"Brass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... character of most of the work done in those large shops, and the amount of money invested in the business. It is true that grades of very poor jewelry are made in Attleboro, and it is equally true that most of the goods manufactured there are both costly and durable; it is not "washed brass" that goes to the trade with the stamp of those great firms upon it, but heavy rolled plate goods, containing such a thickness of fine gold that they may be deeply cut with the graver's tool, and will never wear down to the baser metal which it conceals. The curious and wonderful ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... itself into a vast greedy dream. A hard, metallic timbre came into the soft, high voice of Dr. James Nesbit, but did not warn men of the metallic plate that was galvanizing the Doctor's soul; nor did it disturb the Doctor. Amos Adams saw the tinplate covering, heard the sounding brass, and Mary his wife saw and heard too; but they were only two fools and the Doctor who loved them laughed at them and turned to the healing of the sick and the subjugation of his county. So men sent him to the state Senate. Curiously Mrs. Nesbit—she whom George ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... their spurious productions. I can farther add with truth, though not without some vanity in saying it, that in the same paper written by divers hands, whereof your lordship's was only part, I could separate your gold from their copper; and though I could not give back to every author his own brass (for there is not the same rule for distinguishing betwixt bad and bad as betwixt ill and excellently good), yet I never failed of knowing what was yours and what was not, and was absolutely certain that this or the other part was positively yours, ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... gold fringe, and the falls of the boot so rich that they hung almost down to the ground: the very fringe cost almost four hundred pounds. The coach was very richly gilt on the outside, and very richly adorned with brass work, with rich tassels of gold and silver hanging round the top of the curtains round about the coach. The curtains were of rich damask, fringed with silver and gold; the harness for six horses was richly embossed with brass work; ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... "Don't you think it would be better if you went alone to these hotels? This distinguished gentleman," indicating Popova, "is well known on account of being a high guy up at the palace. Sure as you live, if he trails around with you, you will be spotted. You don't want to hunt this fellow with a brass band. Besides, you don't need any help, do you?"—to the head ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... room on the southwest side of the house. The sun streamed in through three wide windows, and at one end there was a deep fireplace with brass andirons upon which some logs smouldered, for though it was a mild May day the great room felt cool. Around the room were deep cases with glass doors, from which peeped all kinds and sizes of birds, while between the tops of the ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... Neckar; very small, very bright, and very close. The floor was slippery with polish; long narrow pieces of looking-glass against the walls reflected the perpetual motion of the river opposite; a white porcelain stove, with some old-fashioned ornaments of brass about it; a sofa, covered with Utrecht velvet, a table before it, and a piece of worsted-worked carpet under it; a vase of artificial flowers; and, lastly, an alcove with a bed in it, on which lay the paralysed wife of the good miller, knitting busily, formed the furniture. I spoke as if ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... never a penny left in his purse, Never a penny left but three, And one was brass, and another was lead, And another ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... expression and transmission of particular ideas and emotions, has subsidiary offices, just as a musical tone has harmonics which render it more sweet. Painting reveals the nature of color; music, of sound—in wood, in brass, and in stretched strings; architecture shows forth the qualities of light, and the strength and beauty of materials. All of the arts, and particularly music and architecture, portray in different manners ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... resumed the serjeant. "I have carved a 'quaker' as an ornament for the gateway, intending to saw it in two, in the middle, and place the pieces, crosswise, over the entrance, as your honour has often seen such things in garrisons—like the brass ornaments on the artillery caps, I mean, your honour. Well, this gun is finished and painted, and I intended to split it, and have it up this very week. I suppose Joel has had it in his ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... sunshine was playing on the rhododendrons and on the green leaves of the trees in Hyde Park. A brass band had struck up in the distance. The riders were cantering up and down the Row, to the admiration of the well-dressed crowds that sauntered under the trees or lingered by the railings. Carriages were passing and repassing. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... her a brass pot—official," said Aletha. "Domestic science achievement." To Bordman she explained: "Her husband put a tray on the roof of their house, insulated from the heat of the house below. During the day there's an insulated cover on top of it, insulating ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... lazily southward with the leisurely nonchalance of a grazing ox. At noon, just after dinner, a few cat's-paws curdled the milky-blue whiteness of the glassy surface, and the water once more began to talk beneath the bow-sprit. It was very hot. The sun spun silently like a spinning brass discus over the mainmast. On the fo'c'sle head the Chinamen were asleep or smoking opium. It was Charlie's watch. Kitchell dozed in his hammock in the shadow of the mainsheet. Wilbur was below tinkering with his paint-pot about the cabin. The stillness ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... counter, one section of which was covered with a sheet of zinc perforated like a sieve, and kept constantly bright by restless caravans of lager-beer glasses. Directly behind that end of the counter stood a Gothic brass-mounted beer-pump, at whose faucets Mr. Snelling, the landlord, flooded you five or six mugs in the twinkling of an eye, and raised the vague expectation that he was about to grind out some popular operatic air. At the left of the pump stretched a narrow mirror, ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the hour Bridgie paid a flying visit to the little sitting-room to see that the tea-table was set, the kettle on the hob, the dish of hot scones on the brass stand in the fender, and everything ready to hand, so that no one need enter unless specially summoned. She found Pixie standing gazing into the fire, and ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... distinct sides to Byron and his poetry, one good, the other bad; and those who write about him generally describe one side or the other in superlatives. Thus one critic speaks of his "splendid and imperishable excellence of sincerity and strength"; another of his "gaudy charlatanry, blare of brass, and big bow-wowishness." As both critics are fundamentally right, we shall not here attempt to reconcile their differences, which arise from viewing one side of the man's nature and poetry to the exclusion of the other. Before his exile from England, in 1816, the general ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... these faithful sons, and other filial hearts, commemorated in the foregoing narrative of Thaddeus Sobieski, need not be recapitulated here. It amply tells the fate of the great kingdom which had stood as with gates of brass, until the intestine rivalries of an elective monarchy—the worshipped idol alike of presumptuous private ambition and pretended patriotic liberality—the true masked priest of public anarchy—rent them asunder, and the watchful nations, ready for plunder and extended dominion, poured into ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... time of three, viz:—Fort St. Louis, Chateau St. Louis and Haldimand Castle, the present Normal School. The writer has succeeded in collecting together nine views of the Fort and Chateau St. Louis since the days of Champlain down to modern times. Champlain's "brass bell" is conspicuous in more than one of ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... of this letter sent family remembrances in characteristic form. "Kate, Georgy, Mamey, Katey, Charley, Walley, Chickenstalker, and Sampson Brass, commend themselves unto your Honour's loving remembrance." The last but one, who continued long to bear the name, was Frank; the last, who very soon will be found to have ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... removed, arose a faint odor, a dust of arsenic through which gleamed the piles of insects, impaled before being shipped, the birds packed closely together, their wings held in place by a strip of thin paper. They must all be mounted—the insects quivering upon brass wire, the humming-birds with their feathers ruffled; they must be cleansed and polished, the beak in a bright red, claw repaired with a silk thread, dead eyes replaced with sparkling pearls, and the insect or the bird restored to an appearance ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... brought to Christ, who, while he was coming to Him, was thrown down by the devil, and so rent and torn that he lay and wallowed, foaming. His heart felt so hard, that with many a bitter sigh he cried, 'Good Lord! break it open. Lord, break these gates of brass, and cut these bars of iron asunder' (Psa 107:16). Little did he then think that his bitterness of spirit was a direct answer to such prayers. Breaking the heart was attended with anguish in proportion as it had ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... aught I know, the true gospel sense of those texts. And I will add another thing: Paul calleth some men, yea, and those great talkers, too, sounding brass and tinkling cymbals; that is, as he expounds them in another place, things without life, giving sound. [1 Cor. 13:1-3; 14:7] Things without life, that is, without the true faith and grace of the gospel; and consequently, things ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... midst of all this, it struck two or three of the more "practical" children, that they would like some of the brass-headed nails that studded the chairs; and so they set to work to pull them out. Presently, the others, who were reading, or looking at shells, took a fancy to do the like; and, in a little while, all the children, nearly, were spraining their ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... hear a preacher who evidently understood them. At another place where a theatre was to be opened as a Salvation Army hall, she advertised the meetings by hiring a cab. On the box a man beat a drum, inside two or three others played brass instruments, while Happy Eliza took up her position on the luggage on the top, and drove through the streets alternately playing a fiddle and distributing ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... of the above-mentioned Code in Brass have not come down to us, they are (like the Twelve Tables of Rome, eighty years later in date, were in relation to Roman jurisprudence) the foundation of Chinese Criminal Law as it exists to-day, modified, of course, dynasty by dynasty. ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... looked around. Nothing was familiar. It must be a woman's room; he could see photographs and a pin-cushion on the bureau, and flowers were growing on a table near the window. The bed he was in was small and white. His was big and brass. What had happened? Slowly it came to him, and he started to get up, then fell back. The surge of blood receded, and again there was giddiness. Had he lost her? Had she, too, slipped out of his hands because of his confounded ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... safely, King Numa commanded that they should make eleven other shields like unto it.) This shield and its fellows the Salii were to carry through the city, having on flowered tunics and breastplates of brass, and dancing and singing hymns. And many other things as to the worship of the gods, and the interpreting of signs, and the dealing with marvels and portents, King Numa set in order. And that the people might regard these laws and ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... bit o' a place, an' no fit for the wark," said Urquhart, ushering the colonel into a snug little engine-room, where every bit of brass shone with dazzling brightness, and every part of the engine moved in ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... "these bones and bits of brass belonged to one of those who came here with fire and sword. Need we respect our enemies who slew without pity young and old? And ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... winter." And then they fell to talking about their cooks, having settled to their entire satisfaction that my fate was probably lying in wait for me too, lurking perhaps at that very moment behind the apparently harmless brass buttons of the man in the ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... feather, it came to the shoulder with wonderful ease. Then there was a groove on the barrel at the breech and for some inches up which caught the eye and guided the glance like a trough to the sight at the muzzle and thence to the bird. The stock was shod with brass, and the trigger-guard was of brass, with a kind of flange stretching half-way down to the butt and inserted in the wood. After a few minutes' polishing it shone like gold, and to see the sunlight flash on ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... little things with a grim satisfaction. They were not quite so small as those of the infantry, for the regulation revolver had a range of ten millimetres. The brass cases had grown a little dull, so he rubbed them ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... elevated plain on the left bank of the river, sixty miles above the mouth of the Napo. In Herndon's time it was "a fishing village of 227 inhabitants;" it now contains 2000. Here are the government iron-works, carried on by English mechanics. In 1867 there were six engineers, two iron-molders, two brass-molders, two coppersmiths, three blacksmiths, three pattern-makers, two boiler-makers, five shipwrights, three sawyers, besides bricklayers, brick-makers, carpenters, coopers, etc.; in all forty-two. All the coal for the furnaces is brought from England—the lignite on the ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... at me and said no. Then I said, says I, Mis' Derrick do know, and she'd like ter. 'Miss Derrick!' says he—and he took out his pencil and writ that. But I'd like to know what he cleans his pencil with," said Cindy in conclusion, "for I'm free to confess I never see brass shine ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... the desk, and opening it, she noticed for the first time the table on which it had been placed. It stood in the darkest part of the room, and she had not observed its old-fashioned claw feet and the curiously-wrought brass handles of its drawer. It was not a sham drawer, but a real one, which opened easily with a gentle pull, and appeared at first ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... therefore, resolved to take my leave of the bar for ever. The homage of visitors, the train of attendants, and the multitude of clients, which glitter so much in the eyes of my friend, have no attraction for me. I regard them as I do pictures, and busts, and statues of brass; things, which indeed are in my family, but they came unlooked for, without my stir, or so much as a wish on my part. In my humble station, I find that innocence is a better shield than oratory. For the last I shall have no occasion, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... in the river consisted of four screw sloops, one side-wheel steamer, three screw corvettes, and nine screw gunboats, in all seventeen vessels, of all classes, carrying, exclusive of brass howitzers, one hundred and fifty-four guns. Their names and batteries were ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... the sky. It banished sordid fact, flooded his mind with beauty, loosed romance and to its heels added wings. He did not understand the music she played. It was different from the dance-hall piano-banging and blatant brass bands he had heard. But he had caught hints of such music from the books, and he accepted her playing largely on faith, patiently waiting, at first, for the lifting measures of pronounced and simple rhythm, puzzled because those measures were not long continued. Just as he ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... was ready, a dozen Indians filed solemnly into our camp and sat down facing the fire. They said nothing, but followed your mother's every movement with watchful eyes. If your mother tasted the brew in the brass kettle, every Indian eye followed her hand, and every Indian licked his lips eagerly. The brass kettle was about the only cooking utensil we possessed, and your ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... up the steps, holding by the brass rail. "I will give him a fine surprise!" she said to herself. "I can take care of him, now. To-night we shall be on shore and this misery all over. And then the great ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... training for the ear. Various noises, such as the shaking of a pebble in a tin can, in a wooden box, in a pasteboard box, in a large envelope; knocking on wood, on tin, on coin (as silver dollar), on stone, on brass, on lead,—are made. The pupils are allowed to guess just what the noise ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... Kouka, passing Angornou, a city containing thirty thousand inhabitants. The market of Angornou is held in the open air, and is attended by immense crowds; the principal articles sold are grain, bullocks, sheep, and fowls, together with amber, coral, and brass; also young lions, which are kept ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... is a small mural monument, upon which are represented a man and woman, engraved on brass, kneeling before a table, and three sons and daughters behind them. From the mouth of the man proceeds a label, on which are these words:—In manus tuas dne commendo spiritum meum. Underneath is this inscription, which, like that of the label, is in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... a row (So these Always go). Down-hill They meander, Tail to bill; First the gander. So they stalked, Bold as brass As ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... straight up from the doorway, and Charley took it slowly. At the top was a great wooden door with a brass plate screwed to it, and on the brass plate a single name was incised: Dr. E. C. Schinsake. There was nothing else. Charley slipped the shoe off his right foot, and rang ...
— Charley de Milo • Laurence Mark Janifer AKA Larry M. Harris
... were fishing and camping upon the river, and so I lived at the Senator's house with Mrs. Wright and her mother until he arrived. What a wonderful house it was, in my view! I was awed by its size and splendor, its soft carpets and shiny brass and mahogany. Yet it ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... saw the sickle ready to reap with, I commanded the sickle to reap by itself alone, and it reaped ten times more than any other. And yet he added hereto more, after Jerome, and said: I am the Word of God, I am the Holy Ghost, I am Almighty, I am all that is of God. He made serpents of brass to move, and made the images of iron and of stone to laugh, and dogs to sing, and as St. Linus saith, he would dispute with St. Peter and show, at a day assigned, that he was God. And Peter came to the place where the strife should be, and said to them that were ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... we left Philadelphia, and as we passed through the different towns on the road, which was well responded to by the bystanders who had collected to witness the sight. The men were dressed in a most picturesque uniform, and had a good brass band, which played during the whole time that we were on board the steamer. On landing, there were bonfires on the quay, and rockets let off in honour of their arrival; but, though the crowd was great, we had not the slightest difficulty in landing, for all these matters are carried on with the ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... suspected it? That puzzled me. For, with respect to the other objects of attack, such as Sir Humphrey Davy, &c., it was clear that the malice was assumed; that, at most, it was the gay impertinence of some man upon town, armed with triple Irish brass from original defect of feeling, and willing to raise an income by running amuck at any person just then occupying enough of public interest to make the abuse saleable. But, in my case, the man flew like a bull-dog ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... a sight met our astonished eyes. There was a new carpet on the hall. There were new curtains in our drawing-room. All the covers had been removed from their sacred furniture. Brass andirons replaced the old ones. The piano had a new cover. There was a rocking-chair for each (we had only one before), and while we were still speechless with amazement Mrs. Black came in with ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... indulgently. "So we are getting down to brass tacks, eh? I have beaten you in argument, and ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... since the day Jim stayed my own hand and shunted me in at the side; it seemed he must have practised the same vigilance with subsequent comers, for I could not recall one person who had entered the house announced by the brass ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... Winsome had slipped on the old sprigged gown which had done duty at the blanket-washing so long ago, and her hair, unbound in the sun, shone golden as it flowed from beneath the lilac sunbonnet. As for Ralph, it does not matter how he was dressed. In love, dress does not matter a brass button after the first corner is turned—at least ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... future when distinguished visitors would throng to a much more imposing front door. He announced, with an air of state, that his master and young mistress were "receivin'," and took ceremonious charge of the callers. He had brushed his threadbare coat and polished each brass button singly until it shone. An African imagination aided him to feel the ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... his inspection with the room which he used as a study. There he took hold of the end of a jointed gas-bracket which was fixed beside the chimney, unscrewed the brass nozzle, fitted a little funnel-shaped instrument to it and blew ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... came when every one worked under clouds of carbolic steam which fizzed and spouted from large brass boilers over everything; and then the time when every one was criticizing the new, young surgeon, Treves, who was daring to discard it, and getting as good results by scrupulous cleanliness. His aphorism was, "Gentlemen, the secret of surgery is the nailbrush." Now with blood examinations, germ ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... we drop the shield containing the sensitive plate into the groove the glass occupied. Then we pull out a slide, as the blanket is taken from a horse before he starts. There is nothing now but to remove the brass cap from the lens. That is giving the word Go! It is a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... he flung open a door, and we beheld a carpeted room, all furnished and hung with pink chintz covered with cupids and garlands. There were sofas, low arm-chairs, a writing-table with appurtenances, a tea-table with snowy linen and a hissing brass tea-kettle. Opening from this were two little white nests of bed-rooms, with tin bath-tubs and an abundance of towels. We could not believe our eyes: here were English comfort and French taste. Were we in May Fair or the Rue de Rivoli? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... 1834 until Christmas 1835, when he removed to the "three pair floor south" (bright little rooms) of No. 15, the house on the right-hand side of the square having Ionic ornamentations, which he occupied from 1835 until his removal to No. 48, Doughty Street, in March 1837. The brass-bound iron rail still remains, and the sixty stone steps which lead from the ground-floor to the top of each house are no doubt the same over which the eager feet of the youthful "Boz" often trod. He was married from Furnival's ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... when one comes up from the saloon, where the thermometer is at 72 deg. Fahr. (22 deg. C.); but, although thinly clad and bareheaded, one does not feel it cold, and can even with impunity take hold of the brass door-handle or the steel cable of the rigging. The cold is visible, however; one's breath is like cannon smoke before it is out of one's mouth; and when a man spits there is quite a little cloud of steam round the fallen moisture. The Fram always gives off a mist, which is carried along by the ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... mother, I remember. I had a very beautiful dream. I thought a rich nobleman came to our house, in a splendid carriage of brass, and gave me a ring set with stones, that sparkled like the stars of heaven. When I entered the church with him, it was full of people, and they all thought me divine and adorable, ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... Continent it forms the peaceful armament of the peasant, and no more curious sight can be imagined than the wide, uncovered market-place of some quaint old German town during a heavy shower, when every industrial covers himself or herself with the aegis of a portable tent, and a bright array of brass ferrules and canopies of all conceivable hues which cotton can be made to assume, without losing its one quality of "fast colour," flash ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... gone lose, missie?" he said, innocently; and Sarah panted and looked is my direction. "Dat Massa George brass out alarfin for you whip poor lil ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... their part, stoutly received and sustained his first onset; and having their bodies armed with breastplates of iron, and helmets of brass on their heads, besides great bucklers to cover and secure them, they could easily repel the charge of the Greek spears. But when the business came to a decision by the sword, where mastery depends no less upon art than strength, all on a sudden from the mountain tops violent peals of thunder ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to exquisite perfection, all the flowers, leaves, vines and vein-work of nature. It was wonderful to see the ductility of cotton, as here exemplified. The bobbins, which, I suppose, are a mere refinement upon the old hand-thrown shuttle, are of brass, about the size of half-a-crown. A groove that will just admit the thin edge of a case-knife, is cut into the rim of the little wheel, about one quarter of an inch deep. A cotton thread, 120 yards in length, and strong ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... mountain-side is in motion under law of gravity, and you behold one wide stone-torrent thundering towards the valleys; shivering woods, farms, habitations clean away with it: fatal to any Image of composite Clay and Brass ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... counter in great embarrassment. At one end of it some stoneware pots, encircled with brass bands and containing punch and hot wine, were standing over the short blue flames of a gas stove. Florent at last confessed that a glass of something warm would be welcome. Monsieur Lebigre thereupon ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... is best for children such as he,' was Elzevir's answer, as he took two shining brass candlesticks from the mantel-board, set them on the table, and lit the candles with a ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... a huge brass teakettle of the Russian type. Into this she put snow, and hung it over the seal-oil lamp. Soon a bit of fish ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... to which the irruption of Cheerfulness was fatal; Butler, as something acquirable by reading Alexander Ross; a famous ancient saying, as the remembrancer of death; and a modern usage, as something which has brass and glass "instruments." But it was Hegel, was it not? or Carlyle? who summarised the French view and its time of prevalence in the phrase, "When every one was a philosopher who did not ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... engaged in heavy volley firing. The Mauser bullets drove in sheets through the trees and the tall jungle grass, making a peculiar whirring or rustling sound; some of the bullets seemed to pop in the air, so that we thought they were explosive; and, indeed, many of those which were coated with brass did explode, in the sense that the brass coat was ripped off, making a thin plate of hard metal with a jagged edge, which inflicted a ghastly wound. These bullets were shot from a .45-calibre rifle carrying smokeless powder, which was much used by the guerillas ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... this kind of armour to the "dangabor" of the Congo tribes, but the "dangabor "is worn on the arm. Livingstone saw a woman, the sister of Sebituaneh, the highest lady of the Sesketeh, who wore on each leg eighteen rings of solid brass as thick as the finger, and three rings of copper above the knee. The weight of these shining rings impeded her walking, and produced sores on her ankles; but it was the fashion, and the inconvenience became nothing. As to the pain, it was relieved by a bit of rag ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... from Calcutta. At this station there were four regiments of sepoys, and no Europeans except the regimental officers. One day a low-caste native, known as a lascar, asked a Brahmin sepoy for a drink of water from his brass pot. The Brahmin refused, as it would defile his pot. The lascar retorted that the Brahmin was already defiled by biting cartridges which had been greased with cow's fat. This vindictive taunt was based on truth. Lascars had been employed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... of nothing I have ever seen and of nothing I have read about except the city in the Arabian tale where all the inhabitants have been turned to brass and the traveler finds them after centuries mute, motionless, and still retaining the attitudes which they last knew in life. Here the Wagner audience dress as they please, and sit in the dark and worship in silence. At the Metropolitan in New York they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... may be of 'Corinthian Brass,' Which was a mixture of all metals, but The brazen uppermost). Kind reader! pass This long parenthesis: I could not shut It sooner for the soul of me, and class My faults even with your own! which meaneth, Put A kind construction upon them and me: But that you won't—then don't—I ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... had for a second time lost a 'father'; in front of the reading-desk in the great dining-room, a coffin of elm, studiously plain, and by request without floral offerings, contained all that was mortal of George Muller, and on a brass plate was a simple inscription, giving the date of his ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... de plates was china. Ninety-eight silver forks, knives, teaspoons and table-spoons. Four silver ladles, six silver sugar tongs, silver goblets, a silver mustard pot and two silver fruit stands. All de fireplaces had brass firedogs and marble mantelpieces. Dere was four oil paintin's in de hall; each cost, so Marse Nick say, one hundred dollars. One was his ma, one was his pa, one was his Uncle Austin and de other ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... by the privateers was a 13-inch brass mortar weighing nearly three thousand pounds, which was taken to Cambridge, where (according to the same veracious narrator of the "powder cry," the witty Provincial colonel), it was the occasion of a great jubilation. "To crown the glorious scene," he says, "there intervened one truly ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... feelings of others, all self-respect were obliterated from his mind.' He had 'a delight in misery, merely as misery,' and 'that temper which tyrants require in their worst instruments.' 'He made haste to sell his forehead of brass and his tongue of venom to the court.' He had 'more impudence than ten carted street-walkers;' and was appropriately set to a work 'which could be trusted to no man who reverenced law, or who was sensible of shame.' He was ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... in the encampment, which continued with increasing vigor, until their united chorus quite baffles description. I have heard Chinese bands, Calliopes, the braying of jackasses, the love songs of Tom cats, operatic screechers, brass band and violin murderers, broken down hand organs and accordeons, Red River carts during the dry season, the maniacal howling of the bulls and bears of Broad Street, and many other noises of like character, ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... in the twilight of a day late in the autumn that Anna waited in the large old-fashioned library to make the first acquaintance of her cousin. In the broad stone fireplace, logs of beech and chestnut were piled up on the hearth, across brass dogs, where they blazed, and glowed, and lighted up the comfortable looking room, with its dark, massive, carved oak furniture, its painted glass windows, its rich but faded velvet draperies, interspersed here and there with a piece ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... the most extraordinary looking little gentleman he had ever seen in his life. He had a very large nose, slightly brass-colored; his cheeks were very round, and very red, and might have warranted a supposition that he had been blowing a refractory fire for the last eight-and-forty hours; his eyes twinkled merrily through long silky eyelashes, his mustaches curled twice round like a corkscrew ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Scoffing her state and grinning at her pomp. Allowing her a little breath, a little scene To monarchise, be feared, and kill with looks, Infusing her with self and vain conceit, As if the flesh which walled about her life Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus, Bored through her castle ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... which the different pipes used in house plumbing are made differ according to the use of each pipe, its position, size, etc. The following materials are used: cement, vitrified pipe, lead; cast, wrought, and galvanized iron; brass, steel, nickel, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... to Wasser's care, they went below to examine their prize. They found that she was fully equipped for carrying 700 or 800 slaves, instead of only 300 or 400, as Terence had supposed. She had two brass guns, an ample supply of arms and ammunition of every sort, so that she was as well able to act the pirate as the slaver. They could not decide what to do with her. They feared if they left her ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... Petersburg, was transported 4 miles by land over a railway, and 13 miles in a vast caisson by water. The railway consisted of two lines of timber furnished with hard metal grooves; between these grooves were placed spheres of hard brass about 6 inches in diameter. On these spheres the frame with its massive load was easily moved by 60 men, working at capstans with treble ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... had often listened to in favor of Slavery, and the many wise laws, above alluded to, he could not reconcile himself to his condition. The laws and preaching were alike as "sounding brass, and tinkling cymbals" to him. He made up his mind, therefore, that he must try a free country; that his manhood required him to make the effort at once, even at the risk of life. Father and husband, as he was, and loving his wife, Grace, and son, Alphonso, tenderly as he did, he nevertheless ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... he refers to," Jack, smiling, explained, "is not in sight. It is under the ornamental brass piece that circles the rod from which the chandelier hangs. It was made to listen at, and not to see ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... been looped right over its brass rod. The body lay on its back at the foot of the table, arms flung outward, one leg doubled up, the other with the foot just jutting out over the step leading down to the staircase. The head pointed towards the bath-room door. ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... that they were not gorgeous enough, and frequently diving out into the street to purchase some wild article that he deemed necessary to their completeness. But his master-stroke was, the bearing of them both off, suddenly, one morning, and getting the two words FLORENCE GAY engraved upon a brass heart inlaid over the lid of each. After this, he smoked four pipes successively in the little parlour by himself, and was discovered chuckling, at the expiration ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... contrary, as a virtuous but loving woman, defending yourself with claws and teeth, shutting yourself up in your own house as in a fortress; in other respects, as impenetrable as that of Danae, notwithstanding Danae's tower was made of brass." ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... bright. The four grays skimmed along, as if they liked it quite as well as Tom did; the bugle was in as high spirits as the grays; the coachman chimed in sometimes with his voice; the wheels hummed cheerfully in unison; the brass work on 5 the harness was an orchestra of little bells; and thus as they went clinking, jingling, rattling smoothly on, the whole concern, from the buckles of the leaders' coupling reins to the handle of the boot, was ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... of cutting so many internal teeth in steel seems reason enough to explain why this patent did not become the basis for all their stem-wound models. Steel is far more difficult to cut than brass, resulting in a much greater consumption of time and cutters, both of which represent money to the manufacturer. In the patent model these ring-gear teeth have been cut by a milling cutter which did not pass through the ring and across the face of the teeth. ...
— The Auburndale Watch Company - First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch • Edwin A. Battison
... intelligent industrious person of my acquaintance, who had the superintendence of the mines in this province. A certain mineral is found in these mountains, which yields fibres resembling wool: After being thoroughly dried in the sun, this substance is pounded in a brass mortar, and then washed to remove all earthy impurities; and the clean fibrous matter is spun in the same manner as wool, and woven into cloth. When this cloth requires to be cleaned or whitened, it is thrown into the fire for an hour, and is then taken out unhurt, and as white as snow. It is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... no need for that; the box was not even locked; and the lifted lid revealed an inner one of glass, protecting a brass cylinder with steel bristles in uneven growth, and a ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... by much laughter and applause. And the applause grew to a roar when Pinocchio, the famous Donkey, appeared in the circus ring. He was handsomely arrayed. A new bridle of shining leather with buckles of polished brass was on his back; two white camellias were tied to his ears; ribbons and tassels of red silk adorned his mane, which was divided into many curls. A great sash of gold and silver was fastened around his waist and his tail was decorated with ribbons of many brilliant ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... followed by the Negroes to the landing place. The Negroes now gathered together, as if they meant to fight the Portuguese; on which the general, being unwilling to harm them, embarked in the boats with all his people, and then commanded two pieces of brass ordnance to be fired off, on which they were much amazed and scampered off in confusion, leaving their weapons behind. After this, the general ordered a cross or pillar, having the arms of Portugal to be set upon the shore, but the Negroes pulled it down ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... discarded her old silver andirons and fender, which required continual cleaning, and which would not have been tolerated by her except that they were made of a metal which was now so cheap as to be used for household utensils, and she put in their place a beautiful set of polished brass, such as people used in her mother's time. Whenever Sarah found any one whom she considered worthy to listen, she gave a very full account of her adventures, never omitting the loss of her warm and comfortable ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... the Commission. But first he asked where the President lived, and was told that his house was in Naberezhnaia Street. And you may be sure that it was no peasant's hut, with its glazed windows and great mirrors and statues and lacqueys and brass door handles! Rather, it was the sort of place which you would enter only after you had bought a cheap cake of soap and indulged in a two hours' wash. Also, at the entrance there was posted a grand Swiss footman with a baton and an ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... very silent man by custom. All day he hung round the cove, or upon the cliffs, with a brass telescope; all evening he sat in a corner of the parlor next the fire, and drank rum and water very strong. Mostly he would not speak when spoken to; only look up sudden and fierce, and blow through his nose like a fog-horn; and we and the people ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... set i' her notion o' bein' a bit fashynable at th' last. I believe hoo'd ha' enjoyed th' ride in a quiet way. Eh, dear! I'm feart she'll nivver be able to stand th' thowt o' bein' put under i' a common style. I wish we'd kept a bit o' brass i' th' ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... four or five women who were of the field, but one wore a habit with any pretensions to conformity with the sacred laws of fashion, and its colour was a blue that, taken in connection with a red, brass-buttoned waistcoat, reminded the severe critic from Royal Meath of the head porter at the Shelburne Hotel. So she informed Major Booth in one of the rare intervals permitted to her by ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... faces well known to Charley, all of whom seemed to be dressed with a splendour second only to that of the landlady. One man had on an almost new brown frock coat with a black velvet collar, and white trousers. Two had blue swallow-tailed coats with brass buttons; and a fourth, a dashing young lawyer's clerk from Clement's Inn, was absolutely stirring a mixture, which he called a mint julep, with a yellow kid glove dangling ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... back. The point at the exact center of the width of the blade, which curved to the point convexly from the edge, and from the back concavely, both curves being as sharp as the edge itself. The crossguard was of heavy brass, rather than steel and a further backing of brass along the heel, up to the extent where the curve toward the point began. Brass, which is softer than steel, and could catch an opponent's blade, rather than allowing it to slip off ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... of me. In fact, mother, I can't bear it; I can't make up my mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done so much to raise himself while I've been soldiering that I haven't brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any pleasure in such a discovery? It's impossible. No, keep my secret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... besides, but you can see how much I need to catch up. And oh, but it's fun! I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an 'engaged' on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read one book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and Vanity Fair and Kipling's Plain Tales and—don't laugh—Little ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... in a chair by the one little table, on which stood a bright brass candlestick with a lighted spermaceti candle, and took from his pocket a small Bible, which he opened with the intention of reading his customary chapter before going to bed, when a rap at his ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... greater part of the ancient fabric being composed of oak of the hardest kind, it emitted little flame, but became after a time red hot, and remained in this glowing state till night, when it resembled, as an eye-witness describes, "a mighty palace of gold, or a great building of burnished brass." ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Constitution should never call to mind the defects of that which is to be exchanged for it. It is not necessary that the former should be perfect; it is sufficient that the latter is more imperfect. No man would refuse to give brass for silver or gold, because the latter had some alloy in it. No man would refuse to quit a shattered and tottering habitation for a firm and commodious building, because the latter had not a porch to it, or because some of the rooms might be a little larger or smaller, or the ceilings a little ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... Robert Briquet, solitary and sad-looking, formed a worthy companion to that mysterious house of which we have already spoken to our readers. One might have thought that these two houses were yawning in each other's face. Not far from there the noise of brass was heard, mingled with confused ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... some of the earliest meetings of Parliament were held here; also, all the kings as far down the line as George IV have celebrated their coronation feasts in this hall. Here Charles I was tried and condemned (there's a brass in the floor which marks where he stood at the trial), and here Cromwell in royal purple robes was received as Lord Protector. Some of the others who were tried here are William Wallace, the Scotch patriot, Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Guy Fawkes, and the Earls of Essex and ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... he leaped away toward the hotel where, in a room especially prepared for it, was a huge brass telescope mounted on a tripod. Johnny, glancing out to sea, knew that the tower would be over in another thirty seconds. The platform was not twenty feet from its goal. His eye was now at the ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... will have to place yourself at the disposal of the chairman of some campaign committee in the city; you will read a great deal of 'literature' prepared by the committee, mostly vituperative nonsense about the opposing party; you will learn this by heart, follow the red light and the brass band to the nearest 'stump,' and mixing what you have read, but not thought out, with some stories of considerable age and questionable humor, will deliver it all to a bored and weary audience, confident that you have ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... always an institution at the Manse, looked a most inviting meal, with piles of oat-cake, freshly baked scones, and other bread stuff, the best silver tea-pot hooded in its satin cozy, and the kettle singing on its brass tripod. ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... eyes to this world of sorrow, the minster, its green, the schoolhouse where I had passed many days, the tomb of my lost relatives in the church of St. Augustine, were all visited by me with a sweet and melancholy interest. But the cathedral, the brass eagle in the middle aisle, under which, when an infant, I used to sit and join in the loud anthem, or chant the morning service, most sensibly attached me. I longed again to occupy my place beneath ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... deposit on the first month's rent. Anne had never kept house before, she had no eyes for obsolete plumbing, uneven floors, for the dark cellar sacred to cats and rubbish. She and Jim chattered rapturously of French windows, of brick garden walks, of how plain little net curtains and Anne's big brass bowl full of nasturtiums would look on the landing of the absurd little stairway that led from the square hall to two ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... learned long ago that card-parties were not functions where one went to get acquainted with people. She remembered that Miss Kendall had sat at a table near her, that she had played with a kind of absorbed fury, and had gone off radiant, bearing a huge brass tray, ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... eyes sparkled when he saw written on a slip of paper which lay on the deck, these words; "For my dear Willy." The children clapped their hands, and nothing was heard, but "How beautiful!" "What a fine ship!" "It is a brig of war," said Willy: "only look at the little brass guns on her deck! thank you, dear Grandpa; it will shoot all the enemies of America! What is the name of ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... far the belongings are all of the Cross; but no sooner are we landed in the little drawing-rooms than signs of the Crescent appear. Small, but artistically arranged, the rooms, opening in to one another, are bright with oriental hangings, with trays and dishes of gold and silver, brass trays and goblets, chibouques with great amber mouthpieces, and all kinds of Eastern treasures mingled with family souvenirs. There is no carpet; but a Bedawin rug occupies the middle of the floor, and vies in brilliancy of colour with Persian enamels and bits of good old china. There are no sofas, ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... called. Anyway they were of woolen material in a checked design, and were made with a full skirt gathered on to a deep yoke. Uncle Patrick Hull—he was a deep slave belonging to Mr. A.L. Hull—made all the shoes for Marse John's slaves. We all wore brass-toed brogans. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... and in a moment his hand was on the switch. The light flashed on, and in a moment he stood staring—at a fair-haired, white-faced lad in a brown livery with brass buttons who stood staring back at him with ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... ultimately, I'll have plenty of money. Mr. Houghton has dry-nursed what father left me, and he has done mighty well with it; but I can't touch it till I'm twenty-five—worse luck! Father had theories about a fellow being kept down to brass tacks and earning his living, before he inherited money another man had earned—that's the way he put it. Queer idea. So, I must get a job. Uncle Henry'll help me. You may bet on it that Mrs. Maurice Curtis shall not wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... tolerably true, but is an inch thick and weighs about 10 cwt. Its diameter is about as much above 18 inches as the tin one was under, and therefore it is become necessary to add a brass hoop to the piston, which is made almost ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... and shooting, and the life of lawless freedom he led on the Islands, had been delightful. King Corny, who had the command not only of boats, and of guns, and of fishing-tackle, and of men, but of carpenters' tools, and of smiths' tools, and of a lathe, and of brass and ivory, and of all the things that the heart of boy could desire, had appeared to Harry, when he was a boy, the richest, the greatest, the happiest of men—the cleverest, too—the most ingenious: for King Corny ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... this she came to a small neat house on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name W. Rab-bit on it. She ran up-stairs in great fear lest she should meet Ann and be turned out of the house be-fore she had ...
— Alice in Wonderland - Retold in Words of One Syllable • J.C. Gorham
... sir, won't you, as soon as you get aboard the 'Long Island' again?" urged Riley, applying the sterilized bandage with swift skill. "If the scoundrels used any of the brass-jacketed bullets of which they're so fond, a scratch like that might lead to ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... threads they obtained a kind of brass-colored and less dirty earth, in order to wash it in another large placer, that they had at one side of the said elevation, with a small stream that rises on top of the elevation, where they had a small settlement. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... like brass over their heads, and the land baked and rutted with the sun's heat. It seemed a country empty of man, though sometimes they came on derelict ploughlands and towns of crumbling brick charred and glazed by fire. In sweltering days ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... up-stairs, with a low dark ceiling, which seemed to be knitting its brows gloomily in the consideration of tangled points of law. It was furnished with some high-backed leathern chairs, garnished with great goggle-eyed brass nails, of which, every here and there, two or three had fallen out - or had been picked out, perhaps, by the wandering thumbs and forefingers of bewildered clients. There was a framed print of a great ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... one scarcely ever saw any one at all. In fact, there was no one to see but the servants, and when their master was away they lived a luxurious life below stairs, where there was a huge kitchen hung about with shining brass and pewter, and a large servants' hall where there were four or five abundant meals eaten every day, and where a great deal of lively romping went on when Mrs. Medlock was out ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... private dwellings, were burnt to the ground. The city was lighted from river to river with the glare of these conflagrations—this city of "brotherly love;" whole streets looking like pandemonium avenues of brass and copper in the lurid reflected light. Your people have lost little of their agreeable combined facetiousness and ferocity, as I think you will allow when I tell you that, while a large Catholic church was burning, the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... preserved, as well as deserved, the exclusive devotion of her only child during all the years in which her early widowhood had made them all in all to each other. Ten years ago, on his election to a lectureship at one of the London hospitals, the son had set up his name on the brass plate of the door of a comfortable house in a once fashionable quarter of London; she had joined him there, and they had been as happy as affection and fair success could make them. He became lecturer ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up on the "roof of the world" in Afghanistan. During one twenty-four hours at Jellalabad, we had one man killed by a sunstroke, and another frozen to death on sentry duty in the night. On Christmas morning, when I rose at sunrise, the thermometer was far below freezing point; the water in the brass basin in my tent was frozen solid, and I was glad to wrap myself in furs. At noon the thermometer was over a hundred in the shade, and we were all so hot as to wish with Sydney Smith that we could take off our flesh and sit in our bones. John was delighted when, as there seemed no immediate ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... "the boys" could desire. Such a marvel of funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The plumed hearse, the dirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts of business, the flags drooping at half mast, the long, plodding procession of uniformed secret societies, military battalions and fire companies, draped engines, carriages of officials, and citizens in vehicles and on foot, attracted multitudes ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Pulden prestes bi e polle & plat of her hedes, Di[gh]ten dekenes to dee, dungen dou{n} clerkkes, & alle e maydenes of e mu{n}st{er} ma[gh]tyly hokyllen Wyth e swayf of e sworde at swol[gh]ed he{m} alle. 1268 [Sidenote: The enemy pillages the temple of its pillars of brass, and the golden candlestick from off the altar.] e{n}ne ran ay to e relykes as robbors wylde, & pyled alle e apparement at pented to e kyrke, e pure pyleres [o]f bras po{ur}trayd i{n} golde, & e ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... Saunders Saunderson, or, as he facetiously denominated him, ALEXANDER AB ALEXANDRO, who left the room with a nod, and soon after returned, his grave countenance mantling with a solemn and mysterious smile, and placed before his master a small oaken casket, mounted with brass ornaments of curious form. The Baron, drawing out a private key, unlocked the casket, raised the lid, and produced a golden goblet of a singular and antique appearance, moulded into the shape of a rampant bear, which the owner regarded with a look of mingled reverence, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... pedestrians made their way along the narrow pavement some of them glanced at the door of the tall red-brick house and read the inscription on a brass plate screwed thereon. This consisted of two mystic words: The Beacon. There was, however, in reality, no mystery about it. The Beacon was a newspaper, published weekly, and the clock of St. Dunstan's striking seven told the end of another ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... of you, if a workman skilful in the founding of brass and iron cannon can be engaged in Holland to go to America? Also, if I can engage two or three persons of approved skill in lead mines, to go to America on good engagement. Your answer will oblige me, and by the next post I will write you more particularly. The British arms will not, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... passed. The sunshine moved slowly up Anchor Street, fingered noiselessly the well-kept brass knockers on either side, and drained the heeltaps of dew which had been left from the revels of the fairies overnight in the cups of the morning-glories. Not a soul was stirring yet in this part of the town, though the Rivermouthians are such early birds that not a worm may be said to escape ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... and brothers and aunts, without number—for it seemed less of a family than a tribe which had come together to do him honour. Then the guest was seated in the place of state, and fruit of many kinds in large brass dishes was set before him. It was truly a pleasant spot, and there was additional satisfaction in the thought that with so little to guide them they had been able to light upon it without lengthy search. Then ensued a conversation, during which the visitor ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... beaten or blown into by hands or mouths long since crumbled to dust. What tales had been told! what songs sung, and in what languages; what laughs laughed, tears shed, vows spoken, kisses exchanged, over some of those silent pieces of wood, brass, ivory, and catgut! The feelings of all the histories that surrounded me had something eerie ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... up in me, ripping and tearing at my will to be free. Small wonder that I shook with the effort to control. The shaking, happily, they took for the weakness of age. I held up my brass begging bowl, and whined more dolefully, and bleared my eyes to hide the blue fire I knew was in them, and calculated the distance and ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... which must necessarily have been precarious, owing to the possible failure or deficiency of the rains. Hence frequent famines would have been inevitable in those seasons of prolonged dryness and scorching heat, when "the sky becomes as brass and the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... his on'y nourishment is beets, or that he belongs to New York s'ciety, an' th' Sinit will on'y yawn. But wanst even hint that his such-an'-such is so-an'-so (I will not repeat th' heejous wurruds) an' ye mus' hurry an' slip on th' brass knuckles, f'r they'se a slap ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... least by large contacts, even if they are conflicts. Nor is it really true, in the daily humours of human life, that they are only conflicts. I have heard an eminent English clergyman from Cambridge bargaining for a brass lamp with a Syrian of the Greek Church, and asking the advice of a Franciscan friar who was standing smiling in the same shop. I have met the same representative of the Church of England, at a luncheon party with the wildest Zionist Jews, and with the Grand ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton |
