"Finishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nerve, anyhow, and they put on the finishing touches. A bricklayer would not have been so bad. How did I know the chauffeur was not working for a friend of mine? That, later on, would make it more embarrassing for him than me. I should think he would want ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... the allusion to the fact mentioned in the last two lines; namely, that the coat is quite a match for the billows, being as great a swell as any of them? The poet dashes off a few lines on trowsers, finishing with the following couplet, which is not likely to encourage purchasers. It is stated, and we dare say truly, that if any one puts on a pair of MOSES' trowsers he becomes at once ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... the upper line of columns; Xenocles of Cholargus roofed or arched the lantern on the top of the temple of Castor and Pollux; and the long wall, which Socrates says he himself heard Pericles propose to the people, was undertaken by Callicrates. This work Cratinus ridicules, as long in finishing, — ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to this work when everybody except themselves, as they thought, was asleep in Hereford. They had just completed the stack, and were all going away except Paddy, who was seated at the very top, finishing the pile, when they heard a loud voice cry out, "Here they ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... talking some time, the count told the story of the young German, whereupon the Emperor asked for proofs of its truth. At this Munster pulled the letter out of his pocket; and, both having seated themselves on a bench at the side of the walk, the Emperor read it. On finishing it, the Emperor said: "Such a thing as this can happen only in Russia." That very afternoon he sent a special police squad, post-haste, all the way to Siberia, ordering them to find the young German and bring ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... mountain air, I grieve to say, my physical and moral condition was not in that perfect accord always indicated by romancers. I had an appetite and I gratified it; dyspepsia and ethical reflections might come later. I ate the saleratus biscuit cheerfully, and was meditatively finishing my coffee when a gurgling sound from the rafters above attracted my attention. I looked up; under the overhang of the bark roof three pairs of round eyes were fixed upon me. They belonged to the children I had previously seen, who, in the attitude of Raphael's cherubs, ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... so much of the tall cow-puncher's notice. He responded, and they had a pleasant talk. I did not divine that the Virginian's genius was even then at work, and that all this was part of his satanic strategy. But Steve must have divined it. For while a few of us still sat finishing our supper, that facetious horseman returned from doctoring his horse's hoofs, put his head into the dining room, took in the way in which the Virginian was engaging his victim in conversation, remarked aloud, "I've lost!" ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... of the call for 300,000 men in 1863, came in spring, 1864, another for 500,000, to fortify General Grant in his finishing maneuvers, a murmur was heard. Chicago, gallantly having done her part, thought it was pumping at a void. A deputation from Cook County, headed by Lincolnites, departed for the capital to object to the summons. It was thought by his friends and long supporters that "their own elect" could not ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... shells of our shores through a barley-mill, as a preliminary operation in the process, and by next subjecting the broken fragments thus obtained to the attritive influence of the waves on some storm-beaten beach for a twelvemonth or two, as a finishing operation, may produce, when he pleases, exactly such a water-worn shelly debris as mottles the blue boulder-clays of Caithness. The proportion borne by the fragments of one species of shell to that of all the others is very ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... most elaborately poised, signing imperiously to the British public to time him, and looking his most heavenly just before he fell. He fell with a dump, and as they always laughed then, he pretended that this was his funny way of finishing. ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... and keep truce with him so long as he was fighting against the Asiatic king. But the vigorous general, who had to contend with all these embarrassments, was not accustomed to trouble himself about more remote dangers before finishing the task immediately in hand. When his proposals of peace addressed to the king, which substantially amounted to a restoration of the state of matters before the war, met with no acceptance, he advanced just as he had landed, from the harbours of Epirus to Boeotia, defeated ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... say on each flower, I shall follow with illustrations (few and short) from contemporary writers; then with any observations that may present themselves in the identification of Shakespeare's plant with their modern representatives, finishing each with anything in the history or modern uses or cultivation of the plant that ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... went on finishing the sketch, as though I took no interest in her. After a few seconds' silence, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 7, 1891 • Various
... should notice nothing out of the ordinary; then the stools were removed from below the window, and both lads sat down to their morning meal with keener appetites than they had known for some months past. Everything in the cell presented its usual appearance, and the twain were hastily finishing their meal when the tramp of feet was heard in the passage. No quiet, stealthy footstep this time, but a clatter of several approaching men which there was no mistaking. Roger and Harry looked at one another, dismay written all over their countenances. What was to happen now? Had the hour ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... and he, though a younger brother, bad much more than a younger brother's portion. His seat in Parliament was safe; his position in society was excellent and secure; he was exactly so placed that marriage with a fortune was the only thing wanting to put the finishing coping-stone to his edifice that, and perhaps also the useful glory of having some Lady Mary or Lady Emily at the top of his table. Lady Emily Aylmer? Yes it would have sounded better, and there was a certain Lady Emily who might have suited. Now, as some slight regrets stole upon him gently, ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... 4th, as I was putting the finishing touches on a cartoon, a friend burst into the room:—"Come out of here! Something must happen any minute now." We marched downtown,—everybody marched in those days; walking was abolished in its favor. One met demonstrations everywhere, ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... black, with many gaudy trinkets about her: a scarlet fichu relieved the sombre colour of her dress, and a very smart little cap at the back of her head set off an immense quantity of sable hair, which naturally, or artificially, adorned her forehead. A becoming quantity of rouge gave the finishing touch to her figure, which had a degree of pretension about it that immediately attracted our notice. She talked fluently, and without any American restraint, and I began to be greatly puzzled as to who or what ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... usual operations in binding books; folding; gathering, collating, sewing, forwarding, finishing. Case making and cased-in books. Hand work and machine work. Job and blank-book binding. ...
— Capitals - A Primer of Information about Capitalization with some - Practical Typographic Hints as to the Use of Capitals • Frederick W. Hamilton
... and turned quickly towards the door. She opened it and looked out. "I thought they were calling me,—and—I—I—MUST go now, Mr. Brant. And without finishing my business either, or saying half I had intended to say. But wait"—she put her hand to her head in a pretty perplexity, "it's a moonlight night, and I'll propose after dinner a stroll in the gardens, and you can manage to walk a little with me." She stopped again, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... had reigned in the military schools at Paris and La Fleche. Both these had been closed for a time because they could not be reformed; the latter was, however, one of the twelve from the first, and that at Paris was afterward reopened as a finishing-school. The monasteries of various religious orders were chosen as seats of the new colleges, and their owners were put in charge with instructions to secure simplicity of life and manners, the formation of character, and other desirable benefits, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... examine the cells. Some are still open and contain only a more or less complete store of honey. Others are hermetically sealed with an earthen lid. The contents of these latter vary greatly. Sometimes we find the larva of a Bee which has finished its mess or is on the point of finishing it; sometimes a larva, white like the first, but more corpulent and of a different shape; at other times honey with an egg floating on the surface. The honey is liquid and sticky, with a brownish colour ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... I could go out and meet him!" said the queen, finishing the letter. "I would run away and marry him. He has been so good to wait so long. Just think! He ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... Bermuda visit that Mark Twain added the finishing paragraph to his article, "The Turning-Point in My Life," which, at Howells's suggestion, he had been preparing for Harper's Bazar. It was a characteristic touch, and, as the last summary of his philosophy of human life, may be ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... beyond which floods rarely or never are known to extend. In no part of the habitable world is the force of contrast more to be observed than in Australia. A very able scientific writer[20] has ingeniously represented three persons travelling in certain directions across Great Britain, and finishing their journeys with three totally different impressions of the soil, country, and inhabitants; one having passed through a rocky and mining district, the second through a coal country peopled by manufacturers, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... refused to flourish on a war-diet they were condemned to death, and a Hungarian sportsman paid twelve pounds for the privilege of shooting them. No arrangements have yet been concluded for finishing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... all. You see, I make it my principle to keep the incapables for a single term only, since that is enough for them; but to the clever ones I allot a double course of instruction." And, true enough, any lad of brains was retained for this finishing course. Yet he did not repress all boyish playfulness, since he declared it to be as necessary as a rash to a doctor, inasmuch as it enabled him to ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... for the consequent delay. In the afternoon, glancing occasionally through the narrow window, he was mortified to see that the promising rain-clouds, which might yet have saved his cabbages, were dispersing; and then, to crown all, just as he was finishing for the day he had caught hold of a pair of pincers a trifle too near the white-hot end and seared ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... and I thought I never saw my lady look so well in her life as she did at that time. There were grand dinners, and all the gentlemen drinking success to Sir Condy till they were carried off; and then dances and balls, and the ladies all finishing with a raking pot of tea in the morning [See GLOSSARY 25]. Indeed, it was well the company made it their choice to sit up all nights, for there were not half beds enough for the sights of people that were ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... had resumed his seat by the fire with the purpose of finishing his pipe of tobacco. Presently he took out his pocket-book and began to write in it with a piece of black-lead pencil. When the pipe was smoked out he knocked the bowl against the grate to get rid of the ash, and placed the pipe in his ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Finishing the meal very quickly, people congregated in the hall, where they felt more secure than in any other place because they could retreat far from the windows, and although they heard the thunder, they could not see anything. A little boy was carried away sobbing in the arms ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... thereby ascertaining just how I would like to have it. I was not consulted anent the creation of the Cosmos, and perhaps it is just as well for them that I wasn't—they might not be here. Too many forget that while the Lord made the world, the devil has been busy ever since putting on the finishing touches. Why, he began on the first woman before she was a week old, and he has been playing schoolmaster to her sons ever since. I confess to a sneaking respect for Satan, for he is pre- eminently a success in his chosen profession. He's playing a desperate game ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... not the end proposed, but the informing one spirit of the thoughts of another. And in this greatness and simplicity of purpose all noble art is alike, however slight its means, or however perfect, from the rudest mosaics of St. Mark's to the most tender finishing of the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... summer guests become quite expert. The motion suggests that of a gondola, A catamaran scoots about the harbor among the islands; tiny steamers, sailing craft of all kinds, are seen; and sometimes United States training ships sail majestically into the bay and drop anchor, giving a finishing touch ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... purpose, bought timber and all other things belonging thereunto, and paid all. So as, in this deponent's conscience, he bestowed thereupon for his owne part the sum of one thousand marks at the least, in so much as his affection was given so greatly to the finishing thereof, in hope of great wealth and profit during their lease, that at the last he was driven to sell to this deponent's father his lease of the house wherein he dwelled for L100, and to this deponent all such wares as he had left and all that belonged thereunto ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... hands with my friend the reporter, and we parted company. I left the hotel quickly and returned to the King's Arms, where we were staying. I was lucky enough to find Jack just finishing lunch. ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... patient number two. Ted was much ashamed, and quite broken in spirit, when he found how he had failed at the critical moment, and begged them not to tell, as he really could not help it; then by way of finishing his utter humiliation, a burst of hysterical tears disgraced his manly soul, and did him a world ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... neither a dialect nor a patois; it is the pure English of a thousand years ago, the English Chaucer spoke, and which Yorkshire has preserved in all its purity—especially about the Craven district. Mrs. Hatton had gone through finishing schools of the latest fashion and she made no trips in her usual social conversation, unless deeply moved, but if a little Yorkshire was a fault, it was a very general one, and there was no interesting conversation without such ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... the happy am I! Now let me tell you. I was just finishing off my footstool, and thinking whether the baby's hair was quite curly enough, when the door gently opened and the old man entered. How he had found my little room I could not imagine. He looked at the footstool, then taking it in one ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... the story of their detention was told, Lancy telling his part and Elsie hers, Dexie finishing the story by confessing to the extreme measures used to keep Elsie awake, not sparing herself in the least when telling of the quarrel she had provoked, and there was a suspicious moisture in Mr. Gurney's eyes as he ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... night air, freshened by distant storms, brought on its wings the satisfying odors of the newly cut grass or the finished hay. Every feature of this beautiful panorama could be seen perfectly; those who feared a coming storm were finishing in haste the hay-stacks, while others followed with their pitchforks to fill the carts as they were driven along the rows. Others in the distance were still mowing, or turning the long lines of fallen grass to dry it, or hastening ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... Queen Anne this seems to have been an easy matter. St. Louis writes love-letters to several maids of honour and to a citizen's wife, finishing the first act by invading the private apartments of the maiden ladies belonging to the court of the chaste ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... business in hand. Those in front of the lines plucked off the ears of corn with great dexterity, and passed them to his nearest companion, who handed them forward from one to another, till they reached the woods. In this manner the work proceeded till daylight, when the slaves found the thieves finishing the operation. It had been a very profitable night's labor for the mischievous fellows. The corn was pretty nearly all disposed of. Before the owner of it could get his workmen together, with suitable weapons of defence, the whole troop had disappeared in the forest. What a chattering there must ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... the finishing blow to three of us. Hector fell on the floor; his lordship sunk in his chair; and I, after a hurrah and a hiccup, began to cast the cat: an Oxford phrase for what usually happens to a man after taking an ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... finishing stroke, I pulled my passport from my pocket and showed Berlin's approval of me stamped impressively in the right-hand corner. This vise was not at all unique with me. It had been affixed to the passports of thousands ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... After finishing his search, Obed went up the road, and carried back the man whom he had shot. He then informed his family of the result. In the midst of their horror at this tragedy, and their joy at escaping from a terrible fate, they felt a certain pity ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... them the requisite burst appearance, and with the aid of a file rubbed the respectability from them. A dip in the mud of the moat completed the transformation. Some cheap beads and coloured handkerchiefs, and a faint wash of Vandyke brown over face and hands, gave the finishing touches. ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... not make a fuss before the other non-commissioned officers who were standing about, so only said: "Kaeppchen, you're wanted in the orderly-room." Whereupon the corporal was off like a shot, not even finishing his beer. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... self-contained in peace as he had been brave in war, and he accepted the drowsy life of Montgomery as he had accepted the romance and adventures of Fort Boykin, on Sundays playing the pipe-organ in the Presbyterian Church, and spending his leisure in finishing "Tiger Lilies," begun in the wild days of '63, on Burwell's Bay. In 1867 he returned to Macon, where in September he read the proof of his book, his one effort at romance-writing, chiefly noticeable for its musical element. The fluting of the author is recalled by the description of the ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... yonder at first?" growled out our Kroomen, who had the work of getting the vessel off. When they spoke roughly to poor Scissors, the weak cringing slave-spirit came forth in, "Those men scold me so, I am ready to run away." This mode of finishing up an engagement is not at all uncommon on the Zambesi; several cases occurred, when we were on the river, of hired crews decamping with most of the goods in their charge. If the trader cannot redress his own wrongs, he has to endure them. The Landeens will ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... hand, you believe you have a Mission, or if you are a Dig, rooming in the Hall because it is convenient to the Quad, then you dwell in "Faculty Row," away off to the east, where the early sun pulls you out in time to put the finishing touches to your Latin, and where there is no trafficking to and from the Quad to disturb your ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... him, toward the room where the florist was still putting the finishing touches to the flowers on the table. When the first guests arrived, she came back and took her place near him, and he was uncomfortably aware of the little start of surprise with which she burst upon each new arrival, In the old and ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... for the Spaniards. To establish more justice in the land would be to ruin it, as the officials do not do their duty, but rob the Indians. At this, the bishop returns to the subject of the restitutions in which he becomes engrossed; and declares that he is finishing a treatise or declaration in respect to them. With this he closes the letter in which he gives his opinion of what I should have done—concluding by advising that, before allowing the encomenderos to collect the tributes, I ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... autumn. The autumn comes, and the roads are too muddy to travel by; he must wait till the winter, when they will be frozen hard. Winter comes, and it is too cold to move; but he will certainly return in the spring. Spring comes, and he is on the point of finishing his Siecle de Louis XIV.; he really must wait just a few weeks more. The book is published; but then how can he appear in Paris until he is quite sure of its success? And so he lingers on, delaying ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... because I had nothing else. They offered to pay me half the honorarium of 200 louis d'or, i.e., 100 louis d'or on receipt of the score of the first act, so I hurried to get it done head over heels. This was the reason of my business- like haste in finishing this poor work. Altogether, the fate of my works, including "Tristan", has become a matter of great indifference to me; as to how, where, and when, I care little, as long ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... the case on the present occasion, and Verty seemed as earnestly engaged in his own particular task. But appearances are deceptive—Indian nature will not take the curb like Anglo-Saxon—and a glance over Verty's shoulders will reveal the species of occupation which he became engaged in after finishing ten lines ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... the 28th, the finishing touches were given. It was necessary to put supports for the sides of the slide in some places where the ice had melted quickly. Then everyone was allowed to rest from 4 o'clock p.m. The captain had double rations served ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... "My poor brother is dead and gone; and this is his corpse. Kindly keep it in your charge till I finish worshipping you. If I leave it anywhere else the devils may snatch it away when I am absent worshipping you; after finishing the rites I shall burn him." Thus said the elder brother, and, giving the corpse to the god Ganesa, he went to prepare himself for that deity's ceremonials. Ganesa made over the corpse to his Ganas, asking them to watch over it carefully. ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... with a fresh burst of tears, which rendered the words that followed unintelligible. But she recovered herself in a few moments, and, as if finishing her sentence, put her hand up to her poor, thin, colourless hair, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... too, seems to reflect against the dominie's views on cleanliness. One examination day the minister attended to open the inspection with prayer. Just as he was finishing, a scholar entered who had a ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... After finishing his meal, he went out, as his father had done, out under the stars and sat on the little bench under the ivy, and smoked a cigar. He felt a curious thrill of excitement, quite out of keeping with his loneliness. Was it just the memory of that old love-story that had stirred ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... gave a finishing touch to the consternation of the yellow drawing-room. A few bourgeois got up and stealthily made for the door, reflecting that they had not too much time before them to gain ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... and chatty at the breakfast table. But the very air her relatives breathed seemed to feed their spleen. Mr. Day insisted upon Marty's finishing the hoeing of the potatoes, and it took almost a pitched battle to ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... Manchester, Fleeming passed to a railway survey in Switzerland, and thence again to Mr. Penn's at Greenwich, where he was engaged as draughtsman. There in 1856, we find him in 'a terribly busy state, finishing up engines for innumerable gun- boats and steam frigates for the ensuing campaign.' From half-past eight in the morning till nine or ten at night, he worked in a crowded office among uncongenial comrades, 'saluted by chaff, generally low personal ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... father greeting his first-born. The train rolled on out between the towers and beyond, where swarms of carpenters and laborers were laying beams and stringers and floor planking and piling up immense stacks of material to be used farther out. The finishing gangs were following up the steel workers as fast ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... of yours," snapped the hired man, "and you best go 'tend your cow;" finishing his ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... where they have been disturbed or hunted; but here they were evidently unaccustomed to man. They appeared to be resting after their night's work, it is not likely that they had built the whole breastwork during that one night, but had only put on the finishing part which had produced the sudden flood. As the glade above where they had dammed the rivulet was nearly level, a very small stoppage in the stream sufficed to inundate a large extent of ground, as it had ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... much exceeded my expectation. The public buildings are magnificent, very many of the streets regularly laid out, and exceedingly well built. The front of the Parliament-house is grand, though not so light as a more open finishing of the roof would have made it. The apartments are spacious, elegant, and convenient, much beyond that heap of confusion at Westminster, so inferior to the magnificence to be looked for in the seat of empire. I was so ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... disarmament, and an agenda for the Conference on Disarmament, it is true that the Council would have available the advice of the Permanent Military Commission and of the different bureaus of the Secretariat. Even so, the task of finishing these preparations in three or four months, getting them approved by the Council and also by at least the chief of the interested Governments, is one that seems to me to ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... frost upon his hair, and the marks which sorrow and distress have left upon his face; though he is only in his prime in the matter of years. While he ate, we smoked and chatted; and when he was finishing he found his voice at last, and of his own accord broke out with his personal history. I cannot furnish his exact words, but I will come as ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... involved straight flying for the most part, and was done more with the idea of familiarizing the newcomers with the newer types of planes, and deciding for which branch of the work they were best suited, than for anything else. In the work that gave the finishing touch to his command, their squadron commander selected three of the six Brighton boys as candidates for high honors in the days to come. Every one of the half dozen was good. All were eager. All flew well. But Joe Little, Jimmy Hill and Harry Corwin seemed made of exactly the sort of stuff from ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... the country it soon dawned upon me that I was in great danger of being late. To keep a King and Queen and their guests waiting on one for dinner would of course be an outrageous offense. I dressed as hastily as I was able, but just as I was putting on the finishing touches to my costume my white tie bursted. I was in a predicament from which for a moment I saw no means of rescuing myself. I did not have time to get another tie, and of course I could not wear the black one. As well as I could, however, I put the white tie ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... London in most of its phases he was already at home. So, when in 1834 he made his first attempts at writing in periodical literature, although he was only twenty-two years old, he had a wealth of first-hand experiences quite outside the range of the man who is just finishing his leisurely passage through a public school and university: of schools and offices, of parliaments and prisons, of the street and of the high road, he had been a diligent and observant critic; for many years he had practised the maxim of Pope: 'The ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... finding decorations for our room, we have now all we could desire. I will have our drawings framed, so that we can give them no finishing touches; and this will make us both careful to do no negligent work. I will arrange them in order around our room, each drawing repeated twenty or thirty times, and each repetition showing the author's progress, from the representation of a house by an almost shapeless ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... with him, paused before a large picture scarcely finished. Applying himself, heart and soul, to his work, the painter Lebrun, covered with perspiration, stained with paint, pale from fatigue and the inspiration of genius, was putting the last finishing touches with his rapid brush. It was the portrait of the king, whom they were expecting, dressed in the court suit which Percerin had condescended to show beforehand to the bishop of Vannes. Fouquet placed himself before this portrait, which seemed to ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... So, the last finishing touches having been put upon his toilet, and Angy having made ready by lamplight for her own trip, even before the old man was awake, there seemed nothing left to be done until the breakfast ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... this expedition that put the finishing touch to Philip Steele. He came back a big hearted, clear minded young fellow, as bronzed as an Aztec—a hater of cities and the hothouse varieties of pleasure to which he had been born, and as far ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... their departure, as the French were known to be advancing eastward, and might have, had they delayed, intercepted them. For the same reason Captain Order and his officers and crew anxiously looked forward to the arrival of a ship of war to take them away, as they did not fancy finishing off their adventures by being made prisoners and marched off to Verdun, or some other unpleasant place, where the French at that time shut up their captives. At length a sloop of war arrived, and they reached England ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... create to itself imaginary ones. But I have no need of these. I am placed at a distance from the mistress of my heart, which may seem little to a cold and speculative apprehension, but which my soul yearns to think of. My fate has not yet received that public sanction which can alone put the finishing stroke to my felicity. I cannot suspect, even in my most lawless flights, the most innocent and artless of her sex of inconstancy. But how many unexpected accidents may come between me and my happiness? How comfortless ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... she was finishing the beds, Jean heard the pewit call and at once knew that the Clan was abroad. She ran to the door, and the three boys came in together,—Jock from the garden, where he had been pulling weeds in the potato-patch, and Sandy and Alan from the road. They were carrying a large basket, and Sandy was laden ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... else. How's Miss Ruth and the governor? He's a daisy;—best engineer anywhere round here. Yes, Cory's all right. Baby keeps her awake half the night; I've moved out and camp upstairs; can't stand it. Oh, by the way, I see you are about finishing up on the railroad work. I'll have something to say to you next week on the damage question. Got all the reports in last night. I tell you, my old chief, Mr. Morris, is a corker! What he doesn't know about masonry isn't worth ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... inefficiency in carrying out the orders of the Assembly seems certain. The people of Isle of Wight county complained of "the great Quantities of Tobacco levyed for Building Houses of publick use and reception at Jamestown, which were not habitable, but fell downe before the Finishing of them".[454] ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... said he, "is this. The Lord Functionary obeyed your orders, and less than a week ago word went to the management, happily engaged with its finishing touches to the play. Your share in the business, of course, was not mentioned; your cuttings had become the official act of the department. What that meant, you can perhaps hardly conceive. Here was popular musical comedy censored as it had never been censored before. Time was too short for ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... he is without a wig, for we saw him, on the occasion to which we are so guardedly referring, both in a wig and out of it; he passed behind a screen without it, and immediately (as quickly as we write) popped out in it, giving it a finishing touch rather like the butler's wriggle to his coat as he goes to the door. There are the two kinds of learned brothers, those who use the screen, and those who (so far as the jury knows) sleep in their wigs. The latter ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... days, most informal. I don't ever remember having written an invitation all the years we lived in Rome. Everybody led the same life and we saw each other all day, hunting, riding, driving, in the villas in the afternoon, generally finishing at the Pincio, where there was music. All the carriages drew up and the young men came and talked to the women exactly as if they were at the opera or in a ballroom. When we had music or danced at our house, we used to tell some well-known man ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... note of their appearance" until they dress again. And it must be granted that Lucy Gilding, Constance Style, Celia Lovejoy, Mary Smartlington and the other well-bred members of the younger set do not put finishing touches on ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... another form. He is drilled into what the authorities find it most convenient that he should think from the moment he can understand words. By the time he comes to his military service his mind is already squeezed into the desired shape. Then comes the finishing off,—the body drilled to match the mind, and you have the perfect slave. And it is because he is a slave that when he has power—and every man has power over some one—he is so ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... that we are building a bomb to destroy Keegark; that we are running short of ammunition, and that it is our only hope of finishing the war before the ammunition is gone," Kankad said. "Tell them something of what sort of a bomb it is. But do not tell them that King Orgzild already has such a bomb. Old Kankad, who made me out of himself, told me about how our people fled in panic from the weapons of the Terrans, when ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... they went away from Charmouth when they did; by doing so they narrowly escaped apprehension; for that night, while the king's horse was in the stable, a smith was sent for to set a shoe upon the horse of one of the other travelers. After finishing his work, he began to examine the feet of the other horses in the stalls, and when he came to the one which the king had rode, his attention was particularly attracted to the condition and appearance of the shoes, and he remarked to those who were with him that that horse had ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... I meant you to," said Mr. Bobbsey with a smile. "Nan came in with that letter just as Mr. Marvin and I were finishing our talk about the houseboat," he went on. "I was going to keep it secret a little longer, but it's just as ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... Aiwohikupua household. Prayer as an invocation to the gods who are called upon for help is one of the most characteristic features of native ritual, and the termination amama, generally accompanied by the finishing phrases ua noa, "it is finished," and lele wale aku la, "flown away," is genuine Polynesian. Literally mama means "to chew," but not for the purpose of swallowing like food, but to spit out of the ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... deeply thoughtful while finishing her lunch. "He has been here," she said to herself as she folded and slipped her napkin into its ring; then, with a resolute uplifting of her head, she followed Sadie upstairs and tapped upon her door. "Please excuse me for ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... simultaneously, but alternately, till all their antagonists were disposed of, most killed and some spared. The spectators seldom hurried Murmex to end a fight; they never hurried Palus. His longest delay in finishing with an adversary, even his manifest intention to exhaust an opponent rather than to wound him, never elicited any protest from any onlooker. All, breathless, fascinated, craned to watch the perfection of his method, every movement of ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... and showed it to stranger jurymen who walked the streets,—for it was court-week,—and to farmers and lumber-dealers and wood-choppers and hunters, and not one had ever seen the like before, but they wondered as at a star dropped down. Tell of ancient architects finishing their works on the tops of columns as perfectly as on the lower and more visible parts! Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved by them. We see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows. The ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... the history of Bolivar County before I left. I dislike not finishing a book. Besides, this one fascinated me—the smug complacence and almost loud virtue of the author, his satisfaction in Bolivar County, and his small hits at the world outside, his patronage to those not of it. And always, when I began to read, ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... neatly arranged outer clothing of the two girls supposedly asleep in the big four-poster, Bella had selected a skirt of Ruth's and a shirt-waist of Jennie's, arraying herself in both of these borrowed garments. She was now putting the finishing touch to her costume by setting Ruth's cap on top of her ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... have delayed finishing this letter till this morning, in the vain hope of being able to get something specific to propose to you. After dinner, on the 8th, Townshend produced Lord Camden's preamble. I send you a copy of it, and need not, I am sure, observe to you how unsatisfactory it is ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... said Alice: "she's so extremely—" Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on "—likely to win, that it's hardly worth while finishing the game." ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... home-like look had already been given, and the ladies, with many mental encomiums, saw how secluded and inviting an aspect had been imparted to their especial abode. As they came on the scene, Lumley was finishing the construction of a dense screen of evergreen boughs, which surrounded the canvas to the doorway. Not far away an iron pot was slung on a cross-stick in gypsy style, and it was flanked by rock-work fireplaces which Maggie declared ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... money advanced—but the large remaining sum was due to banks, printers, binders, and the manufacturers of paper. A panic was on the land and there was no business. What he was to do Clemens did not know. He spent most of his days in his room, trying to write, and succeeded in finishing several magazine articles. Outwardly cheerful, he hid the bitterness ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Sau-ge-nong. She would not stop with me at Mackinac, which we passed in the night, but ran along to Point St. Ignace, where she hired some Indians to take care of me, while she returned to Mackinac by herself, or with one or two of her young men. After finishing her business at Mackinac, she returned, and, continuing on our journey, we arrived in ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... self-sustaining. Here as in all other of his positions, Garner made a good record and won many honors. In the meantime he did not forget the folks at home, and his remittances to them were always punctual. After finishing school he married, but continued in the employ of the school and Booker Washington and is ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various |
