wishes to write about two things, A and B, which are opposed, he need not rush back and forth from one idea to the other. Let him first say all he wants to say ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... example is useful, as illustrating to the eye how a decrease of extension is accompanied by an increase of intension. At each step of the descent here we visibly tack on a fresh attribute. [Footnote: This example is ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... We go tack to look a little at the fortunes of the Meeker family. Twenty-three years have passed since we introduced it to the reader, on the occasion of Hiram's birth. Time has produced his usual tokens. Mr. Meeker is already ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the commissary. They had an abundance of food, however, but began to feel the want of bread. I remember that in passing around to the left of the line on the 21st, a soldier, recognizing me, said in rather a low voice, but yet so that I heard him, "Hard tack." In a moment the cry was taken up all along the line, "Hard tack! Hard tack!" I told the men nearest to me that we had been engaged ever since the arrival of the troops in building a road over which to supply them with everything they needed. The cry was instantly changed to cheers. By the ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... were a plucky and a able young feller, by the name of Graham, and he kep' her a-dancin' as well as the old man would have done. Constant she had everythin' put to her that she'd bear, and always were she kep' on the tack where she'd make the most westin', and so she struggled along till we was as far as thirty degrees west, we bein' thirty days out and not yet half way. Every day we asked the steward how old Wiggins were a-gittin' on, and every day he'd shake his head and say 'no better;' and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... as strong as an oak knot, and you are, too; no, we can't make them think we are in need of a month in Wyoming. We shall have to try another tack. Now, there is no doubt that if we spend the month of September putting in extra work on our studies, we can stand the following month in laying off. We shall come back with new vigor and appetite, and soon catch ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... superjunction[obs3], superfetation; accession, reinforcement; increase &c. 35; increment, supplement; accompaniment &c. 88; interposition &c. 228; insertion &c. 300. V. add, annex, affix, superadd[obs3], subjoin, superpose; clap on, saddle on; tack to, append, tag; ingraft[obs3]; saddle with; sprinkle; introduce &c. (interpose) 228; insert &c. 300. become added, accrue; advene[obs3], supervene. reinforce, reenforce, restrengthen[obs3]; swell the ranks of; augment &c. 35. Adj. added &c. v.; additional; supplemental, supplementary; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... to tack it over this here hole in the bulwarks where the tide swung her up against the quay-end." Captain Jacka showed him ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... missile struck the water far short of the mark, ricocheted along the surface a few hundred yards farther, and finally exploded, throwing up a cloud of spray, but doing no harm to the brig, which never loosened tack or sheet, but held gallantly on her way. A moment after the shrapnel exploded, her flag—the old flag—fluttered out from under the lee of her spanker, and little puffs of smoke arose from her port quarter. Some of her crew ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... it is enough sight easier getting wives than housekeepers, and I'm some of a mind to try that tack," replied Captain ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... accident," shouted the other, suddenly off on another tack. "It was awful. Trina was in the swing there—that's my cousin Trina, you know who I mean—and she fell out. By damn! I thought she'd killed herself; struck her face on a rock and knocked out a front tooth. It's a wonder ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... to claim her for his wife. On the dresser stood a small photograph of him in a cheap frame; tacked over the head of the bed was a larger portrait. A small bow of dainty blue ribbon at the top covered the tack, and underneath was a bunch of violets, now withered, but a silent and touching tribute to ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... was certainly surprising that Mary had not married. Lady Tranmore's thoughts were running on this tack when of a sudden her eyes were caught by the placard of ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the morning, on a breeze springing up at S. W. by S., we stretched south-eastward; and a vessel having been observed over night off Indian Head, this tack was prolonged till seven o'clock; when seeing nothing of her, we stood back for the Spit, and coasted close along its east side as before, in from 10 to 5 fathoms water. At forty minutes after noon we passed over the tail of the Spit, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... Yell; in the island of Whalsay, held by Messrs. Hay & Co. from Mr. Bruce of Simbister; on the Gossaburgh estate, in Yell and Northmaven, held by them from Mrs. Henderson Robertson; and in Skerries, of which Mr. Adie has a tack from Mr. Bruce. On other estates the tenants are nominally free, although it may sometimes be doubtful how far they are able to exercise ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... he said, resuming his seat in the bow. "So Thinkright wants you to forgive everybody; love everybody, eh? I know that's his tack." ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... Walter, quietly approaching them. Before getting any fun out of him it was necessary to see what kind of boy he was; and as Jones hardly knew what line to take, he began on the commonest and most vulgar tack of catechising him about his family ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... Frenchmen. Being to leeward, and desirous of obtaining the weather-gage, as the safest situation for his own ship, he carried a heavy press of sail, and in the night of the 14th, having stretched on, as he thought, sufficiently for that purpose, put the Loire on the same tack as they were. About two A.M., it being then exceedingly dark, he found himself so near one of the largest ships as to hear the officer of the watch giving his orders. As the noise of putting about would have discovered the Loire's situation, Captain ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... head," said King Charles; "they don't understand that sort of thing out there, and, besides, the idea is not original. Didn't Livingstone try that tack?" ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... the wrong tack altogether. I'm not a criminal. All your moralizings have no value for me. I don't believe in morality. I'm ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... a joke. The head of each hammer so used is a magnet, and is used to pick the tacks from the mouth of the banner man. The tack sticks to the head of the hammer and is thus ready to be driven. An expert banner man will drive tacks almost as rapidly as you ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... a couple of points. We'll come about presently and fetch the creek on the other tack, just after dark, and with the ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... She cares no more about shorthand than she does about county courts. It's all part of her craze to tack herself on that lot. She's setting her cap at him while she's making up to his ma; any flat might see that; but she's got to jack up the whole boiling now—there. We needn't say any more ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... been a lovely mornin' on the water. William thought he'd better fetch across beyond Bird Rocks, rowin' the greater part o' the way; then we sailed from there right over to the landin', makin' only one tack. William'll be in again for me to-morrow, so I can come back here an' rest me over night, an' go to meetin' to-morrow, and have a ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... thumb and forefinger, and begin to roll the rope just as a watch spring is coiled. With a needle and fine thread of raffia, make the button firm; then keep on coiling around the button and, as each row is added, tack it to the preceding row by pushing the needle in and out at right angles with the braid, so that the stitch may be invisible. When finished the mat should be about four inches in diameter. The object of winding the plait sideways is to give ...
— Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools • Virginia McGaw
... the sea, So hard-a-port upon your lee! A ship on starboard tack! She's bound upon a private cruise— (This is the kind of spice I use To give a ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... bark of the fox in place of the lion's roar, and good food in place of 'hard tack,' and perhaps the attentions of a suspicious keeper instead of a surprise attack by wild men of the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... eaten the refreshments which Frank had brought with him, they started for home. As the wind blew from the main shore, they were obliged to "tack," and the Speedwell again showed some fine sailing, and when the Champion entered the creek, she was ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... of getting away from the idea of its being a joke. Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right arm and tested his muscle. "Not very much," he said, "but enough to drive a tack or two." That brought applause and they drew closer together, and the atmosphere warmed perceptibly. "I've fought for the State in more ways than one,"—Senator Arnold was a distinguished veteran of the Civil War—"and ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... till it turned, and gave deep water everywhere between the banks of the inlet. King Edward used the interval to array his fleet and get it into position for the dash into the river. His ships stood out to sea on the starboard tack, a brave sight with the midsummer sun shining on the white sails, the hundreds of banners glowing with red, blue, white, and gold, the painted shields hanging on poop and bulwark. On the raised bows and sterns of the larger ships barons and knights ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... really seemed to be pursuing the King Solomon; approaching it on one tack, it made every effort to come alongside, but was constantly baffled by the force of the waves which, like a stronger power, constantly tossed the two ships apart, and if they were within gunshot of each other at one moment, separated them the ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... vicinity, and the reports which reached us that matters were now progressing favorably on the rest of the field, reassured us. We were becoming quite easy in mind. I had always made it a rule to keep a supply of sugar and some hard tack in my haversack, ready for an emergency. It stood me in good stead just then, for I alone had something besides fighting for lunch. I nibbled my hard tack, and ate my sugar with comfort and satisfaction, for I don't believe three men of our regiment were hurt by this artillery fire ...
— "Shiloh" as Seen by a Private Soldier - With Some Personal Reminiscences • Warren Olney
... Katherine. "But say, would you mind writing out what you told me? I'll never remember it if you don't. You write it out and I'll tack it up and check off the items as ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... direction; but that infernal Internationale is doing a deal of mischief. There is not a trades-unionist in the country who does not know what is going on in France. A handful of irresponsible madmen trying to tack themselves on to the workmen's association—well, surely the men will have more sense than to listen. The congres ouvrier to change its name, and to become the congres revolutionnaire! When I first went to Jackson, Molyneux, and the others, I found ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... left. Of course I had to write my little copy of verses with the rest; here it is, if you will hear me read it. When the sun is in the west, vessels sailing in an easterly direction look bright or dark to one who observes them from the north or south, according to the tack they are sailing upon. Watching them from one of the windows of the great mansion, I saw these ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... or look; not so Hilton Fenley, who behaved as if it were the most natural thing in the world that he should be tracked to his friends' residence and made to explain his comings and goings during the day. Swayed by a subconscious desire to nettle his victim into protest, Winter tried a new tack. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... using marking ink or a regulation tag. If a tag, tack with small tacks on the top of the box. Write your own name and address on the tag distinctly as the sender. Be as careful of the tacks as you were of the nails. Always get a receipt from your express agent if shipping by express as this will be necessary ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... on the wrong tack, and hastened to interrogate him respecting his relations with our adversaries. He frankly admitted his acquaintance with rattery in all its branches, and his ability to deliver the city from this scourge, but his attitude towards your Holiness was so deficient in respect that ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... or change of peace or pain; For Fortune's favour or her frown; For lack or glut, for loss or gain, I never dodge, nor up nor down: But swing what way the ship shall swim, Or tack about ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... here to you? or do you contemplate going to him? In short, what is your intention in writing with all this affection to a man from whom you have separated yourself?" Upon this view of her epistle, which did not appear to have struck her, M. de la Forest said, she would (instead of rewriting it) tack on to it, with the most ludicrous inconsistency, a sort of revocatory codicil, in the shape of a postscript, expressing her decided desire that her husband should remain where he was, and her own explicit determination never again to enter ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... watch and do his trick. My orders shall be obeyed smartly. You savvy, "smartly"? There shall be no growling about the kaikai, which will be above allowance. You'll put a handle to the mate's name, and tack on "sir" to every order I give you. If you're smart and quick, I'll make this ship comfortable for all hands.' He took the cigar out of his mouth. 'If you're not,' he added, in a roaring voice, 'I'll make it a floating hell. ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and wiped her eye And ran o'er hill and dale, oh. And tried what she could As a shepherdess should, To tack to each ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... discovered America, but when he was discovering it! You may be quite sure that he reached the culminating point of his happiness three days before he saw the New World with his actual eyes, when his mutinous sailors wanted to tack about, and return to Europe! What did the New World matter after all? Columbus had hardly seen it when he died, and in reality he was entirely ignorant of what he had discovered. The important thing is life—life and nothing else! What is ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... her knees, her calico dress sleeves, patched and darned, but absolutely clean, rolled back, uncovering a pair of plump, strong arms, a saucer of tacks before her, and a tack hammer with a claw head in her hand. She was taking up the carpet. Grace Van Horne, Captain Eben Hammond's ward, who had called to see if there was anything she might do to help, was removing towels, ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... perceived that the door was ajar, and that on an envelope attached with a tack to one of the panels was the name "Elmer M. Moon" He pushed the door a little farther ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... the change in the following note:—"'Rapid,' indeed;—he topographised and typographised King Priam's dominions in three days. I called him 'classic' before I saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what don't ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... different tack. There the Rev. James Maury, Jefferson's field school teacher and hard-pressed father of 11 children, sued the vestry of Fredericksville Parish for his salary. The county court upheld his right to sue for claims and called for a jury trial ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... Italian stock was begun the language of the seas. Upon the Italian main the words "tack" and "sheet," "prow" and "poop," were first heard; and those most important terms by which the law of the marine highway is given,—"starboard" and "larboard." For if, after the Italian popular ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... and russet sails from the ripe trees in the landscape, the heavy old colliers, light in ballast, floundering down before the tide, the light screw barks and schooners imperiously holding a straight course while the others patiently tack and go about, the yachts with their tiny hulls and great white sheets of canvas, the little sailing-boats bobbing to and fro on their errands of pleasure or business, and—as it is the nature of little people to do—making a prodigious ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... do you think o' that?" ejaculated Martha. "Nobody didn't seem to like nothin' in that combination, did they? You was the only one in the whole outfit that showed any tack." ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... herself not to burst out sobbing. She extended her hands, desirous of easing the child, and as the shred of a sheet was falling, she wished to tack it up and arrange the bed. Then the dying girl's poor little body was seen. Ah! Mon Dieu! what misery! What woe! Stones would have wept. Lalie was bare, with only the remnants of a camisole on her shoulders by ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... desired and obtained a child. During these years he would often stick pins through his mammae and tie them together by a string round the pins drawn so short as to cause great pain and then indulge himself in the sexual act. He used strong wooden clips with a tack fixed in them, so as to pierce and pinch the mammae, and once he drove a pin entirely through the penis itself, then obtaining orgasm by friction. He was never able to get an automatic emission in this way, though he often tried, not even by walking ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the young gentlemen's nearest relations, and urged on by their blind vanity and ill-considered haste, it would have been strange if Doctor Blimber had discovered his mistake, or trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... was not there. Probably it had been taken forrard when the decks were washed, to give it a scrub. So, as there was no one on the poop, I left the wheel, and stepped aft to the taffrail. It was thus that I came to see something altogether unthought of—a full-rigged ship, close-hauled on the port tack, a few hundred yards on our starboard quarter. Her sails were scarcely filled by the light breeze, and flapped as she lifted to the swell of the sea. She appeared to have very little way through the water, certainly not more ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... in camp, with officers or men, and am always well used. Sometimes I go down on picket with the regiments I know best. As to rations, the army here at present seems to be tolerably well supplied, and the men have enough, such as it is, mainly salt pork and hard tack. Most of the regiments lodge in the flimsy little shelter-tents. A few have built themselves huts of ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... anchor and hoisted his sails; his boat had one mast, a main-sail and a jib. There was only a light breeze, and therefore she did not move on the surface at more than the rate of two miles an hour; but it was found that she would tack and steer, and sail on a wind or before it as well as any common sail-boat. He then struck her masts and sails; to do which, and to perfectly prepare the boat for plunging, required about two minutes. Having plunged to a certain depth he ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... extended part and tack to the hood. Sew a pompon or a rosette of yarn over the top of the sewing stitch. For tie-strings, use cord and tassel, ...
— Spool Knitting • Mary A. McCormack
... consulted only my own wishes, I should not have allowed this hasty at tack on Dr. Todd to have made its appearance in this Collection; being now fully convinced that the charge brought against that reverend gentleman of intending to pass off as genuine his famous mock Papal Letter was altogether ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... after our departure, while beating out of the bay of Biscay with a six-knot breeze, in a clear moonlight, we ran foul of a vessel which approached us on the opposite tack. Whence she sprang no one could tell. In an instant, she appeared and was on us with a dreadful concussion. Every man was prostrated on deck and all our masts were carried away. From the other vessel we heard shrieks and a cry ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of me," I thought. "I won't bite." So I looked him straight in the eye and unblushingly answered that I couldn't use one if I tried and hoped he didn't want me to learn, as I was sure I'd only make a mess of it. He seemed rather relieved at that and later in the afternoon, when I heard the "tick-tack" of his machine drifting out from the room in which he had locked himself, I began to wonder just what he had ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... have seen him, from afar off, walk the quarter-deck with the other officers, a cigar in his mouth, after a good meal, while we in the forecastle had our salt fish, and broke our teeth with worm-eaten hard-tack." ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... Shilka, which runs into the Amur at the Pokrovskaya Stanitsa. The river is not broader than the Psyol, it is even narrower. The shores are stony: there are crags and forests. It is absolutely wild.... We tack about to avoid foundering on a sandbank, or running our helm into the banks: steamers and barges often do so in the rapids. It's stifling. We have just stopped at Ust-Kara, where we have landed five or six convicts. There are mines ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... was on the wrong tack. Your wife's an honest woman, on my word of honor! And now, my little friend, you must go home to ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... was going on the opposite tack to ours, so that when at last we crossed her we seemed so near that one might have hailed; but in obedience to the master's wish we passed on in silence, so as to let him enjoy the triumph of over-sailing the bigger vessel, and then hailing ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... tack, just as it's wanted. But there was Moffat, yesterday, in a room behind the milliner's shop near Cuthbert's Gate; I was with him. The woman's husband is one of the choristers and an elector, you know, and Moffat went to look for his vote. Now, there was ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... was woven of every color, in every form, but without any definite figure, and promised to be another puzzle for my curious eyes to unravel; it seemed to have been just thrown down with here and there a tack in it, only serving to make it look more awry. While amusing myself with this carpet, it recalled an incident that a roguish cousin of mine once related to me after he had been to see Aunt Polly, connected with this parlor, which she always called her "square-room!" ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... himself as in the right, and animated by the noblest intentions, though misunderstood, and thus further enhances his self-esteem; but sometimes he takes the other tack and pictures himself as wicked—but as very, very wicked, a veritable desperado. It may be his self-esteem has been wounded by blame for some little meanness or disobedience, and he restores it by imagining himself a great, ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... Ben Jonson, which too I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man of war. Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all sides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness of his ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... such swell quarters in New York, March," Fulkerson said, as he went tack-tacking down the steps with his small boot-heels. "But I've got my eye on a little house round in West Eleventh Street that I'm going to fit up for my bachelor's hall in the third story, and adapt for 'The Lone Hand' in the first and second, if this thing goes through; and I guess we'll be pretty ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... though his efforts never slack, And though he twist, and twirl, and tack, Alas! still faithful to his back The ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... westward again: but it is only to return on the opposite tack; and now begin a series of manoeuvres, each fleet trying to get the wind of the other; but the struggle does not last long, and ere noon the English fleet have slipped close-hauled between the Armada and the land, and are coming down upon them right ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... sails to have the wind on their quarter, as the sun shone full in their faces, which they considered might be of disadvantage to them, and stretched out a little, so that at last they got the wind as they wished. The Normans, who saw them tack, could not help wondering why they did so, and said they took good care to turn about, for they were afraid of meddling with them. They perceived, however, by his banner, that the King was on board, which gave them great joy, as they were eager to fight with him; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... became useless at the outset; whilst several others were kindled a mile and a half to the windward of this, or four miles and a half from the enemy. Of the remainder, many were at once rendered harmless from being brought to on the wrong tack. Six passed a mile to windward of the French fleet, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... if Imogen Young has any faculty at that sort of thing. I'm sure it's a great deal more promising than the Hut was before Clarence and Geoff and I took hold of it. See, Elsie,—this room is done. I think Miss Young will choose it for her bedroom, as it is rather the largest; so you might tack up the dotted curtains here while I sweep the other rooms. And that convolvulus chintz is ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... a mon Ay'st talk wy ye a bit, yeow mun tack a care o your sells, the plecs haunted with Buggarts, and Witches, one of 'em took my Condle and Lanthorn out of my hont, and flew along wy it; and another Set me o top o'th tree, where I feel dawn now, Ay ha well neegh ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... nice! I often wonder why men tie themselves up to a wife when they might be free to move about like you, and see the world. What does a man want to tack a wife on to him when he can always carry her image about?" She ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... by eight o'clock; then lashed the wheel and let her take care of herself while I got steam up in the donkey and hauled in my spanker and mainsail; then I slacked off my foreyard and topsail yards, hove her to on the port tack, hung three red lights on the forestay to show she wasn't under command, set my alarm clock and turned in. I have to smile at the ease with which one man—provided he is a sizable man and able to stand strain—can sail ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... back and displayed the wood—good, sound, dryer than bones; he pointed to the threatening heavens, and declared that it would snow that night, and on the morrow I could not get wood for twice the present price; but I laughed incredulously. Then my captain took another tack, and tried to make the contract in obsolete currencies, in Austrian pounds, in Venetian pounds, but as I inexorably reduced these into familiar money, he paused desperately, and made me an offer which I accepted with mistaken exultation. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... was as sudden as it was unexpected. To his surprise he observed that the schooner's head was immediately thrown up into the wind, and all her sails shook for a few moments, then, filling out again, the vessel bent gracefully over on the other tack. With returning joy the castaway saw her run straight towards him. In a few minutes she was alongside, and her ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... to, it had taken some fine management on the part of the midshipmen to keep the sailboat from capsizing. And now, on this rough, wave-strewn river, they had to tack back against a nearly ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... now began to find the uproar in the elements, for numbers, both of sea and land kinds, came on board of us. I took notice of some, which happening to be to leeward, turned to windward, like a ship, tack and tack; for they could not fly against it. When they came over the ship they dashed themselves down upon the deck, without attempting to stir till picked up, and when let go again, they would not leave the ship, but endeavoured to hide ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... When Selina took this tack, of course her sisters were silenced. They quited her a little, and then went down and searched the ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... a powerful one, of the semi-rotary type, and they had nearly two miles of smoother water before they stretched out of the bay upon the other tack. When they did so, Carroll, glancing down again through the scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced the water. It was comforting, however, to see that it had not increased, though he did not expect that state of affairs to last. When they drove out into broken water, he found ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... there come along last week a ranger and started to tack up a sign bold as brass that read: 'Property of the United ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... are not tied this way, most of them are broken off by the wind. After the grafts are set, I cover with a paper milk bottle, or rather, container, and cut four small holes in it for ventilation. It sheds the rain well. I use a small tack on two sides. The containers usually stay there until removed when the graft starts. This method works much better than paper bags, as they are easily water-soaked and the wind blows them against the scion, which is easily loosened and therefore ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... York came for Aileen. Mrs. Champney tried another tack: the next time her nephew came to Flamsted, later on in the autumn, she asked him to write her in detail concerning his intimacy with her cousins, the Van Ostends, and of their courtesies to him. Champney, nothing loath—always keeping in mind the ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tack'd together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that's all one; they'll find ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... shrillest laugh. "Behind the coffin as Chief Mourner, I suppose. And you'll tack on the orthodox black sleeve-band, and look out for Number Two. And choose the ordinary kind, who funks raw-head and all the rest of it, for the next venture. But I prophesy you'll be bored. It's settled about Sheila and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... attornies; but it is impossible to say of him, as of his sirloin of a wife (for she cannot be called a rib, or at all events a spare rib) that there is any thing like cut and come again. The poor worn-out Exquisite tack'd himself to his Lady, to enable him to wipe out a long score, and she determined on taking him for better for worse, after a little rural felicity in a walk to have her fortune told by a gipsy at Norwood. He is now ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... name. Because the law, which is always rigid and sometimes stupid, says that a man who takes that which does not belong to him is a thief, you've got your mind fixed on the name 'thief,' and the idea of theft. If I had gone off on that tack I shouldn't have the interesting privilege of introducing to you Mr. Harvey M. Greene, who now sits in ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... on the dealing tack, commenced in the poverty-stricken strain adapted to the occasion. Having deposited his hat on the floor, taken his left leg up to nurse, and given his hair a backward rub with his ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the kanakas sleep through that long hot day that they did not see the cutter run out through the passage and head south, close-hauled on the southeast trade. Nor was the cutter ever sighted on that long tack to the shores of Ysabel, and during the tedious head-beat from there to Malaita. He landed at Port Adams with a wealth of rifles and tobacco such as no one man had ever possessed before. But he did not stop there. He had taken a white man's head, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... was nothing flash nor green— A Seneschal confessed; Most people deemed his reverend mien Some family bequest. And yet but three short, happy years Had seen him on our tack, And made us verge on VERE DE VERES— Oh, bring ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... white sails of a ship caught it, and gleamed brilliant as sunny snow, the hull being scarcely visible, and the sea around dark; other smaller vessels too, so that they looked like heavenly-winged things, just alighting on a dismal world. Shifting their sails, perhaps, or going on another tack, they almost disappear at once in the obscure distance. Islands are seen in summer sunshine and green glory; their rocks also sunny and their beaches white; while other islands, for no apparent reason, are in deep shade, and share the gloom of the rest of the world. Sometimes part of an island ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... enough of it, and had washed our decks down pretty well, we called all hands, for, dye see, the watch below was in their hammocks, all the same as if they were in one of your best bedrooms; and so we watched for a smooth time, clapt her helm hard a weather, let fall the foresail, and got the tack aboard; and so, when we got her afore it, I ask you, Mistress Prettybones, if she didnt walk? didnt she? Im no liar, good woman, when I say that I saw that ship jump from the top of one sea to another, just ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... recognized