"Knot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... day invited to dine with one of the servants of the Tuileries; and, before his arrival, a person in company had been decorated with a knot of lace and a gold key, such as chamberlains wear; he was introduced to Poinsinet as the Count de Truchses, chamberlain to the King of Prussia. After dinner the conversation fell upon the Count's visit to Paris; when his Excellency, with a mysterious air, vowed that he ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... boy who is to tend the calves in the kraal, while his fellows sport and romp about, is selected by lot: "As many blades of grass as there are boys are taken, and a knot is made on the end of one of them. The biggest boy holds the blades between the fingers and thumb of his closed hand, and whoever draws the blade with the knot has to act as herdsman" (543. 221). Nowadays, children are employed to turn roulette-wheels, sort cards, pick out lottery-tickets, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... calls two half hitches," commented Hart instantly. "A very serviceable knot, which will resist to the ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... of answer the man proceeded to open the bag. He took out a parcel wrapped loosely in brown paper, and about the size of a large book. It was tied with string, and the man seemed unnecessarily long untying the knot. When at last the string was off and the paper unfolded, there appeared a series of smaller packages inside. The man took them out very carefully, almost as if they had been alive, Blake thought, and set them in a ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... a knot on my handkerchief till such time as I can give my mind to it.... Now, my dear (to King), make no more delay. It is right to drink it down after your meal. The stomach to be bare empty, the medicine might prey upon the body till it would be wore ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... drive her, as he had so lately threatened, from his roof. But there was a noise of many feet and chattering and laughter in the passage without, which showed that some of the tourist guests had just come in. Only a plank intervened between that little knot of giddy pleasure-seekers, with their jokes and small-talk, and the father and ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... exalted existence, according to the degree of perfection which every distinct intelligence may have attained. Let it not be supposed that I mean to dogmatise upon a subject concerning which all men are equally ignorant, or that I think the Gordian knot of the origin of evil can be disentangled by that or any similar assertions.... That there is a true solution of the riddle, and that in our present state that solution is unattainable by us, are propositions which may be regarded as equally ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... in silence. "The fires went out early in the evening, and the cold became intense. Some managed to get blankets from their friends," in the apartment above, "but the guards soon put a stop to that. One man called down to a friend through a knot-hole in the floor, asking him if he wanted a blanket. The guard heard him, cocked his gun, and aimed at the hole; but a call from below gave the man warning and he fled." And all this for singing a song written ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... the bandmaster was sauntering past, buried in meditation, his sabre trailing a furrow through the dust, when a clatter of hoofs broke out along the village street, and a general officer, followed by a plunging knot of horsemen, tore up and ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... blood. When the lots were cast into the urn it so fell that the king was required for death as a victim. Then Starkad made a noose of withies and bound the king in it; saying that for a brief instant he should pay the mere semblance of a penalty. But the tightness of the knot acted according to its nature, and cut off his last breath as he hung. And while he was still quivering Starkad rent away with his steel the remnant of his life; thus disclosing his treachery when he ought to have brought aid. I do not think that I need examine the version which relates that the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... frantic license; I think it would end in frozen timidity. If a man was forbidden to solve moral problems by moral science or the help of mankind, his course would be quite easy—he would not solve the problems. The world instead of being a knot so tangled as to need unravelling, would simply become a piece of clockwork too complicated to be touched. I cannot think that this untutored worry was what Ibsen meant; I have my doubts as to whether it was what Shaw meant; but I do not ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... wood is a pavilion which holds the collections of Colonial curiosities. In front of the pavilion (I quote again from Through Noord-Holland, which is invaluable), "stands a casting of Laskson and his sons to a knot, which has been manufactured in the last centuries before Christ. The original has been digged up at Rome in 1500." Shade ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... soil'd, though fresh and new. How bright wert thou, when Shem's admiring eye Thy burnisht, flaming Arch did first descry! When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, The youthful world's gray fathers in one knot, Did with intentive looks watch every hour For thy new light, and trembled at each shower! When thou dost shine darkness looks white and fair, Forms turn to Musick, clouds to smiles and air: Rain ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... myself. Swear Hans to secrecy; swear the doctors to secrecy; and breathe no word yourself. I have been a fool, but I do not wish it to be known that I was also a coward. Perhaps it is not cowardice; perhaps it is courage, after all—courage to cut the knot. I could not have survived the disgrace of any revelations, Aribert, and revelations would have been sure to come. I have made a fool of myself, but I am ready to pay for it. We of Posen—we always pay—everything except our debts. Ah! those debts! Had it not been for those I could have faced her ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... her, at the rate of about three knots in the hour, leaving behind her a thin, swirling wake of small bubbles and tiny whirlpools that vanished upon the breast of the next on-coming swell. The longboat, under fore and main standing lugs and a small jib, deeply loaded as she was, was doing a knot less than ourselves, and we soon passed and slid ahead of her; while away down in the north-eastern board, broad on our starboard quarter, the topsails and upper canvas of the barque shone primrose-yellow ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... calls; but o'er thy head Let this white plume its floating foliage spread; That from the rampart, thro the troubled air, These eyes may trace thee toiling in the war. She fixt the feather on his crest above, Bound with the mystic knot, the knot of love; He parted silent, but in silent prayer Bade Love and Hymen guard ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... And giving a tighter knot to the red kerchief, which had been disordered by her lamentations, the old woman went down the ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... tumult around is something deafening, for it is holiday times and the people feel particularly self-indulgent and disinclined for self-denial. In the midst of the uproar, from out the chaotic mass of rainbow-colored costumes, there forms a little knot of mollahs in huge snowy turbans and flowing gowns of solid blue or green, and at their head the gray-bearded patriarchal-looking old khan of the village in his flowered robe of office from the governor. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the turkey buzzard as he swoops upon his prey, and we found ourselves being hustled down the familiar corridors, and into a room which we had not visited before; a few assistant marshals were there, and ere long a knot of newspaper men entered, observant and sympathetic, ready to receive and record the last words ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... came upon a knot of men standing just at the entrance of the yard that led to the tap-room. They were none of them exactly drunk; and certainly none were exactly sober. There were some among them whom he never saw at church, and never found at home. He was grieved to see these men in high ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... were doing; it was what you were undoing that bothered me. You were undoing the knot with which I fastened my rope before I descended your air shaft to get a peep ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... county-seat war, which had raged about the time Albert had left for Glenfleld, Dave Sawney had come to be a man of importance. His own claim lay equidistant from the two rival towns. He bad considerable influence with a knot of a dozen settlers in his neighborhood, who were, like himself, without any personal interest in the matter. It became evident that a dozen or a half-dozen votes might tip the scale after Plausaby, Esq., had turned the enemy's flank by getting some local politician to persuade ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... are also quarrymen who extract cantaria-slabs for sills and copings from the four square apertures which look afar like mortice-holes; and a fine marbled stone, white, blue, and ruddy, has been taken from this part of the cliff-face. Finally, there is a little knot of tiny huts which sticks like a wasp-nest to the very foot of the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... Shaddy's keen knife-blade met it a couple of inches below the gaping jaws, cut clean through its scale-armed skin, and the head dropped among the lovely petals of the orchis, while the body, twisting and twining upon itself in a knot, went down through the bush and could be heard rustling and beating the leaves ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... eyes that reflected every emotion of the pure, womanly nature, as the calm lake mirrors the sunlit sky or the lowering storm-cloud, the silvery moon or the lightning's flash. The wavy, auburn hair, tinged in the sunlight with red gold, was gathered into a knot near the top of a shapely, well-poised head, while stray curls clustered rebelliously about the broad, fair brow, ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... earthy. If her spirit could not soar and sing in the sky, it also could not grovel in the mire of gross materiality. Some little time, therefore, before the company broke up, on the plea of not feeling well she lured her father away from his wine and cigars and a knot of gentlemen who were beginning to talk a little incoherently. Making their adieux amid many protestations against their early departure, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... don't mean the usual sort of ghost," said the Doctor, drawing his shelving brows together in a meditative knot of criss- cross lines over his small, speculative eyes. "The ghost that is common to Scotch castles and English manor-houses, and that appears in an orthodox night-gown, sighs, screams, rattles chains and bangs doors ad libitum. No, no! That kind of ghost is composed of indigestion, aided ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... bridegroom disdaining to defer to the common usage, spent their honeymoon in their own house. Gagtooth had rented and furnished a little frame dwelling on the outskirts of the town, on the bank of the river; and thither the couple retired as soon as the hymeneal knot was tied. Next morning the bridegroom made his appearance at his forge and went to work as usual, as though nothing had occurred to disturb the ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... A face is introduced into a branch or knot of the tree—an odd, rather far-fetched effect. The effectively outlined church in the background ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... hollowing out a bay here, and building a long point there; alluring the little bushes close to its side, and bending the tall slim trees over its current; sweeping a rocky ledge clean of everything but moss, and sending a still lagoon full of white arrow-heads and rosy knot-weed far back into the meadow. The shore guides and controls the stream; now detaining and now advancing it; now bending it in a hundred sinuous curves, and now speeding it straight as a wild-bee on its homeward flight; here hiding ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... miles from where Tom had crossed in the ferryboat on his way to Chattanooga and Marietta. From that point he knew his way north. But the first necessity was food. Hunger had become a sharp pain which tore at his stomach. He reached inside his shirt, and wound the knot of under-drawers until it hurt. That pain was preferable to ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... continued, after looking through one of the handbooks, until he found the proper page. "You can tie all the knots already. You do that every day. But there are plenty of boys, and men too, where I came from that can't even tie the ordinary square knot. ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... different colors; each having its own particular signification. The color for soldiers was red; for gold, yellow; for silver, white; for corn, green, &c. This writing by knots was especially employed for numerical and statistical tables; each single knot representing ten; each double knot stood for one hundred; each triple knot for one thousand, &c.; two single knots standing together made twenty; and ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... riddle, for then it read: "The Mother of the Loves imitates the Shapes of Cynthia," meaning that the planet Venus, when viewed with a telescope, shows phases like those of the moon. The secret imparted in confidence to the knot of astronomers at Juvisy came from a countryman of Galileo's, Signor G. V. Schiaparelli, the Director of the Observatory of Milan, and its purport was that the planet Mercury always keeps the same face directed toward the sun. Schiaparelli ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... frock, a blazing red shawl, and a yellow crape bonnet profusely decorated with azure, orange, and magenta artificial flowers. In her hand she carried a white parasol. The newly risen sun, ricocheting from the bosom of the river and striking point blank on the top-knot of Miss Margaret's gorgeousness, made her an imposing spectacle in the quiet street of that Puritan village. But, in spite of the bravery of her apparel, she stole guiltily along by garden walls and ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Tatiana Markovna made a knot in her handkerchief. She liked it to be said that nothing could be done without her; a clothes-line, for instance, could be bought by anybody, but God forbid that she should trust anybody with money. Although by no means avaricious, she was sparing with money. Before she brought herself ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... but who was e'er in love, and wise? Why was that fatal knot of marriage tied, Which did, by making us too near, divide? Divides me from my sex! for heaven, I find, Excludes but me alone of womankind. I stand with guilt confounded, lost with shame, And yet made wretched only by a name. If names have such command on human ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... subject which I want to bring before you is now branched, and worse than branched, reticulated, in so many directions, that I hardly know which shoot of it to trace, or which knot to lay ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... woman at another window, writing, or rather she has got her table before her, and her inkstand, and the pen between her fingers; all that she wants is a few ideas; see, she rolls up her eyes like a pussy in a fit, and looks up, and looks down, and makes a love knot on the paper with her pen, and coaxes her temples with her fingers; but it's no use, there's nothing there! So she may as well get off her ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... here was to assist education, and not provide it altogether gratuitously. I think that provision for public education is enjoined in the constitutions of all the States admitted into the Union since the first Federal knot was tied except in that of Illinois. Vermont was the first so admitted, in 1791; and Vermont declares that "a competent number of schools ought to be maintained in each town for the convenient instruction of youth." Ohio was the second, in ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... was moving, lay a long black snake asleep on the sand. When directly over its victim the jelly globule again sank till it touched the middle of the reptile's back. The serpent immediately coiled itself in a knot, but was already dead. The jellyfish did not swallow, but completely surrounded its prey, and again rose in the air, with the snake's black body clearly visible within it. "Our Will-o'-the-wisp is prettier by night than by day," said Bearwarden. "I suggest ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... events at White Slides had passed beyond the stage where sympathetic and inspiring hope might serve Wade's purpose. Besides, his mood was gradually changing as these events, like many fibers of a web, gradually closed in toward a culminating knot. ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... celibacy of the clergy should, in like manner, be forthwith granted. There was, however, in his view, one point that bristled with difficulties. How to remove them Melanchthon confessed himself unable to suggest. The question of the popish mass was the Gordian knot which must be reserved for the future council of the church to ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... no longer two but one flesh. 3. That nuptials are the commencement of an entire separation of the love of the sex from conjugial love, which is effected while, by a full liberty of connection, the knot is tied by which the love of the one is devoted to the love of the other. 4. It appears as if nuptials were merely an interval between those two states, and thus that they are mere formalities which may be omitted: but still there is also in them this essential, that the new state above-mentioned ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... old-fashioned gown of grey silk with a white muslin fichu crossed over her shoulders, and her silvery hair fell on each side of her face in long, smooth curls that just touched her shoulders and bobbed and fluttered with her every motion; behind, it was caught up in a knot on her head and surmounted ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... climber, it may be common or it may be a king's ransom. I only know that it is rosy-hued, and that I shall look at life through its pleasant medium. Some fantastic trellis, brown and benevolent, shall knot supporting arms around it, and day by day it shall twine daintily up toward my southern window, and whisper softly of the sweet-voiced, tender-eyed woman from whose fairy bower it came in rosy wrappings. And this Nemophila, 'blue as my brother's eyes,'—the brave young brother whose ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... work 1 double stitch, then (1 pearl and 2 double stitches alternately 7 times), 1 pearl, 1 double, draw the loop quite close, place the two ends together, knot them firmly and cut off the ends; it is better to knot the gold twice to make it ...
— Golden Stars in Tatting and Crochet • Eleonore Riego de la Branchardiere
... easily, but the Indians had been gone a long time and it was filled with leaves, dim and not easy to follow. It ended as nearly all trails do; it branched off to right and left, grew dimmer and slimmer, degenerated to a deer path, petered out to a squirrel track, ran up a tree and ended in a knot hole. I was not sorry. It left me free to follow my nose, my ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... about, when a knot of them get together? Not, I believe, about the sources of the Nile, or the precession of the equinoxes, or the nature of the human understanding, or Dante, or Shakespeare, or Milton, although they have learned all about them in school; but upon a theme much nearer and dearer,—the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the store where the post-office was kept we saw a small knot of people gathered round the door, and stopped to see what had happened. There was a forlorn horse standing near, with his harness tied up with fuzzy ends of rope, and the wagon was cobbled together ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... The last line alludes to a charming custom of which mention is made in the most ancient Japanese literature. Lovers, ere parting, were wont to tie each other's inner girdle (himo) and pledge themselves to leave the knot untouched until the time of their next meeting. This poem is said to have been composed in the seventh year of Y[o]r[o],—A.D. 723,—eleven ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... well-licked whelp,' replied Elzevir, 'who got a bullet in the leg two months ago in that touch under Hoar Head; and is worth more than he looks, for they have put twenty golden guineas on his head—so have a care of such a precious top-knot.' ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... to change his associations. His elegant penmanship would have secured him an easy berth and better society at headquarters, but he declined to accept a detail. He became an exciting mystery to a knot of us imaginative young cubs, who sorted up out of the reminiscential rag-bag of high colors and strong contrasts with which the sensational literature that we most affected had plentifully stored our minds, a half-dozen intensely emotional careers for him. We ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... next day, before he would consent to my return; the chief cause and pretence of which was my earnest desire to convince him, that I was not to blame for the disappointment he had suffered, and that I should see him again in a month, when the nuptial knot should be tied in spite ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... journey would never have been made. As it was, while she was yet in the train, she came to the strong resolution of returning direct from the London station to her own house in Harley Street. It would be best to cut the knot at once, and thus by a bold stroke of the knife rid herself of the Orange Street rooms and Miss Biggs at the same time. She did drive to Harley Street, and on her arrival at her own door was informed ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... platform towards the knot of folks with whom the lady was last seen, and the sailor followed with an indulgent grin. Together they reached the locomotive of their train, and like a vision the strange lady emerged from nowhere and ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... his cabin alone, staring at a knot of wood on the table before him. There were traces of tears on ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... over the back of the chair, and stuffed a hard bit of roaster-cake under the knot of the bundle, and then his preparations were completed. The German stood contemplating them with much satisfaction. He had almost forgotten his sorrow at leaving in his pleasure at preparing. Suddenly he ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... bank. There was nothing to either except a one-inch board and a thickness of lath and plastering. I passed the two lines of fuse through the two holes, and into the other building, which was a drug store. In the other building I tied a loose knot in the ends of the fuse and left it lying on the floor behind the counter ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... tickets applied for, that a rapid calculation satisfied me that we could not possibly despatch the last of the tickets until at least two days after Mr. Gladstone's departure from Leeds. This was rather a terrible discovery to be made on the eve of the Premier's arrival. The knot had to be cut instead of being unravelled. I put aside the elaborate and irreproachable volumes in which Mathers and his staff had been entering the tickets at the time when he was seized with illness, and, with the help of a sixpenny memorandum book and half a dozen smart bank clerks, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... just such an adventure as this. The final disenchantment was anything but glorious. Roughly seizing him, the two men forced him stiffly upright in the chair, drew his arms about the back of it, and there secured them, wrist to wrist, drawing the knot until Alex almost cried out in pain. Then, as tightly, they bound his ankles to the lower rungs, one ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... clothes which he had outgrown. It was a bitter night, but he had no coat over his flannel jacket. He walked straight down the store, between the dry-goods counters, to the snug corner at the rear, where the knot of talkers sat; nodded, without a smile, to each of them, and then asked the storekeeper for some simple articles of food, which he wished to buy. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... with a nation's wealth at her feet and thousands of individuals offering her millions, which she never accepted, would have so far degraded herself and the honour of the nation, of which she was born to be the ornament, as to place herself gratuitously in the power of a knot of wretches, headed by a man whose general bad character for years had excluded him from Court and every respectable society, and had made the Queen herself mark him as an object of the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... considered "sufficient." With your kind permission I would like to speak a few words about the "snakes" in question. When I resided in Pennsylvania, I, in company with many other lads, used to tie a bundle of horse hairs into a hard knot and then immerse them in the brook, when the water began to get warm, and in due time we would have just as many animals, with the power of locomotion and appearance of snakes, as there were hairs in the bundle. I have raised them one-eighth of an inch in diameter, with perceptible ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... being that of mingled cunning and cruelty. As they drew nearer, King Cole, the black panther, began to snarl and show his fangs in an exceedingly hostile fashion, whereupon Dick hurriedly seized one of the tent ropes and deftly looped it about the animal's neck in a standing bowline knot, at the same time soothing him by ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... chalice, used in the church of Berwick St. James, Wilts, until a few years ago, and now in the British Museum, dates from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Its bowl is broad and shallow, the stem and knot (by which the vessel was held) and foot being plain and circular. Then the makers (from 1250 to 1275) fashioned the stem and knot separately from the bowl and foot, and shaped them polygonally. During the remaining years of ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... fingers through her hair, making it a little more disordered than before. It was pretty hair,—or, rather would have been, if it were better cared for. Dark, almost black, with a slight inclination to curl, it was bunched into a tousled knot that was far ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... transferred from the crown to a parliament, the members of which were appointed by an extremely limited and exclusive class, who owned no responsibility to the country, who debated and voted in secret, and who were regularly paid by the small knot of great families that by this machinery had secured the permanent possession of the king's treasury. Whiggism was putrescent in the nostrils of the nation; we were probably on the eve of a bloodless yet important revolution; when Rockingham, a virtuous ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... skirts of her dress looped up with convolvulus flowers—the one with her hair fastened in a sort of Venus knot behind; she has just been dancing with that perfumed piece of a man they call Mr. Ladywell—it is he with the high eyebrows arched like a girl's.' He added, with a wrinkled smile, 'I cannot for my life see anybody answering to the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... still wonder, grace supreme, a rich unfolding like the opening of a flower to the bliss of understanding. Trembling, her hand went down, and resting on his shoulder, gave him her accolade. She bowed herself towards him; a knot of rosy velvet, loosened from her dress, fell upon the turf beside his knee. Ferne caught up the ribbon, pressed it to his lips and thrust it in the breast of his doublet. Rising, he took her in his arms and they kissed. Her breath ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... so to speak, home-bred. Agassiz had gradually gathered about him, chiefly from among his more special students, a staff of assistants who were familiar with his plans and shared his enthusiasm. To these young friends he was warmly attached. It would be impossible to name them all, but the knot of younger men who were for years his daily associates in scientific work, whose sympathy and cooperation he so much valued, and who are now in their turn growing old in the service of science, will read the roll-call between the ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... fine chin, a little underhung, a short nose, arching eyebrows, deep-set blue eyes, bold, bright and hard, a pretty mouth with thick lips, pouting a little like those of a Greek maid, a mass of fair hair turned up in a knot on her head, and a full color. She carried her head very erect, tittered at every word she said and even when she said nothing, and walked like a man, swinging her sunburned arms. She went on laying out hey linen while she looked at Christophe with a provoking smile—waiting for him to speak. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... undermining by contemptuous and artful delay the evidences of his crimes; for it was generally known that Martina, that notorious trafficker in sorceries, and sent, as I have above related, by Cneius Sentius to Rome, had died suddenly at Brundusium; that poison lay concealed in a knot ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... therefore a necessity of the system; in fact this assumption is one of its main presuppositions[708] and is so boldly developed as to limit the omnipotence and omniscience of God. But, as from the empirical point of view the knot is tied for every man at the very moment he appears on earth, and since the problem is not created by each human being as the result of his own independent will, but lies in his organisation, speculation ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... fear, fired as Morgan turned. Morgan blessed the poor creature who was woman enough in her debauched heart to cry out that warning, as the breath of Peden's bullet brushed his face. Morgan could not defend himself against this assault, for the coward stood with one shoulder still in the huddling knot of women, and fired again. Morgan dropped to the floor, prone on his face as the dead man ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... kept and well sprayed orchard black-knot is not at all likely to appear. It is very manifest wherever it starts, causing ugly, black, distorted knarls, at first on the smaller limbs. Remove and burn immediately, and keep a sharp watch for more. As this disease is supposed to be carried by the wind, see to it ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... yet—he knows she is still in the flesh. How strangely her eyes gleam. A dull gleam and so passionless. Her brown hair—not altogether fallen down her back, but loosened from its hairpins, and hanging in a soft heavy knot behind her head—gives an additional pallor to her already too white face. The open eyes are looking straight before them, unseeing. Her step is slow, mechanical, unearthly. It is only indeed when she lays the candle she holds upon the edge ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... which is very seldom danced—quite a large number of couples are called, who form a ring around the room. The leader, taking the hand of one of the men, breaks the chain, and the couples are wound around until they come together in a knot, when the signal is given to them to waltz. The wheel figure is somewhat similar, and is quite ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... you will not consent to be an abbess, perhaps you will consent to follow this young Zingaro, and to co-operate with him and us. I am a priest, madam, and can join you both in an instant, connubio stabili, as I suppose the knot has ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... the rope and examined it. "Of course it slipped, you lubber!" He stepped back on the pathway and spoke up to Skin as he would have talked on shipboard to a blundering seaman in the cross-trees. "Ain't a slip-knot made to slip? And when a man's fool enough to tie one in ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... not that thou wilt regret me, for thou art too joyous and fair, So many are keen to caress thee, thy passionate midnights to share. Thou wilt not have time to remember, before a new love-knot is tied, The stranger who loved thee and left thee, who drifted away on ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... prodigious efforts of courage and activity to retrieve the fortune of the day. He was present in all parts of the battle; he charged in person both on horseback and on foot, where the danger was most imminent. His peruke, the sleeve of his coat, and the knot of his scarf, were penetrated by three different musket bullets; and he saw a great number of soldiers fall on every side of him. The enemy bore witness to his extraordinary valour. The prince of Conti, in a letter to his princess which was intercepted, declared that he saw the prince of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... her.... And he listened to Rose's moans in the darkness. Lane shuddered there, helpless, suffering, realizing. Then the foreboding silence became more dreadful than any sound.... It was terrible for Lane. That strange cold knot in his breast, that coil of panic, seemed to spring and tear, quivering through all his body. What had he known of torture, of sacrifice, of divine selflessness? He understood now how the loved and guarded ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... where there is no free speech, where there are no large cities. Excepting Louisiana, the Southern States have none of these. And the "peculiar institutions" throw the control of what is called opinion more completely into the hands of a very small class of men, we might almost say a very small knot of men, than in any other oligarchy which we remember in modern history. It is in considering this very difficulty that we recognize the wisdom of the President's Proclamation. He is conscious of the difficulty, and has placed his minimum ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... looking closer, they are discovered to be of marble, with the green pattern inlaid. Another remarkable instance is in a piece of not altogether unworthy architecture at Paris (Rue Rivoli), where the columns are supposed to be decorated with images of handkerchiefs tied in a stout knot round the middle of them. This shrewd invention bids fair to become a new order. Multitudes of massy curtains and various upholstery, more or less in imitation of that of the drawing-room, are carved and gilt, in wood or stone, about the altars and other theatrical portions of Romanist ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... man in a gilded saddle; he had on a scarlet kirtle, and a gold ring on his arm, and a gold-embroidered fillet was tied round his head. This man had yellow hair, waving down over his shoulders; he was fair of hue, with a knot on his nose, which was somewhat turned up at the tip, with very fine eyes—blue-eyed and swift-eyed, and with a glance somewhat restless, broad-browed and full-cheeked; he had his hair cut across his forehead. He was well grown as to breadth of shoulders and depth of chest. ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... shoots, cooked. The children already knew that Solomon was the Grand Worshipful Master of all the masons of the world. About his majestic and mystical figure centered legends and traditions innumerable. Solomon's Knot was a curious intricate combination of curving lines. Solomon's signet was a stone of magical virtues. The temple of Solomon was the most wonderful building ever seen, and the secrets of its masonry were still treasured ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... only shadow or dark, but it is flesh in shadow. The shadows of most artists, even very distinguished ones, are green, or brown, or black, or lead color, and have some strong and decided tint other than that of flesh. The difficulty with most seems to have been so insuperable, that they cut the knot at a single blow, and surrendered the shadows of the flesh, as an impossibility, to green or brown or black. And in the general imitation of the flesh tints the greatest artists have apparently abandoned the task in despair, and contented themselves with a correct utterance of form ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... each ridge had to be climbed—there was no going round them or picking out a low place, no tacking up the slope—straight ahead, up one side, near the top a wrench and a snap, down goes a camel, away go the nose-lines, a blow for the first and a knot for the second, over the crest and down, then a few paces of flat going, then up again and down again, and so on day after day. The heat was excessive—practically there ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... feller with a sticking out jaw, and one of his eyes was in a kind of a black pocket, and he was jest natcherally laying it off to about a dozen fellers that was in a little knot around him. ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... sauntered back to the gravel pit while speaking. The men of Bannalec were carrying the bones of the English soldiers toward the St. Gildas cemetery, on the cliffs to the east, where already a knot of white-coiffed women stood in attitudes of prayer; and I saw the somber robe of a priest among the crosses ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... won't last but a day or two. There's another man buried yesterday that was struck by lightnin', comin' acrost a field when that great shower begun. The lightnin' stove through his hat and run down all over him, and ploughed a spot in the ground." There was a knot of people about the door; the minister of that scattered parish stood among them, and they all looked at us eagerly, as if we too might be carrying news of a fresh disaster ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... multiplied into thousands uv gorgus chandileers, the portraits uv His Highness the President, and the other Democrats on the wall, became alive. I comprehended the situation to wunst. ANDROO JOHNSON had cut the Gorjan knot with someboddy's sword, and hed carried out his Policy to its nateral concloosion. He was King, and wuz reignin under the title uv ANDROO THE I., and I wuz (in my dreem uv course) in ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... at seeing the girl take a letter from her pocket, and, standing on tiptoe, drop it into a knot-hole in ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... artificially, which gave them a languid but ardent appearance. Their long, wild, curly hair hung loose at the side of the head, over which they wore a kerchief fastened into a knot under the chin. Their costume was simple, a mere short blue cotton skirt reaching below the knee, and a little red loose shirt with ample sleeves. Various silver ornaments and charms, mainly old coins, hung round their necks ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... stable, in his peculiar snake-like way, and seizing me suddenly by the leg, he brought me to the stable floor, giving my newly mended body a fearful jar. I now forgot my roots, and remembered my pledge to stand up in my own defense. The brute was endeavoring skillfully to get a slip-knot on my legs, before I could{187} draw up my feet. As soon as I found what he was up to, I gave a sudden spring (my two day's rest had been of much service to me,) and by that means, no doubt, he was able to bring me to the floor so heavily. He was defeated ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... which any number scale has been built up. The primitive savage counts on his fingers until he has reached the end of one, or more probably of both, hands. Then, if he wishes to proceed farther, some mark is made, a pebble is laid aside, a knot tied, or some similar device employed to signify that all the counters at his disposal have been used. Then the count begins anew, and to avoid multiplication of words, as well as to assist the memory, the terms ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... besides his splendid education. He is rapidly growing bald; his face is rather thin, and his neck is long. He has taken great interest in me and, being a teacher, has tried to teach me. Although I hope to perfect myself in navigation, my knowledge so far consists only of knot and splice seamanship, and I need to master the ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... containing her MSS. that he had obtained from Mr. Gouger, and began to untie the string. Manlike he soon had it in a hard knot, and Miss Millicent, coming to his rescue, her young hands touched his and made ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... in some measure enjoyed the show, though with an uneasy consciousness that I was pledged to become, sooner or later, a part of the spectacle. I saw a shepherdess fresh from Arcadia wave back a dozen importunate gallants, then throw a knot of blue ribbon into their midst, laugh with glee at the scramble that ensued, and finally march off with the wearer of the favor. I saw a neighbor of mine, tall Jack Pride, who lived twelve miles above me, blush ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... themselves were fragile, and covered with a down similar to the fine plumage which clothes the bodies of newly hatched birds. The whole outline of the ribs was distinctly visible; down the middle of the breast the skin was divided by a darker line; the navel stood out, like a knot. The feet, slightly bloated, had assumed the same sallow color as the little hands, which were callous and strewn with warts, with white nails beginning to turn livid. On the left arm, on the thighs near the groin, and further down, on the knees and along the legs, appeared reddish blotches of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the eyes, large, dark and liquid, like those of a buck, set beneath a smooth, broad forehead on which the curling, but not woolly, hair grew low. This hair, by the way, was not dressed up in any of the eccentric native fashions, but simply parted in the middle and tied in a big knot over the nape of the neck, the little ears peeping out through its tresses. The hands, like the feet, were very small and delicate, and the curves of the bust soft and full without being coarse, or even ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... but still spoke cheerfully; 'What's the matter now?' says I. 'L—d, Sir,' say's he, 'how can you sleep? why my mast is come by the board.' 'Well, well,' says I, 'then you must take a goose-wing.' 'A goose-wing! why,' says he, 'I can't carry a knot of sail, it blows a storm.' 'Well,' says I, 'if you can't carry any sail, you must drive up under shore then, you have the tide under foot:' and with that I lay down again. The man did as I said. A piece of his mast being yet standing, he made what they call a goose-wing ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... natives of the place. But when Amelia came down with her kind smiling looks (Rebecca must introduce her to her friend, Miss Crawley was longing to see her, and was too ill to leave her carriage)—when, I say, Amelia came down, the Park Lane shoulder-knot aristocracy wondered more and more that such a thing could come out of Bloomsbury; and Miss Crawley was fairly captivated by the sweet blushing face of the young lady who came forward so timidly and so gracefully to pay her respects to ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to make any opposition till both are safe, and then he is appeased by one of the ordinary divine interpositions. This device has been so used and abused by Euripides, that in nine out of his eighteen tragedies, a divinity descends to unravel the complicated knot. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... It's big, you know—plenty of room to move, w'ich it ain't so with a flour-barrel. An' then the smell! Oh! you've no notion! W'y, that's wuth the price of a night's lodgin' itself, to say nothin' o' the chance of a knot-hole or a crack full o' sugar, that the former tenants ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... The blood-red rose had proved a magician's amulet to confirm her mind in the sweet teachings of her heart. But the patrician mother was with difficulty brought to listen to the tying of this love-knot. She had looked forward to a grand alliance for the heiress of Rosedale—an alliance that should bring the family high up in the dominant hierarchy of the South. She listened silently to the young girl's pleading prattle of the boy's bravery, his wit, his manliness. She ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... at all events, and he ventured (with great respect) to throw one of the shoes back; it just grazed the clown's top-knot. ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... consequently but just discernible in her loftiest sails, from the ship's royal yards. Still, the latter continued the chase; and that evening both vessels were beating down along the southern margin of the Florida Reef, against the trades, but favoured by a three or four knot current, the brig out of sight to windward. Our narrative leads us to lose sight of both these vessels, for a time, in order to return to the islets of the Gulf. Eight-and-forty hours had made some changes in and around the haven of the Dry Tortugas. The tent still stood, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... the head of mankind; he and his family, in all eight souls, saved by God's mercy from the general ruin, were the only human beings left alive, and had laid on them the wonderful and glorious duty of renewing the race of man, and replenishing the vast world around them. From that little knot of human beings were to spring all ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... this author, "and I wish we could fairly get rid of it." Those who can explain the scripture account of the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea by a natural strong wind, and an extraordinary ebbing of the waters, can find no knot too hard for them. To deny a supernatural interposition they can swallow contradictions, and build hypotheses far more wonderful than the greatest miracles. 12. Sozomen indeed says, (b. 4, c. 24,) that Acacius fought for Arianism, Cyril for Semi-Arianism: ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the North for the first time, thin-chested and with a bad lung. "You can go if you insist, young man," one of the doctors had told him, "but you're going to your own funeral." And now he had a five-inch expansion and was as tough as a knot. The first rose-tints of the sun were creeping over the mountain-tops; the air was filled with the sweetness of flowers, and dew, and growing things, and his lungs drew in deep breaths of oxygen laden with the tonic ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... and North-East, it was concluded to be occasioned by the stream sweeping round the shores of the bay: according to the depth alongside there was a rise of ten feet; after high-water the ebb set between North 1/2 West and North-North-East, at the rate of a quarter to three quarters of a knot. ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... taken from an Apple tree, is much better and surer. You must cut him close at the roote ende, an handfull vnder the knot. (Some vse in Summer about Lammas to circumcise him, and put earth to the knots with hay roaps, and in winter cut him off and set him, but this is curiosity, needlesse, and danger with remouing, and drought,) and cut away all his twigs saue one, the most principall, which in setting you ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... a pale parchment label, tied to a key. Mother held it to the candle and read: 'Key of the lock behind the knot in the mantelpiece panel in ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... premises; no jealousy in good old Shep." She was making all possible haste with picking up the most important articles they had gathered to bring back with them to Cragsnook. "I have your treasures, Mary," she said, making a final hard knot in the shawl that held the jewelry. "The other girls are all ready. Come on, don't let us wait a ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... it!" a voice at once fond and threatening called to Reverdy's quailing figure. The owner of the voice was a young woman unkempt as to the pale hair which escaped from the knot at her neck, and stuck out there and dangled about her face in spite of the attempts made to gather it under the control of the high horn comb holding its main strands together. The lankness of her long figure showed in the calico wrapper which seemed her sole garment; and her large features were ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... mentioned that the speed of the Oceanic was at least a knot faster per hour than had been heretofore accomplished across the Atlantic. The motion of the vessel was easy, without any indication of weakness or straining, even in the heaviest weather. The only inducement to slow was when ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... with a terrible joy. And so—prosaic detail—I threw the papers down in a heap on the floor, combed my hair in a great loose knot, put a rose at my belt, and went down to smile at my Aunt's anxieties. I even went with my cousins to supper with Aunt Marcia. And in the early evening Mr. Hynes came to walk with us home. I knew his step, and my heart ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... otherwise than heavy, came every Saturday to the rectory. The Conservative county paper was taken in at the Red Lion; and David the constable, and the blacksmith, clubbed together to purchase the Liberal paper, by help of which they managed to wage unequal war with the knot of village quidnuncs, who assembled almost nightly at the bar of the Tory beast above referred to—that king of beasts, red indeed in colour but of the truest blue in political principle. Besides these, perhaps three or four more papers were taken by the farmers. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... love, himself foregoing, With such delight, such savour, and so well, That both to one sole end their wills combine; If thousands of these thoughts all thought outgoing Fail the least part of their firm love to tell; Say, can mere angry spite this knot untwine? ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... his lordship would himself condescend to perform the ceremony, if this should be wished; but that work had already been anticipated by a very old friend of the Greshams. Archdeacon Grantly, the rector of Plumstead Episcopi, had long since undertaken this part of the business; and the knot was eventually tied by the joint efforts of himself and Mr Oriel. Mrs Grantly came with him, and so did Mrs Grantly's sister, the new dean's wife. The dean himself was at the ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... near the fountain-head as possible, I first of all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole outward room in a buzz of politics; the speculations were but very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room, and were so much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the steams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbons provided for in less than ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... feeling of contrition and remorse for certain past phases of his life which he knew to be both unworthy in themselves and disloyal (if persisted in) to the woman whom he hoped to make his wife. By a determined effort of will, he cut one knot which he could not untie, but, his thoughts being still centred upon himself, he considered his own rights and needs almost entirely in the matter, and did not trouble himself much about the rights ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... garment was perfectly plain and unornamented, like the common shenti of the Egyptians. On the head was generally worn a cap of one kind or another, sometimes round, more often conical, occasionally shaped like a helmet. The conical head-dresses seem to have often ended in a sort of top-knot or button, which recalls the head-dress ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... all of the Persian leaders were slain, and its result spread terror throughout Persia. Halicarnassus was next reduced. The march of Alexander was ever onward. In the citadel of Gordium he cut the "Gordian knot," and prophecy marked him for the lord ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... if—But these were reflections which were always doomed to banishment as soon as the captain became aware of the enthralment of their charm, and sturdily onward, endeavoring to fix his mind upon some better sailor's knot with which to tie up his bundles, or to plant his feet where his tracks would soon be obliterated by the incoming waves, the strong man trudged, bearing bravely the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... of the famous "Lion" at Dolgelley has got for their dinner. Small boys begin to declare that they could go on at this pace for any time you like; this is nothing to what they did last year in the Highlands; something like mountains there, you know! The sun is far in the west when the knot of adventurous reconnoitrers who have gone farthest afield mount the train at Portmadoc. Nearer home they thrust heads out of window to rally their friends who join them on the poverty of their exploits. These, taciturn with weariness or hunger, ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... the noble Vestal passes by, high-browed, white-robed, untainted, the incarnation of purity in an age of vice. And the old Senator in his white cloak with its broad purple hem, his smooth-faced clients at his elbows, his silent slaves before him and behind, meets the low-chattering knot of Hebrew money-lenders, making the price of short loans for the day, and discussing the assets of a famous spendthrift, as their yellow-turbaned, bearded fathers had talked over the chances of Julius Caesar when he was as ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... been such unexpected ease in the way in which my father had slipt the knot usually esteemed the strongest that binds society together, and let me depart as a sort of outcast from his family, that strangely lessened my self-confidence. The Muse, too,—the very coquette that had led me into this wilderness—deserted me, and I should have ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... arms, and that willing heart, and those quick little hands got through, nobody but those he helped and worked for could tell. Whatever was wanted Joe knew where to find it. Joe's knife was ready to cut a stubborn knot; Joe's shoulders ready to be loaded with as heavy a weight as any man could carry. More than once I met him coming down-stairs with large boxes he himself could almost have been packed in, and he declared he did not find them ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... always short waisted with a folded girdle and deep hem and cut low in the neck. Then Eleanor's hair, which was heavy and straight and a kind of ashen brown, was always worn parted in the middle and fixed in a great loose knot at the back of her neck. Eleanor was not pretty like Betty and Meg and Mollie and, at times, Polly O'Neill, but she would have scorned to have been thought pretty—interesting ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... old witch had gone away the Princess hid the thread very carefully, and at night she got up quietly, and with a beating heart she bound the thread round her husband's foot. Just as she was pulling the knot tight there was a crack, and the thread broke, ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... room seemed to engross the most of his attention: the baby in the cradle, and the rope which was attached to the ladder. Approaching the cradle, he began with his thin fingers quickly to untie the knot in the rope by which the two were connected. After untying it he stood for a few moments looking ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... terrible as it is delayed. It can not be let alone. Already those in power at Washington are terrified at its extent, but fear to act, owing to 'abolition,' while all the time the foul old political ties and intrigues are gathering closely about. Let us cut the knot betimes, act bravely and manfully, and settle the difficulty ere it settles us. Something must be done, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... course Napoleon ought to pursue, it was easy to reply "that the mass of the French army being already assembled in Bavaria, it should be thrown upon the left of the Prussians by way of Grera and Hof, for the gordian knot of the campaign was in that direction, no matter ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... heart. Take the last great strike in America—the telegraph operators' strike—and you have to find that the operators lost four hundred thousand dollars' worth of wages, and have had poorer wages ever since. Traps sprung suddenly upon employers, and violence, never took one knot out of the knuckle of toil, or put one farthing of wages into a callous palm. Barbarism will never cure the wrongs of civilization. ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... of it, there was no question of possession. The man being weaker than the woman would have been only too glad to elope, and thus cut the Gordian knot of the unhappy situation. But the woman, having acted from a high sense of duty, which Chaldea could not rise to, evidently was determined to continue to be a martyr. The question was, could she keep up that pose in the face of the undeniable fact that she loved her cousin? The ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... fingers into this, I gently let my left hand glide down the rock and bring up the sash on that side. This I placed in my mouth, gently changed hands and hauled up the right end of the sash, then, after many attempts, with my mouth and right hand I managed to tie a knot in it so as to form the sash into a short endless band. This I dropped down, and putting my foot in the loop, had a somewhat ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... consideration. The weakening effect is much more serious where timber is subjected to bending and tension than where under compression. The extent to which knots affect the strength of a beam depends upon their position, size, number, direction of fibre, and condition. A knot on the upper side is compressed, while one on the lower side is subjected to tension. The knot, especially (as is often the case) if there is a season check in it, offers little resistance to this tensile stress. Small, knots, however, may be so located in a beam along the neutral ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... save that there seemed no method in the activity. One man burnished a knife, a dozen were cleaning rifles, and all wore the evil-smelling finery with which the hillman decks his person for war. Their long oiled hair was tied in a sort of rude knot, new and fuller turbans adorned the head, and on the feet were stout slippers of Bokhara make. Lewis had keen eyesight, and he strove to read the marks on the boxes of cartridges which stood in a corner. It was not the well-known Government mark which usually brands stolen ammunition. ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... forcibly that the men were not what he had thought them to be. They were an evil-looking lot, more like the strikers he had seen in the town earlier in the day. Even as he was turning the new thought over in his mind, one of them stepped out of the little knot, and, without a word of warning, lifted his arm and fired point blank at the little Englishman. A pistol ball whizzed close by his head. His horse leaped to the side of the road ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... we get to the big river you speak of. Walking is very pleasant exercise, especially when one hasn't half a hundredweight of traps and provisions to carry; but it's very slow work you'll allow. I like to spank along with a ten-knot breeze across the open ocean, with studden-sails alow and aloft; or to glide down a river with a strong current and fair breeze. Ah, mate, if you ever come to sea with me in a smart craft, you'll ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... will be. But you're good children—steady as old folk, I'd trust ye any where." Then Lizzy's cloak, A good grey duffle, lovingly she tied, And amply little Jenny's lack supplied With her own warmest shawl. "Be sure," said she, "To wrap it round and knot it carefully (Like this) when you come home; just leaving free One hand to hold by. Now, make haste away— Good will to school, and then good ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... much to my regret, I shall not be able to come to Dublin this year. Since I met you at Mr. Huggins's I have done nothing myself in Spiritual investigations, but have been exceedingly interested in the knot-tying experiment of Prof. Zoellner and the weight-varying experiments of the Spiritualists' Association. I do not see what flaw can be found in either ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... 240a. When the Gordian knot is ready to be cut, God sends the Alexander! Does not the Crown Prince William's confession of his belief in courage as the highest flower of the human spirit, in his book "Deutschland in Waffen," sound ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... this particular knot was facilitated by the fact that the clergyman was hale mentally but decrepit physically, and, as might be expected, resented the conclusion, long ago arrived at by his friends, that he was unfitted for work. He burgeoned with delight ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... says; "I never saw him so enraged about a criticism;" but by-and-by he "didn't care a straw." His wife, on the other hand, was more deeply pained by the blindness and deafness of the British public towards her husband's genius; nobody "except a small knot of pre-Rafaelite men" did him justice; his publisher's returns were a proof of this not to be gainsaid—not one copy of his poems had for six months been sold, while in America he was already a power. For the poetry of political enthusiasm ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... height is a rarity, and as Cris exceeded this by six inches, a rarer sight still was he. The colossus coupled to the dwarf, as Gulliver to Lilliputian—a crooked Lilliputian at that—no wonder that a knot of curious gazers collected around them, many as they approached the grotesque spectacle uttering ejaculations ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... elephant. 'I will fasten this to your leg,' said he, 'in the same way as it is fastened to mine, and we must both pull as hard as we can. We shall soon see which is the stronger.' So he wound it carefully round the elephant's leg, and tied it in a firm knot. 'Now!' cried he, plunging into a thick bush ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... fro. Now everything was silent and deserted, except for the still figures up on the bridge and below in the engine and fire rooms, guiding and powering the great vessel onward through the night at a twenty-four-knot clip. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... a white lace wrap with puffs of pink taffeta and knots of silver ribbon which went with the gown. Becky with a sudden impulse put it on. She stripped the cap from her head, and wound her bronze locks in a high knot. She ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... over all orders, but thir ware the most principall, each of which had their oune crosse wt the crucifix carried by one of their order. This much for the Ecclesiastick procession. After them came the tounes men in armes; in a knot of whom went a young fellow who represented the Maid of Orleans, clad in the same very habit, girt wt that sam very sword wt which the Maid beat the Englishes. This went ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... wounded vanity, so that she gave her promise to Henry there and then—putting the rope round her neck with her own hands. And afterwards, instead of being brave and true, wounded vanity again had caused her to tighten the knot. She remembered Henry's words when he had implored her to tell him what were the actual wishes of her heart—and how she had cut off all retreat by her answer. She remembered all his goodness to her and how she had accepted it as her due, making him care for her more and ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... the atrocious crime—to which she had confessed. Her manner was too light, too airy and too frivolous—a manner adopted, as I now see, to forestall all questions and hold back all expressions of feeling on my part. 'Tie these hanging ends of ribbon to my wrist,' were her words. 'Tie them tight; a knot under and a bow on top. I am going out— There, don't say anything— What you want to talk about will keep till tomorrow. For one night more I am going to make merry—to—to enjoy myself.' She was laughing. I thought her horribly callous and trembled with such an unspeakable repulsion ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... knot with your heroic rescue! The Squire will call; the General will call; the neighbouring sheep will follow in their train. We shall be graciously 'forgiven' and admitted into the fold. Our quiet, sent-to-Coventry existence is at ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... so much a la mode. She has studied her own style, and has found several ways of dressing it that become her—sometimes in a low coil, almost on her neck, sometimes on top of her head in a braid like a coronet, sometimes in a soft psyche knot. There never was ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton |
