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Chisel   /tʃˈɪzəl/   Listen
Chisel

verb
(past & past part. chiseled or chiselled; pres. part. chiseling or chiselling)
1.
Engage in deceitful behavior; practice trickery or fraud.  Synonym: cheat.
2.
Deprive somebody of something by deceit.  Synonyms: cheat, rip off.  "This salesman ripped us off!" , "We were cheated by their clever-sounding scheme" , "They chiseled me out of my money"
3.
Carve with a chisel.



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"Chisel" Quotes from Famous Books



... out the safety valve, take out all firebars and the bridge, take down flue-port brickwork, have the boiler and flues thoroughly cleaned and swept, have a lamp or candle ready to light, a hand hammer and chisel, or scraper, a pailful of clean water, and a wad of cotton waste. When the inspector arrives, he quickly dons his overalls; I hand him the light and the tools and waste, and he is into the fireplace in a jiffy; down the side flues, under the boiler, giving a whack with the ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor

... like a belt. like an auger. The pylorus, like a pitchfork. The worm-like excrescence, like The windpipe, like an oyster- a Christmas-box. knife. The membranes, like a monk's The throat, like a pincushion cowl. stuffed with oakum. The funnel, like a mason's chisel. The lungs, like a prebend's The fornix, like a casket. fur-gown. The glandula pinealis, like a bag- The heart, like a cope. pipe. The mediastine, like an earthen The rete mirabile, like a gutter. cup. The ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... only a tombstone-cutter. His name was Francois Lagarre. He was but twenty years old when he stepped into the shop where the old tombstone-cutter had worked for forty years. Picking up the hammer and chisel which the old man had dropped when he fell dead at the end of a long hot day's labour, he finished the half-carved tombstone, and gave the price of it to the widow. Then, going to the Seigneur and Cure, he asked them to buy the shop and tools for him, and let him ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... fellow-prisoners in this abode; but they were mere tautologies and reiterations of the self-same mechanic creature, and like so many plaster casts from the same original statue. Thus situated, of necessity I failed. In making the attempt, my chisel brought out a monster, of which [and that was fortunate] the world had no type or resemblance ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... the back than the preceding, and the breast is mottled with dusky. Bill very long, heavy, compressed, and thin and chisel-like at ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed

... the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... merely visible presence, he made himself felt in all the varied exercise around him of those arts which address themselves first of all to sight. Unconsciously he defined a peculiar manner, alike of feeling and expression, to those skilful hands at work day by day with the chisel, the pencil, or the needle, in many an enduring form of exquisite fancy. In three successive phases or fashions might be traced, especially in the carved work, the humours he had determined. There was first wild gaiety, exuberant in a wreathing of life-like imageries, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... by boiling in a deep pail until meat comes off easily. A little washing soda in the water will help clean the bone. With a saw, cut through under side of brain cavity, lengthwise on each side of axis bone. Cut the loosened piece out with a chisel and remove brain. ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray

... in the marble halls of Dea Flavia's house, where the air is filled with the perfume of roses and violets and tame songbirds make their nests in the oleander bushes? Wouldst like to recline on soft downy cushions, allowing thy golden hair to fall over thy shoulders the while I, mallet or chisel in hand, would make thy face immortal by carving it in marble? The praefect saith thine is a case for pity, then do I have pity upon thee, and give thee the choice of what thy life shall be. Squalor and misery as thy mother's slave, or joy, music, and ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... the left, and call it Philip of Pokanoket, and he will fall into ecstasies over a work at once so truly national and classic. He would have stood dumb and with an untouched heart, before the Apollo, fresh from the chisel of the sculptor. Such men have graduated at Vanity Fair, and are the old-clothesmen ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... feeds upon buds. We can, therefore, feed our rabbit on carrots, beets, apples, oats, bran, grass, and leaves of plants, and we must provide it with some twigs to gnaw, for gnawing helps to keep its large chisel-shaped teeth in good condition. We must be careful not to give it too much exercise, and we must not give it any cabbage, because this is not good for the rabbit's health. A dish of water must be placed in the hutch, for the rabbit needs ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... poor dear little thing; but as it is I shall be glad enough when I am sitting still again in my workshop; it is exactly as if a workman of my own trade lived in each of my great toes, and was dancing round in them with hammer and file and chisel and nails. Very likely you may be so fortunate as to find your sister, for a crafty woman succeeds in many things which are too difficult for a wise man. Go on, and if they seek for you old ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... never handled a chisel before, but he chipped and cut away the marble so marvellously that life seemed to spring out of the stone. There was a marble head of an old faun in the garden, and this Michelangelo set himself to copy. Such a wonderful copy did he make ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman

... all others by the peculiarity of their teeth. No one, even though he be most ignorant of comparative anatomy, could mistake the rat or rabbit-like skull of a rodent for that of any other creature. The peculiar pincer-like form of the jaws, with their curved chisel-shaped teeth in front, mark the order at a glance. There is no complexity in their dentition. There are the cutters or incisors, and the grinders; and of the cutters there are never more than two in each jaw, that is to say efficient and visible teeth, for there are in some species rudimentary ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... as he laid the sledge to one side and began delving into a bed of dust that had evidently been a work-bench. "Ah! And here's a chisel! A spanner, too! A heap of rusty ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... the man "who could turn his hand to anything," on his back with hammer and chisel in hand. He was rivetting a plate of copper on the hull of the Daisy. Already he had nailed sheets of zinc and lead on stern and bow, and had driven cotton wool picked from the bushes by the ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... of a brother-worker, for had he not tried to construct handy model steam-engines in his day? Indeed, yes. After a while, however, the role of spectator began to pall. He wanted to do something. Wandering round the room he found a chisel, and upon the instant, in direct contravention of the treaty respecting rotting, he sat down and started carving his name on a smooth deal board which looked as if nobody wanted it. The pair worked on in silence, broken only by an ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... hand through under the door, and felt something cold placed across his forefinger. Then there was a knock as of a mallet upon a chisel, and with a cry of anguish he drew in his hand streaming with blood. Jean had cut off his finger. Now, a man with a lame hand is of small account in the service, and so when the lieutenant came and saw Jack's condition he released him, ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... eccentricities by which she was already characterized in private life. It seemed, however, that Sarah's ambition was to gain personal notoriety even more than theatrical fame; and by her performances of one kind or another outside the theatre make herself the talk of society. She affected to paint, to chisel, and to write; sent pictures to the Salon, published eccentric books, and exhibited busts. She would receive her friends palette in hand, and in the dress of a male artist. She had a luxurious coffin made for her, covered with velvet, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... it!" muttered Joyce. She grasped the chisel and inserted it in the crack, pushing on it with all her might. But the door resisted, and Cynthia was just uttering ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... the earth has thus come rushing up among her children, bringing with it gifts of all that she possesses, then straightway into it rush her children to see what they can find there. With pickaxe and spade and crowbar, with boring chisel and blasting powder, they force their way back: is it to search for what toys they may have left in their long-forgotten nurseries? Hence the mountains that lift their heads into the clear air, and are dotted over with the ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald

... and Milton, for example, having evinced so little tendency to such tastes[49], that, throughout the whole of their pages, there is not, I fear, one single allusion to any of those great masters of the pencil and chisel, whose works, nevertheless, both had seen. That Lord Byron, though despising the imposture and jargon with which the worship of the Arts is, like other worships, clogged and mystified, felt deeply, more especially ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... the country, and the Tibetans smelt and cast the ore when sufficient fuel is obtainable for the purpose. Earthen crucibles are employed to liquefy the metals, and the castings are made in clay moulds. For the inlaid work, in which the Tibetans greatly excel, they use hammer and chisel. Inlaid ornamentation is frequently to be seen on the sheaths of Tibetan swords, the leaf pattern, varied scrolls and geometrical combinations being most commonly preferred. The process of hardening metals is still in its infancy, and Tibetan blades are ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... famous artist in tatu came with the party, and was kept in constant and profitable employment. Everybody, from the renowned warrior to the girl of twelve years old, crowded to be ornamented by the skilful chisel. . . . The instruments used were not of bone, as they used formerly to be; but a graduated set of iron tools, fitted with handles like adzes, supplied their place. . . . The staining liquid is made ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... and machetes, dancing drinking about them. As one barrel of rum was finished another was brought in, and the supply seemed endless. The days went by, and Mr. Ovens lost patience, and declared he would go and get a chisel and hammer and free the prisoners at all costs. "Na, na," replied Mary wisely, "we'll have a ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... willingly devote his rich natural gifts to the purposes of wanton treachery. The ingenuous Alice gazed at his free air and proud carriage, as she would have looked upon some precious relic of the Grecian chisel, to which life had been imparted by the intervention of a miracle; while Heyward, though accustomed to see the perfection of form which abounds among the uncorrupted natives, openly expressed his ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... wields a heavy mattock in his hands, And over him a lonely lanthorn stands On a near niche, shedding a sickly fall Of light upon a marble pedestal, Whereon is chisel'd rudely, the essay Of untaught tool, "Hic jacet Agathe!" And Julio hath bent him down in speed, Like one that doeth an ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... could not now write it. Were I in the same state of mind now as when it was written, it would indeed be a great consolation to me to be able to commence it." The mere painting of romances in cold water colors must have seemed, without doubt, dull to Madame Sand, after having handled the hammer and chisel of the sculptor so boldly, in modeling the grand lines of that semi-colossal statue, in cutting those sinewy muscles, which even in their statuesque immobility, are full of bewildering and seductive charm. Should we continue long to gaze upon it, it excites the most painful emotion. ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... Holmes made an examination of the door which had been forced. It was evident that a chisel or strong knife had been thrust in, and the lock forced back with it. We could see the marks in the wood where it had been ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... knowledge, had been charmed prematurely to shrines less severely sacred. Therefore, though I labored, it was with that full sense of labor which (as I found at a much later period of life) the truly triumphant student never knows. Learning—that marble image—warms into life, not at the toil of the chisel, but the worship of the sculptor. The mechanical workman finds but ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... papers he must. He, crawled to his knees, and felt around, then turned his light on. This was strange! A heap of coal out in the middle of the floor, almost a foot from the rest! A rusty shovel lay beside it, a chisel and a big stone. Ah! The tapping! He got up forgetting his pain and began to kick away the coal, turning the flash light down. Yes, there was a crack in the cement, a loose piece. He could almost lift it with his foot. He pried at it with the toe of his shoe, and then lifted it with much effort ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... allowed to harden I obtained the mould I desired, in the dead of night, and afterward, whenever privacy, even for a few minutes, was mine, I drew from my bosom my sacred piece of sculpture, and worked upon it with knife and chisel alternately, as devotee never worked on sculptured crucifix. Never shall I forget the rapture, the ecstasy of that moment, in which, ensconced between my bed-head and the wall, I slowly turned the key, first thoroughly soaked in oil, in the morticed wards, and knew, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... broken spear, whilst the laws of the twelve tables drop from her left hand. On the parvis before this porch is erected, on the left, the statue of Sabina herself, and on the right, the statue of Erwin of Steinbach, both due to the chisel of ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous

... Tennant says, if moderate showers occur after planting, nothing more is done until the shoots from the sets have attained a height of two or three inches. The soil immediately around them is then loosened with a small weeding iron, something like a chisel; but if the season should prove dry, the field is occasionally watered; the weeding is also continued, and the soil occasionally ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... We undertook, besides this, to manufacture some weapons for our defence, in case of need, and in this attempt fortune again favored us. We found, among the grass in the court-yard, a large and sharp chisel, which, most probably, the carpenters had used in the construction of the house, and forgotten. We put it carefully by, in order that we might fasten it to a pole, and use it in the moment of our flight ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... with a sharp chisel soon cut away sufficient of the frame to allow the door to be forced open. On this occasion, there being no wedge in the center, it was not necessary to attack the hinges, and, once the lock was freed, the door swung back readily ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... splutter of his ovens made the cook dive into his tent. Andy picked up a chisel dropped by the cook. He opened six casks standing on the ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness

... the deep and more regular shouts which these strangers usually repeat thrice, as well when bidding hail to their commanders and princes, as when in the act of engaging in battle. Many a look was turned back by their comrades, and many a form was seen in the ranks which might have claimed the chisel of a sculptor, while the soldier hesitated whether to follow the line of his duty, which called him to march forward with his Emperor, or the impulse of courage, which prompted him to rush back to join his companions. Discipline, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... rear their solitary heads like huge rocks from the waves, or are loosely piled one upon the other. The round form of many of the latter is especially remarkable: they almost seem to have been cut out with a chisel. ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... the path of the oncoming steamer. The moment the engine started to turn, however, there was a grinding sound of tortured steel, and when it had been stopped, we found that some one had placed a cold-chisel in one ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... follow that, because our grandmothers wrote long letters, they all wrote good ones, or that nobody nowadays writes good letters because most people write bad ones. Johnson wrote letters in two styles. One was monumental—more suggestive of the chisel than the pen. In the other there are traces of the same style, but, like the old Gothic architecture, it has grown domesticated, and become the fit vehicle of plain tidings of joy and sorrow—of affection, wit, and fancy. The letter to Lord Chesterfield is the most celebrated example ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... once more on the covantza, and recommence hammering; and now I am somewhat at fault: I am in want of assistance; I want you, brother, or some one else, to take the bar out of my hand and support it upon the covantza, whilst I, applying a chinomescro, or kind of chisel, to the heated iron, cut off with a lusty stroke or two of the shukaro baro, or big hammer, as much as is required for the petul. But having no one to help me, I go on hammering till I have fairly knocked off as much as I want, and then I place the piece in the fire, and again apply the bellows, ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... house eout here last night," related the first New-Havener. "He and them other fellers, and one more that we ha'n't found. I was on my beat 'bout one o'clock, and see 'em puttin' up College Street full chisel. I thought they looked kinder dangerous. So I called Doolittle here, and Jarvis, and Jacobs, and we after 'em. Chased 'em 'bout a mild and treed 'em at Square Russoll's, way up Canal, eout in the country. Three was in the yard and gin right ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... you, all hands," he observed, "that this is the last time. My right fist's got a cramp in it this minute, and you couldn't open it again with a cold chisel." ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... after their death every true believer was bidden to continue the work according to his own notions. Thus the temple was gradually built during three centuries. Every one who wished to redeem his sins would bring his chisel and set to work. Many were the members of royal families, and even kings, who personally took part ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... much "silver" standing around loose (the natives hereabout don't even ask whether the nickelled parts of the bicycle are silver or not; they take it for granted to be so), and surreptitiously attempt to chisel off enough to purchase an embroidered coat for Sundays. From what I can understand of their comments among themselves, it is perfectly consistent with their ideas of the average Englishman that ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... When it was over, Keith felt that he had achieved a great deal. Before they rose from the table, he startled Mary Josephine by ordering Wallie to bring him a cold chisel and a hammer from ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood

... our beard and whiskers. Boreas is a great barber, sir, with his north pole for a sign. Then as for frost!—I could tell you such incredible things of its intensity; our butter, for instance, was as hard as a rock; we were obliged to knock it off with a chisel and hammer, like a mason at a piece of granite, and it was necessary to be careful of your eyes at breakfast, the splinters used to fly about so; indeed, one of the party did lose the use of his eye from a butter-splinter. But the oddest thing of all was to watch two men talking to ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... swelled by the water, sir, and will need a chisel, or some tool of that sort. Just call out to one of the men, sir, if you please, to pass me a chisel from my tool-chest. A good stout one ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... shining tools which Willie and I, in spite of their attractions, were forbidden to touch. Willie, by dire experience, had learned to keep the law; but on one occasion I stole in alone, and promptly cut my finger with a chisel. My mother and Cousin Jenny accepted the fiction that the injury had been done with a flint arrowhead that Willie had given me, but when Cousin Robert came home and saw my bound hand and heard the story, he gave me a certain look which sticks ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... inch and a quarter long and 1/8 in. thick in the middle. These I weighed, and selected such as were nearly of the same weight. I then arranged matters so that by removing a prop I could cause the blunt edge of a steel chisel weighted to 4lb. 2oz., to fall from a given height upon the middle of the nail as it was supported from each end, 1-1/16 in. asunder. In order to secure the absolute fairness of the trials, the nails were taken at random, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... the acknowledged beauties? I give you my word that your peer is not among them, and the leader would be enchanted with you. Come, suppose a little fatal accident to Monsieur—may he not suck poison off his paint brush or cut an artery with his sculptor's chisel? And, after a sojourn at Bravitz, you might return to Paris a viscountess—a countess, perhaps, and rule in a pretty court of ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... the marble to his model in order to perfect his conception. We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chisel- 248:15 ing thought. What is the model before mortal mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you repro- 248:18 ducing it? Then you are haunted in your work by ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... whence proceeded those finished works of skill and labour which became the pride of the French, and the despair and ruin of foreign nations. The sons of Apollo[23], on whom he lavished his gifts and favours, seized the crayon, the compass, and the chisel. Paris became a second Athens, when adorned by the wonders of art to which his munificence gave birth. We then saw the venerable Louvre rise, as by enchantment, from its deserted ruins; the palaces of our Kings became more gorgeous; the temples of the arts were enriched by productions ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... flame of the lamp is directed against the old paint, which becomes soft and is removed with a chisel knife, or a scraper called a shavehook. The door was ajar and he had opened the top sash of the window for the purpose of letting in some fresh air, because the atmosphere of the room was foul with the fumes of the lamp and the smell of the burning paint, besides ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... Legislators, Aldermen, Department heads, &c., &c., or the candidates for those positions, nineteen in twenty, in the policeman's judgment, were just players in a game. Liberty, Equality, Union, and all the grand words of the Republic, were, in their mouths, but lures, decoys, chisel'd likenesses of dead wood, to catch the masses. Of fine afternoons, along the broad tracks of the Park, for many years, had swept by my friend, as he stood on guard, the carriages, &c., of American Gentility, not by dozens and scores, but ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... has "no character in his face," meaning that his skin is still fair and smooth, before his thoughts and feelings have made any record there. Gradually the character impresses itself on his face. Experience acts almost like a sculptor's chisel, carving lines of care and grooving furrows of sorrow, shaping the mouth and the setting of ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... thrust, Here on the verge of habitable earth. Full sixteen times since that disastrous day The face of nature hath renewed its youth; Still have I seen no change come over thine, That looked a grave amid a blooming world. Thou'rt like some moonless image, carved in stone By sculptor's chisel, that doth ever keep The selfsame fixed ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller

... able to shoot and glue a four-foot straight joint, make a housing, tenon and mortise, and halved joint, grind and set a chisel and plane iron, make a 3 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in., by 1 ft. by 6 ft. dovetailed locked box, or a ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... bone from which it is growing (Fig. 138). Operative interference is only indicated when the tumour is giving rise to inconvenience. It is then removed, its base or neck being divided by means of the chisel. The multiple variety of osteoma is considered with the diseases ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... motor-boat. But somehow, when it got so close to the time I was to marry him, I couldn't help wishing—well, just thinking about George. Something must have happened to him or he'd have written. On the day he left, he and me got a hammer and a chisel and cut a dime into two pieces. I took one piece and he took the other, and we promised to be true to each other and always keep the pieces till we saw each other again. I've got mine at home now in a ring-box in the top drawer ...
— Options • O. Henry

... not harder than Porphyry or Agate, the Chisel of my love, drove by the Mallet of my fidelity, would have made some impression on thee. I, that have shaped as I pleased the most untoward of substances, hoped by the Compass of reason, the Plummet of discretion, the Saw of constancy, the soft File of kindness, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... Pauline," said Leontes, "make me think so twenty years together! Still methinks there is an air comes from her. What fine chisel could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... interstices with liquid cement composed of quicklime and fine sand in water. After five centuries the seams between the layers of bricks that make the bell-tower of S. Gottardo at Milan, yield no point of vantage to the penknife or the chisel. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... went one time to Quin Abbey when it was building, looking for a job, and the men were going to their dinner, and he had poor clothes, and they began to jibe at him, and the foreman said 'Make now a cat-and-nine-tails while we are at our dinner, if you are any good.' And he took the chisel and cut it in the rough in the stone, a cat with nine tails coming from it, and there it was complete when they came out from their dinner. There was no beating him. He learned no trade, but he was master of sixteen. ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory

... from the wearing weather. It was a rare example of a northern cloister with arched and pillard openings not intended for glazing, and the delicately-wrought foliage of the capitals seemed still to carry the very touches of the chisel. Gwendolen had dropped her husband's arm and joined the other ladies, to whom Deronda was noticing the delicate sense which had combined freedom with accuracy in the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... the music lies unheard; In the rough marble beauty hides unseen: To make the music and the beauty, needs The master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen. ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... style" in painting, you cannot appreciate it in sculpture. You like a hurried, broad, dashing manner of execution in a water-color drawing, though that may be seen as near as you choose, and yet you refuse to admit the nobleness of a bold, simple, and dashing stroke of the chisel in work which is to be seen forty fathoms off. Be assured that "handling" is as great a thing in marble as in paint, and that the power of producing a masterly effect with few touches is as essential in an architect as in a draughtsman; though ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin

... de Humboldt brought with him back to Europe one of these metallic tools, a chisel, found in a silver mine opened by the Incas not far from Cuzco. On an analysis, it was found to contain 0.94 of copper, and 0.06 of tin. See Vues des ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... intent upon the marble face of Harriet Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci. I have no power to express my hope, my joy, my renewed faith in womanhood. In the accomplishment of that grand work of the sculptor's chisel, making that cold marble breathe and pulsate, Harriet Hosmer has done more to ennoble and elevate woman than she possibly could have done by mere words, it matters not how Godlike; though I would not ignore true words, for it is these which rouse to action the latent powers of the Harriet ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... of paddlers carved in wood and dressed in full costume; the latter executed with such singular fidelity of feature, that although the speaking figures sprung not from the experienced and classic chisel of the sculptor but from the rude scalping knife of the savage, the very tribe to which they belonged could be discovered at a glance by the European who was conversant with the features of each: then there were handsomely ornamented vessels made of the birch bark, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... all nations shall repair, And lay their sins at this huge gate of Heaven. And the bold Architect[320] unto whose care The daring charge to raise it shall be given, Whom all Arts shall acknowledge as their Lord, Whether into the marble chaos driven 60 His chisel bid the Hebrew,[321] at whose word Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone,[cm] Or hues of Hell be by his pencil poured Over the damned before the Judgement-throne,[322] Such as I saw them, such as all shall see, Or fanes be ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... than ever. It exhibited some slight evidence of the deep and exhausting trials which she had so long endured; it was pale, yet the paleness reminded me of the exquisite hue of some of those fine sculptures which the Italian chisel has given for the admiration of mankind. Its expression, too, had assumed a loftier character than even when its first glance struck my young imagination. It had shared something of the elevation of a mind noble by nature, but rendered still loftier and more intellectual ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... appears. The use of an auger and bit will greatly aid in the work. After the outside of the hull is brought to shape the wooden form is drilled with holes, as shown in Fig. 15. This will make it much easier to chip the wood away. After the major portion of the wood has been taken out with the chisel, the gouge is brought into use. The gouge should be used very carefully, since it will easily go through the entire hull if it is not handled properly. For the beginner it is not safe to make a hull less than 1/2 inch in thickness. Of course, it is not ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates

... little play of feature that his face presented, was cut deep into it, in a few hard curves that made it more like work; and he had certain notches in his forehead, which looked as though Nature had been about to touch them into sensibility or refinement, when she had impatiently thrown away the chisel, and said: 'I really cannot be worried to finish off this man; let him go ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... little halls, as are the majestic ruins in their poplar groves. In both instances, Nature and Circumstance have harmonised between the subject and the background. Come along. And let the rhymsters chisel on the monument whatever they like about sculptures and the wali. To condemn in this case ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... ensued during which Max stood before the duke, a noble figure of manly beauty worthy the chisel of a Greek sculptor. The shutter in the ladies' gallery was ajar and I caught a glimpse of Yolanda's pale, tear-stained face as she looked down upon the man she loved, who was to put his life in ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... and present desolation. The black cloth hangings, which, on the late mournful occasion, replaced the tattered moth-eaten tapestries, had been partly pulled down, and, dangling from the wall in irregular festoons, disclosed the rough stonework of the building, unsmoothed either by plaster or the chisel. The seats thrown down, or left in disorder, intimated the careless confusion which had concluded the mournful revel. "This room," said Ravenswood, holding up the lamp—"this room, Mr. Hayston, was riotous when it should ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... down at her. How young she was ... how young and innocent! Every feature of her dear little face still waited, as it were, for the strokes of time's chisel. It should be the care of his life that none but the happiest lines were graved ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... the men had just finished a hole when the little boy came, and he went ahead to the next round hole, and he put the edge of the chisel carefully against the wood, and he struck it ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins

... prayer of their successor, is one of the noblest legends of ecclesiastical tradition. The safety of Rome might deserve the interposition of celestial beings; and some indulgence is due to a fable, which has been represented by the pencil of Raphael, and the chisel of Algardi. [66] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... chisel trace A Nymph, or Naiad, or a Grace, Of finer form, or lovelier face! What though the sun, with ardent frown, Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown, The sportive toil, which, short and light Had ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... hundred feet. The air was warm, but breathable and there seemed to be plenty of it, as if some efficient means of artificial ventilation had been provided; nevertheless, it was nothing else than a cavern that we were exploring, and though there were traces of chisel and adze work on the walls, the ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... to have been designed by nature to rule, to see slaves at her feet, to provide occupation for the painter's brush, the sculptor's chisel and the poet's pen, lived the life of a rare and beautiful flower, which is shut up in a hot house, for she sat the whole day long wrapped up in her costly fur jacket and looked down dreamily ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... in the columns of a ledger than in the budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature. I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle on his chisel edge, which are measured out by his plumb and foot rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop bill as in the history of a state,—do recommend to him his trade, and though seldom named, exalt ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... bench vise to do this. You have now your boat in the rough. With a spokeshave round up the sides of the hull to HL. Turn your boat over, and cut with a saw three and three-quarter inches from the left-hand end, to a depth of three inches, and split off with a chisel. ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... have been eager and active that night, for the key turned in the lock with a smoothness that made honesty impossible—almost foolish. And the old, weak lock on the box itself—why, a chisel had soon made an end of that! Only five minutes—it had been so quick—there had been no trouble. God had made ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... that nature should have placed such a form inside the block. Roused by our objection, the artist proceeds to verify his theory experimentally - 'with quite rudimentary apparatus, too: merely using a chisel to separate the form for our inspection, he ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... thing at such a place. There are no exposures of rock at the foot of this rapid; but along its upper part runs a ledge of asphalt-like rock as smooth as a street pavement, with an outer edge as neatly rounded as if done with a chisel. This was the finest bit of tracking path on the river, excepting, perhaps, the great pavement beneath the cliff at ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... upon the figures of the characters in the "Mimic," the latest work of Professor Engel. "Master," said he, smilingly, extending him his hand, "I have come to thank you for many beautiful, happy hours which I owe to you. You paint with the chisel and poetize with the brush. An artist by ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... are made abroad. Beech is also an important handle wood, although not in the same class with hickory. It is not selected because of toughness and resiliency, as hickory is, and generally goes into plane, handsaw, pail, chisel, and flatiron handles. Recent statistics show that in the production of slack cooperage staves, only two woods, red gum and pine, stood above beech in quantity, while for heading, pine alone exceeded it. It is also used in turnery, ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner

... one night to me of the spiritual way in which marble, so soft and yet so firm, answered like living material to his tool, sending flame into it, and then seemed, as with a voice, to welcome the emotion which, flowing from him through the chisel, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... although there are so many. They were thought to be people who had been blown from some island. [50] They were naked, and had no firearms, nor even weapons of iron. Their ship had no nails, and a chisel that was found was made of bone. They ate lice with a good grace—by that propensity, being people of good taste. Some thought them to be from an island more distant than Borney; for the inhabitants of that island eat lice, and the fat ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... most animals as regards certain work that would have to be done with the aid of our organic resources alone, we are superior to all as soon as we set our tools at work. If the rodents with their sharp teeth cut wood better than we can, we do it still better with the ax, the chisel, the saw. Some birds, with the help of a strong beak, by repeated blows, penetrate the trunk of a tree: but the auger, the gimlet, the wimble do the same work better and more quickly. The knife is superior to the carnivore's ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... which stands on the south-east portion of Sahal, a little island lying in the First Cataract, two or three miles to the south of Elephantine Island and the modern town of Aswan. The inscription is not cut into the rock in the ordinary way, but was "stunned" on it with a blunted chisel, and is, in some lights, quite invisible to anyone standing near the rock, unless he is aware of its existence. It is in full view of the river-path which leads from Mahallah to Philae, and yet it escaped the notice of scores of travellers who have searched the rocks and islands ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge

... to go with his grandfather to the stone-yard. While the old man was busy, cutting and trimming the great blocks of stone, the lad would play among the chips. Sometimes he would make a little statue of soft clay; sometimes he would take hammer and chisel, and try to cut a statue from a piece of rock. He showed so much skill that his ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin

... The carpenter's hammer and chisel disposed of the resistance of the door in a few minutes. But some article of furniture had been placed against it inside, as a barricade. By pushing at the door, we thrust this obstacle aside, and so got admission to the room. The landlord entered first; the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... part of the building, is ornamented in varied and animated styles; and every slab of the vast pile is covered with exquisite carvings representing the lotos, the lily, and the rose, with arabesques wrought with the chisel with astonishing taste and skill. The porticos are supported by sculptured columns; and the terraces, which form a cross, have three flights of steps, at each of which are four colossal lions, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... a place close beside the saw, where there was a strong iron machine, to one part of which was attached a very large chisel—it might have been equal to two or three dozen of the largest ordinary chisels rolled into one. This machine was in motion, but apparently it had been made for a very useless purpose, for it was going vigorously up and down at the ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... themselves alone in the big studio. Adelle had a faint consciousness of the fact, but supposing that Miss Baxter would return, she tossed aside her wrap and with a mere "Hello, Archie!" went over to the corner where on a small bench she was wont to pound and chisel ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... a suit of greasy overalls, and went into the grimy vitals of the destroyer, a wrench in one hand, a chisel in the other. In about ten minutes he had solved the problem, explained it to the mechanics gathered about him, and then demonstrated just how simple the remedial measures were. All torpedo boat officers do this more often than not. It explains the blind fidelity with which ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... includes: 1. Elementary principles: first, straight turning; second, cutting in; third, convex curves with the chisel; fourth, compound curves formed with the gouge. 2. File and chisel handles. 3. Mallets. 4. Picture frames (chuck work). 5. Card receiver (chuck work). 6. Watch safe ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various

... 88a). In the treatment of such fissures he directs that the scalp wound be enlarged, the cranium perforated very cautiously with a trepan (trepano) at each extremity of the fissure and the two openings then connected by a chisel (spata?), in order to enable the surgeon to remove the discharges by a delicate bit of silk or linen introduced with a feather. If a portion of the cranium is depressed so that it cannot be easily raised into position, suitable openings are to be made ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson

... sculpture. But she will never write an Iliad or a Paradise Lost, or tragedies like those of Aeschylus. She will never rival Demosthenes in producing a political oration, nor a massive philosophic history like Thucydides. She will not paint a Madonna like Raphael, nor chisel an Apollo Belvedere. The logic of Aristotle, the polemics of Augustine, the prodigious onsets of a Luther, the Institutes of a Calvin, the Novum Organum of Bacon, the Principia of Newton, the Cosmos of Humboldt—the like of ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... right, at the same time, to be beautiful. I have seen a great many celebrated women at their best moments, but you are lovelier than any. It isn't a simple affair of proportion and features—I wish I could hold it in a phrase, the turn of a chisel. I can't. It's deathless romance in a bang cut blackly across heavenly blue." He was silent again, and Linda glad that he still found her attractive. She discovered that the misery his presence once caused her had entirely vanished, its place taken by an eager interest ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... melancholy. She began to fall asleep. Dogs ran by in her imagination: among them a shaggy old poodle, whom she had seen that day in the street with a white patch on his eye and tufts of wool by his nose. Fedyushka ran after the poodle with a chisel in his hand, then all at once he too was covered with shaggy wool, and began merrily barking beside Kashtanka. Kashtanka and he goodnaturedly sniffed each other's noses and merrily ran down the street. . ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Fogg, with a brush of a chisel scraping the portraiture on his own box out of all semblance, and then doing the same with the picture on the reverse ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman

... end. The sled is fitted with a light canvas trough, so adjusted that, in case of necessity, all the stores, &c., can be ferried over any narrow lane of water in the ice. There are packed on this sled a tent for eight or ten men, five or six pikes, one or more of which is fitted as an ice-chisel; two large buffalo-skins, a water-tight ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale



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