the signs of starvation and led him to a tree, where he brought him a little water in his own great tin dipper. Then he relieved him of saddle and bridle and left him tied while he hastily stowed a few hard-tack and a flask of whisky in his pocket, and taking a lasso over his arm, started up the trail ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... Frawley with an appreciative nod. "But you were wrong—you were wrong—you should have kept off. The Canadian Government ain't like your bloomin' democracy. It don't forgive—it don't forget. Tack that up, Bucky. It's a principle we've got at stake ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... bread, that praise all my oraculous lord does or says, be it true or false; invent tales that shall please; make baits for his lordship's ears; and if they be not received in what they offer at, they shift a point of the compass, and turn their tale, presently tack about, deny what they confessed, and confess what they denied; fit their discourse to the persons and occasions. What they snatch up and devour at one table, utter at another; and grow suspected of the master, hated of the ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... he cried cheerily. "Oh! Don't look like that. You're only a bit weak, messmate. Avast there! take a good grip o' the health tack; haul in your slack, and ahoy! you'll be full sail again in a week. I say, what do you think of that? I'm getting on with my ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... name, or to misapprehend you in some respect or other; and this merely to have an opportunity of slily gratifying their malice by mentioning some unhappy defect or personal infirmity he labours under; and not contented "to tack his every error to his name," they will, by way of farther explanation, have recourse to the faults of his father, or the misfortunes of his family; and this with all the seeming simplicity and candor in the world, merely for the sake of preventing ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... handled the talk mighty kind-like. I think it's better to let folks always chaw their own hard tack instead of trying to grind it up friendly for them, cause the swalloring of the trouble has to come in the end; but Gid minced facts faithful for me, according to his lights. I didn't rightly make out just what he did expect, only we couldn't go on as we were—and ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... sir, since you ax me, I'll tell you—plain and to the p'int. We'll take 'er Grace the Duchess and say, clap her helm a-lee to tack up ag'in a beam wind, a wind, mind you, as ain't strong enough to lift her pennant,—and yet she'll fall off and miss her stays, d'ye see, or get took a-back and yaw to port or starboard, though, if you ax me why or wherefore, I'll tell you as how,—her being a woman ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... time, to prevent the ingress of an enemy's fleet, a chain was stretched across the harbour's mouth. We had got just outside the harbour when we saw a man-of-war brig under all sail standing in. A beautiful sight she was, her canvas so white, her sides so polished!—on she stood, not a brace nor tack slackened. Papa looked at her with the affection of an old sailor. It was an object which reminded him of his younger days. "You don't see many like her now," he observed. Presently, as she was starting by us, a shrill whistle was heard. Like magic the sails were clewed up, the hands, ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... Coast of Wales? The devil's grandmother! Was the like ever heard?—Captain le Harnois to alter his course, the Trois fleurs de lys to tack and wear—drop her anchor and weigh her anchor, ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... night must have an end, and early in the morning one of our black boys found us, bringing with him on horseback a haversack full of hard-tack, and in his hand a kettle of coffee which we soon made piping hot at the camp-fire, and found the world looking much more cheerful. The storm continued, however, and made the pursuit slower and more difficult than it would have been in ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... no reason nohow. They never seem to know when peace is declared. It's the women that's keepin' up all the strife twixt North and South right now. Them that shouldered muskets an' fit an' lived on hard-tack don't ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... then, on the open sea, with all sail set; whilst my little barque did little more than tack about near the shore. One day I received the following letter; it was in a pleasant and careful handwriting, and orthography was observed with complete regularity, which suggested that a man had been its writer, or ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,—'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,—'n' gobble up that coffee, double-quick, mind; and don't you open your heads to talk till the grub's gone, slick and clean. Ugh!" he said to the Captain,—"sight o' them fellows just took my appetite away; couldn't ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... to keep his clothes properly filled out. These two articles we took in compact form, regretting even the necessity of guarding against a ducking by a change of clothes. Our provision, that unrefined pork and hard tack, presently to be converted into artist and friend, was packed with a few delicacies in a firkin,—a commodious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... resource to a regular government, which had three million of known, avowed, a great part of it territorial, revenue. But it is necessary, it seems, to piece out the lion's skin with a fox's tail,—to tack on a little piece of bribery and a little piece of peculation, in order to help out the resources of a great and flourishing state; that they should have in the knavery of their servants, in the breach of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke |
