"Needle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... even the pilots took fright. The compass needle no longer pointed to the North Star, but half a point or more to the northwest of it. They had visions of the fleet helplessly drifting without a guide upon a vast unknown sea. It was not then known that the action of the magnetic pole upon the needle varies ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... gait, with which the men seemed to urge themselves over the ground with ease and rapidity. There was little or no straggling, and being strong, lusty young fellows, and lightly equipped—they carried only needle-guns, ammunition, a very small knapsack, a water-bottle, and a haversack —they strode by with an elastic step, covering at ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... low; a few dying embers lay upon the earth, and no sound broke the silence but the steady rustle of Bess's needle, and the echo of Jamie's ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... fact that some mistake has occurred somewhere with regard to its position has quite thrown us out, and to look for it among the numerous islands which constitute this archipelago would be somewhat like searching for a needle in a bundle of hay, and the chances of finding either the one or the other would be about equal, I should say. If I only held a sufficient clue to warrant the slightest hope of success, I would willingly prosecute a search, ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... long time. Every few moments Kongoni would want another look at that compass. It happened that we were now going due north, and his notion was that the needle pointed the way to camp. We profoundly hoped that his faith in white man's magic would not be shattered. At the end of an hour the rain let up, and it cleared sufficiently to disclose some of the mountain outlines. They convinced us that we were in the main ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... in all directions by deep ravines, with almost vertical sides, at the bottom of which streams and torrents follow a headlong course. The landscape wears a certain air of savage grandeur; giant peaks rise in needle-like points perpendicularly to the sky; mountain paths wind upward, cut into the sides of the steep precipices; the chasms are spanned by single-arched bridges, so frail and narrow that they seem likely to be swept away in the first gail that blows. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... you mention it, I'm not drunk. I had to have something to back me up so I stopped off at the dispensary and stole a needle. ...
— Measure for a Loner • James Judson Harmon
... gardener with his stolen pair of diamonds!" he remarked. Then turning to me, he added: "Doc, I believe the reaction is on me now. I haven't had a shot in the arm since yesterday morning. Have you got the dope-needle with you? No, that's right,—I have it here ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... would see that one leads to Boling and the other was the one to take for Oxford. Also, I would see that the one to Boling started due north out of Salem and the other, the one I must follow, started due west out of Salem. Taking out my compass, I would see in what direction the north end of the needle pointed; the road running off in that direction would be the one to Boling, so I would start off west ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... dipped her needle somewhat blindly into the embroidery on her knee before she replied: "I had guessed it already. You missed a very good husband, my dear. I don't want to force your confidence, but I imagine that you have some distress to bear, and I might help you. I have seen a good deal ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... crying all day, and the grief of the mother so won Ito's sympathy that he took me to see her. She had walked up and down with it for eighteen hours, but never thought of looking into its throat, and was very unwilling that I should do so. The bone was visible, and easily removed with a crochet needle. An hour later the mother sent a tray with a quantity of cakes and coarse confectionery upon it as a present, with the piece of dried seaweed which always accompanies a gift. Before night seven people with sore legs applied for "advice." The ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... he made a third turn half-way down the forearm. With little sticks he twisted the cords still tighter. Then he jerked out his hypodermic syringe, which he carried already filled with fluid, and thrusting the needle into the bleeding arm, injected the permanganate ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... diminutive for the sight, we gradually develop and advance to the maturity of those conscious powers, the exercise of which furnishes indubitable evidence of our immortality. We are pervaded with invisible influences, which, like the needle of the compass trembling on its pivot, point us to immortality as our ultimate goal, where in the sunny clime of Love, even in a spiritual realm of joy and happiness, we may eternally reign with Him who is all ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... (fig. 12) illustrates type (1). In this, before firing, the needle pellet is held back by a central spindle with a pressure plate attached to its rear end. For additional safety a centrifugal bolt is added which is released by the rotation of the shell. On discharge, the gas pressure pushes the pressure plate in, the central spindle is carried forward with it ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... natural heat and softened. Then a small tube of alder is prepared, an inch longer than the wound of the intestine, carefully thinned down (subtilietur) and introduced into the gut through the wound and stitched in position with a very fine square-pointed needle, threaded with silk. This tube or canula should be so placed as to readily transmit the contents of the intestine, and yet form no impediment to the stitches of the wound. When this has been done, ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... Paris a slender line of steel moved slowly—the thread of which Master Franois Villon was the needle pricked to sew the realm of France together. The Grand Constable rode at the head with the Lords of Lau, of Riviere, and of Nantoillet, and somewhere at the tail rode the five released rascals and babbled beneath their breaths as they rode. For the order to keep silence ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Goya was left free to pursue his artistic career instead of languishing in prison. His illogical brush filled the cathedrals of Saragossa, Seville, Toledo, and Valencia with masterly frescoes, while with the etching needle he produced many plates. Some of these, like the "Caprices," a series of eighty etchings, are filled with imagination alternately tragical and grotesque; while another series, representing bull-fights, throughout its ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... the ang of it, sir. You see my father has a tidy little barbers business down off Shoreditch; and I was brought up to be chatty and easy like with everybody. I tell you, when I drew the number in the conscription it gave my old mother the needle and it gev me the ump. I should take it very kind, sir, if youd let me off the drill and let me shave you instead. Youd appreciate my qualities then: you would indeed sir. I shant never do myself justice at soljering, ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... Hang her, I do but say what she is: so delicate with her Needle: an admirable Musitian. Oh she will sing the Sauagenesse out of a Beare: of so high and plenteous wit, and inuention? Iago. She's the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Mr. Traverse made his appearance, and learning the cause of the discussion, presented a cheque for the amount needed to renew the badges, and volunteered his services as "needle-threader" for the evening. ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... herself. To this end she took a piece of bright yellow silk which had come down to her from David, and ran into the same, thick threads of white silk, thread by thread, and while thus engaged, she pricked her finger with the needle, and the pure blood stained some of the threads with crimson, whereat the little child was much affected. But when the winter was past and the rains were come and gone, and when spring came to strew ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... thou art not competent to give away the earth! Why then dost thou wish to make a gift of that over which thou hast no power? Vanquishing me in battle, rule thou this earth! Thou didst not formerly agree to give me even that much of the earth which would be covered by the point of a needle! How then, O monarch, dost thou make me a gift of the whole earth? How is it that thou, who couldst not formerly abandon even that much of land which the point of a needle would cover, now wishest to abandon the whole earth? What ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... and servitude, which are by no means compatible with their spirit of independence. Vanity becomes their guide, and is as bad a guide as distress; for it prompts them to add the resources of their youth and person to those of their needle. This double temptation is too strong for their weak virtue. They therefore seek a friend to console them on Sundays for the ennui of the remainder of the week, which must needs seem long, when they are sitting close ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... would call a dream, the axe-work of the old masons as clean cut and as perfect as though it had been done last week; and in taking a near cut at a guess across country for Stapleford Tawney I mind me that I lost my way, or thought I had, but the mariner's needle was true, and emerging in a green avenue I saw before me a finger-post marked "To Tawney Church." I took off my hat and respectfully saluted that finger-post, and was soon in the churchyard, where I haply lighted ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... an old trick, but one seldom tried. This hair came from the tail of a white horse. It was threaded into a long, keen needle. The fellow who got at your horse yesterday was an expert. With one jab of that needle he passed the hair through the flesh just back of this cord. It went in at one side, and came out on the other. After that, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... it. And may God give her and me grace so to use the riches of this world that they become not a stumbling-block to us, and a rock of offence. It is possible that the camel should be made to go through the needle's eye. It is possible." ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... edge of the basin was slightly raised, thus making the disk a little higher than the level of the floor. I secured four skulls from here, besides a piece of excellently woven cloth of plant fibre, another piece interwoven with turkey feathers, and a fragment of a wooden needle. ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... are so offensive that Christians will not associate with them. I doubt if in any of the first circles of any city you would meet a Jew. In the fashionable circles of New York I heard that it would be "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle" than for a Jew to enter these circles. Many hotels will not receive them. In fact, the ban is on the Jew as completely in America as in Russia. I was strongly tempted to ask if this was the brotherly love I heard so much about, but refrained. I heard the following story at a dinner: A Chinese ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... maiden aunt who sat under the lamplight with her sewing on her lap. He saw that her lips were intolerantly compressed and that her needle came and went in protesting little jabs. "Hannah," he quietly inquired, ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... busy with her needle for days before the school opened, preparing the necessary clothing, that her children might appear neat and tidy. And when the day came round, Mehetabel set out with Jimmy on her back, and her younger sister by her side. When they returned, Mrs. Garfield ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... feel the millions of humanity beneath us,— The warm millions, moving under the roofs, Consumed by their own desires; Preparing food, Sobbing alone in a garret, With burning eyes bending over a needle, Aimlessly reading the evening paper, Dancing in the naked light of the café, Laying out the dead, Bringing a child to birth— The sorrow, the torpor, the bitterness, the frail joy Come up to us Like a cold fog wrapping us ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... anything though he discovers a cavity or orifice of some sort in the base of your tooth. It seems to give him pleasure. Filled with intense gratification by this discovery and fired moreover by the impetuous ardor of the chase, he grabs up a crochet needle with a red hot stinger on the end of it and jabs it down your tooth to a point about opposite where your suspenders fork ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... mariner's compass, gunpowder, and the art of printing were made known to Europe through stories told by missionaries returning from Asia. These missionaries, coasting the shores of the Celestial Empire in Chinese junks, saw a little box containing a magnetized needle, called Ting-nan-Tchen, or "needle which points to the south." They also noticed terrible machines used by the armies in China called Ho-pao or fire-guns, into which was put an inflammable powder, which produced a noise like thunder and projected stones ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... if there be no saints, there are likewise no priestcraft and no idols; but endless vistas of smooth red green-veined shafts holding up the warm dark roof, lessening away into endless gloom, paved with rich brown fir-needle—a carpet at which Nature has been at work for forty years. Red shafts, green roof, and here and there a pane of blue sky—neither Owen Jones nor Willement can improve upon that ecclesiastical ornamentation,—while for incense I have the fresh healthy turpentine fragrance, far sweeter to ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... It came out, flicked its whiskers, and then darted in again like lightning. Jane Anne, rinsing out the big teapot in the scullery, frightened it. Presently she came in softly, put the lamp ready for her mother's needle, in case of need later, gave a shy queer look at 'Mr. Rogers' and her father, both of whom nodded absent-mindedly to her, and then went on tip-toe out of the room. She was bound for the village shop to buy methylated spirits, sugar, blotting-paper, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... strength in the corn, the perfume in the rose—as unknowable as the awful force that reveals itself in the lightning flash or speaks in the rolling thunder—as unknowable as the mysterious hand that holds the compass needle to the north and swings the star worlds far beyond the farthest reach of the boasting eye of Science. Unknowable? Yes—as unknowable as that which lies safe hidden behind the most commonplace facts of life—as unknowable ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... approaching marriage can never be heard by any woman with indifference. Joan stayed her needle and looked at Denas with an ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... esteem of my first benefactress, I had, in my friendless position, lost all hold on an honest life—except the one frail hold of needle-work. The only reference of which I could now dispose was the recommendation of me by my landlady to a place of business which largely employed expert needle-women. It is needless for me to tell you how miserably work of that ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... Cauchat, the land-lady, bewailing the continued illness of her lingere, Diane had begged to be allowed to take charge of the linen-room of the hotel, not merely as a means of earning a living, but because she delighted in such work. Methodical in her habits and nimble with her needle, the neatness, smoothness, and purity of piles of white damask stirred all those house-wifely, home-keeping instincts which are so large a part of every Frenchwoman's nature. Her fingers busy with the quiet, delicate task of mending, her mind could dwell with the ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... twelve hundred With the way the motor is geared, but I'll go up with ten. Watch the needle for me." ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... did everything that her aunts told her. She was as good and docile as she could be. But, oh! there were some dreary hours as she sat, alone, in that stuffy drawing-room, trying to sew, her heart aching with loneliness, her needle always doing the wrong thing, the clock heavily ticking, Thomas watching her from the mat in front of the fire, and the family group sneering at her ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... rather produced, by closing the lips and sending the sound through the nose, either forcibly and suddenly with a quick taper, or the reverse with a quick, short swell; or beginning gently, no bigger than a knitting-needle, and slowly swelling to a certain degree, then suddenly flaring, like the mouth of a dinner-horn. In short, varying according to the feeling or thought to be expressed. Perhaps in the ebony lingo there is no word so frequently used, and in senses so various, as U-gooh. Rendered into English, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... as the ladies had made all things tidy, and were seating themselves to their daily avocation of the needle, they heard the garden gate swing, and beheld Mrs. Edson approaching in her little white sun-bonnet and spotted muslin dressing-gown, open from the waist downwards, revealing a fine cambric skirt, wrought in several rows of vines and deep scolloped ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... to sing them withall.' In Edward's reign appeared a very different strain—the first drinking-song of merit in the language, 'Back and sides go bare'—(see 'Specimens,' vol. 2.) This song occurs at the opening of the second act of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle,' a comedy written (by a 'Mr S.') and printed in 1551, and afterwards acted at Christ's ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... along it to the borders of Hursley Park. It is chiefly of oak, fir, and beech, and on the southern side are the fine arcades of beechwood that Mr. Keble used to call Hursley Cathedral. From one point in the wood long sight can distinguish a sort of needle which is the spire of Salisbury Cathedral. The wood is very old, probably primeval, as it is guarded in the oldest notices of the Manor of Merdon, and it contains a flora of its own, in which may be mentioned that rare and beautiful Melittis Melissophyllum, bastard balm, like ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... with the mixture and looked for a thread among his sewing articles. Since he could find nothing but black linen, Wallie threaded a darning needle and did a fancy "feather" stitch down the middle ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... by Sir Edward Coke, is seen in Fig. 2. The needle-beard was narrower and more pointed. The soldier's, or spade-beard, Fig. 3, is from a Dutch portrait, also in Mr Repton's book. The stubble, or close-cropped beard of a judge, requires no pictorial illustration. The bishop's-beard, Fig. 4, is given in Randle ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... of them has been called the 'etui,' (or needle-case,) of the marrow. But each of the cords which together form this etui, is itself composed of an almost infinitely delicate thread twisted into a screw, like the common spring of a letter-weigher or a Jack-in-the-box, but of exquisite fineness." Upon this, two pages and ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... had no cut or scratch. "Well," he replied, "you certainly must have had one;" and he very closely scrutinised my hand to find it, but in vain. All at once it occurred to me that I had pricked my finger the night before, and I asked him if it were possible that a prick from a needle, at that time, could have been still unclosed. His opinion was that this was probably the cause of the trouble, and he advised me to get a hansom, drive home as fast as I could, and arrange my affairs forthwith. "For," he said, "you are ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... noise of the thunder, and we felt none too safe there. Its great wall-spaces were broken by only two or three old engravings in ancient frames. Lucette, under her mother's direction, was putting the finishing touches to a piece of needle work, and, on the rather worn-out piano, I was playing, with the soft pedal down, one of Rameau's dances; the old-fashioned music sounded exquisite to me as it mingled with the noise ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... attention to matters touching the souls of his people. He appeared in church; he took a leading part in prayer meetings; he met and encouraged the temperance societies; he graced the sewing circles of the ladies with his presence, and even took a needle now and then and made a stitch or two upon a calico shirt for some poor Bibleless pagan of the South Seas, and this act enchanted the ladies, who regarded the garments thus honored as in a manner sanctified. The Senator wrought in Bible classes, and nothing could keep him away from the ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... add to the drop of oil and invert the plate the drop will elongate and finally part, one portion dropping while the other portion clings to the main body of the liquid. The fall of the drop is occasioned by gravity overcoming the cohesion of the molecules. Now take a perfectly clean and polished needle and place a drop of oil upon its point and we will see that the oil very rapidly ascends towards the thicker portion of the needle. Now if we heat and hammer out the point of the needle into the form of a small drill and repeat the operation we find that the ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... green plumage (iridescent red or orange breast in males); long, needle-shaped bill for extracting insects and nectar from deep-cupped flowers, and exceedingly rapid, darting ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... man, if it's Milton you want,' said the driver good-humouredly, in response to my inquiries. 'I'm taking this stick into the Milton saw-mill. ——y solid stick, eh? My oath, yes; there's not enough pipe in that feller to stick a ——y needle in. No, he ought to measure up pretty well, I reckon.' A pause for expectoration, and then: 'Livin' ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... BE SOLD, A BLACK GIRL, the property of J. B——, eleven years of age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well: is of an excellent ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... the peasant women of Poland had learned that the annoying skin disease from which they suffered was caused by an almost invisible insect, and, furthermore, had acquired the trick of dislodging the pestiferous little creature with the point of a needle. From them a youth of the country, F. Renucci by name, learned the open secret. He conveyed it to Paris when he went there to study medicine, and in 1834 demonstrated it to his master Alibert. This physician, at first sceptical, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... his chums were every one of them entered for several events; indeed, it would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack to try and find a single Scranton boy above the age of ten, and sound of wind, who had not taken advantage of the generous invitation to place his name on the records, and go in for training along a certain line. Those who could not sprint, leap the bars, throw hammer or discus, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... they had the advantage of being uniformly tunicked—with no Company badge to betray their ship or status. So that could well be the "Polestar" standing needle slim behind them—and not the notorious "Solar Queen." But each, as he passed through the inner lock, gave a hitch to his belt which brought the butt of his sleep rod closer to hand. Innocuous as that weapon was, in close quarters its effects, if only temporary, was to some purpose. ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... yet much too soon to talk of sending more books; our present stock is scarcely half exhausted. You will perhaps think I am a slow reader, but remember, Currer Bell is a country housewife, and has sundry little matters connected with the needle and kitchen to attend to which take up half his day, especially now when, alas! there is but one pair of hands where once there were three. I did not mean to touch that chord, its sound ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... with the exception of Mr. McGraw" replied Donna. "Following a clew like that in San Pasqual would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But I think I could name the ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... in thin slices; have a strong thread, and string them on it with a needle; hang them out in the sun till dry, taking them in at night; tie them up in a muslin bag, and hang them in a dry place. Soak them before they are stewed, and they are nearly as good for puddings as when in season. Some dry them, as ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... be one; and the Duchess of Hamilton is so altered I did not know her. Indeed, she is bid with child, and so big, that as my Lady Northumberland says, it is plain she has a camel in her belly, and my Lord Edgecumbe says, it is as true it did not go through the eye of a needle. That Countess has been laid up with a hurt in her leg; Lady Rebecca Paulett pushed her on the birthnight against a bench: the Duchess of Grafton asked if it was true that Lady Rebecca kicked her? "Kick me, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... enjoyed in England, is enjoyed solely by the disorderly at the expense of the orderly; and were I a stout knight, either of the sword or of the pen, I would fearlessly throw down my gauntlet, and challenge the whole Republic to prove the contrary; but being, as I am, a feeble looker on, with a needle for my spear, and "I talk" for my device, I must be contented with the power of stating the fact, perfectly certain that I shall be contradicted by one loud ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... and the muddy old Thames supply Mr. Whistler's needle with subjects more congenial than do the Venetian palaces ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... morning she sat there, her needle busy, and gradually she was soothed by the peace of the pleasant room. The world seemed ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... mouth; so you had to watch her every moment. And though they generally slept from ten to twelve, there was the door to answer, little things to be done for Aunt Hetty whose bell would ring just as she had her work fixed ready to sew. Then likely she would lose her needle. ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... dire effects of the morphia injections which are now so commonly used by weak individuals who fear pain and ennui; the same deadly drug is used to poison the horses. One touch with the sharp needle-point under the horse's elbow, and the subtle, numbing poison speeds through the arteries and paralyzes the nerves; a beautiful creature that comes out full of fire and courage is converted in a very few minutes into a dull helpless mass that has no more conscious volition than ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... squadron about 1824. He is an unofficial member of Council and a marked exception to the rule of the 'Liberateds.' Everybody has a good word to say of him. The establishment is the regular colonial, where you can buy anything between a needle and a sheet-anchor. Bottled ale is not wanting, and thus steamer-passengers learn to congregate ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... becomes a madman to do. I am infinitely pleased (though it is a gloomy joy) with the application of Dr. Swift's complaint, 'that he is forced to die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.' My soul is no more fitted to the figure I make, than a cable rope to a cambric needle; I cannot bear to see the advantages alienated, which I think I could deserve and relish so much more than ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... & put it into the fire and took out my pocket Compas and Set myself doun on a mat on one Side of the fire, and a magnet which was in the top of my ink Stand the port fire cought and burned vehemently, which changed the Colour of the fire; with the Magnit I turned the Needle of the Compas about very briskly; which astonished and alarmed these nativs and they laid Several parsles of Wappato at my feet, & begged of me to take out the bad fire; to this I consented; at this moment the match ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... blue veil over his head, and his clothes in strips. Has any man here a needle? I've got a ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... was still sitting over her own fire, with her needle untouched beside her, her father had come home, and Lady Staveley had mentioned to him that Mr. Graham thought of going ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Hypatia come back just as the two men are going out. Hypatia salutes Summerhays from a distance with an enigmatic lift of her eyelids in his direction and a demure nod before she sits down at the worktable and busies herself with her needle. Mrs Tarleton, hospitably fussy, goes over ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... ruling characteristics. This personification, especially of inanimate objects, may at first appear arbitrary; but it is part of the beautiful consistency of Andersen's genius that it never stoops to mere amusing and fantastic trickery. The character of the darning-needle is the character which a child would naturally attribute to a darning-needle, and the whole multitude of vivid personifications which fills his tales is governed by the same consistent but dimly apprehended instinct. Of course, I do not pretend that he was conscious of any such consistency; ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... pound a week would be riches added to the weekly wages Ned brought home and the interest from the money they had laid by for a rainy day. There would be no need for Aunt Mary to work for those hard shop-people any more. And Rhoda's eyes sparkled as she thought of packing up the last parcel of fine needle-work and taking it back with the message that no ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... Adam's Needle, Yucca filamentosa.(A) 4-5 ft. June-July. Waxen white, pendulous, liliaceous flowers in a great thyrsus. Leaves long, narrow, dark green, with marginal filaments. For the lawn, and for massing ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... enough to learn a trade, his father not being able to put him out to any other, took him into his own shop, and taught him how to use his needle: but neither fair words nor the fear of chastisement were capable of fixing his lively genius. All his father's endeavours to keep him to his work were in vain; for no sooner was his back turned, than he was gone for that day. Mustapha chastised him, but Alla ad Deen was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... her usual place, the corner of the sofa beside the fire, threaded her needle with a bright silk thread, and ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... fat upon them. The leather, by such a process, became soft and pliant. The want of awls and needles was supplied by bits of iron occasionally collected; of them they made a kind of wire, which, being heated red hot, was pierced with a knife, ground to a sharp point, which formed the eye of a needle.—The sinews of bears and rein-deer, split into threads, served for sewing the pieces of leather together, which enabled the Russians to procure jackets and trowsers for summer dress, and a long fur gown with a hood for their ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... incredible fierceness and viciousness. Those little brutes left on our skins black marks fully as large as themselves wherever they stung us. The itching was most trying. Those marks remained for several weeks, and only disappeared when we perforated them with a needle to let the blood out, or waited long enough for them to become desiccated ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... I recognized what it was, and how deadly. It was an old Florentine misericordia, a long thin, triangular blade, a quarter of an inch wide at its greatest width, tapering to a needle-point, with a hilt of yellow ivory, the most deadly and fatal of all the daggers and poignards of the Middle Ages. The blade being sharp on three angles produced a wound that caused internal hemorrhage and which ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... despite the grief he was giving her. She did him justice to believe he acted in affection. The gay ribbons that laced his cuirass, the red and blue embroidery that edged his "taxiarch's" cloak, were from the needle of his daughter. Hermione kissed him as she stood with her mother in the aula. He coughed gruffly when he answered their "farewell." The house door closed behind him, and Hermione and Lysistra ran into one another's ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... reflex of "gagging." These insensitive areas, known as stigmata, played a very important role in the epidemic of witchcraft hunting of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the witch was so diagnosed if she felt no pain when a needle was thrust into her. Mankind has often enough worshiped the insane and mentally aberrant and has as often ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... also are instrumental phenomena, due to diffraction of light by the steel bars that support the small mirror in the tube of reflecting telescopes. In a word, the stars are so remote that the largest and most perfect telescopes show them only as extremely minute needle-points of light, without any trace of their ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... was a hubbub indeed. Up rushed the mother in terrible excitement. Round and round spun the twelve brothers and sisters, each crying, "No, no, no, no," in a voice as fine as a knitting-needle, and as sharp as ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... with a warm glow of heart, of another reason for the investment. The quilt would be such a precious reminder of Johnny's boyhood some day, when he had put away childish things. Every stitch would be dear to her, because of the little stubby fingers that worked so patiently to set them, despite the needle pricks and ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... came to pay our bill, the dolt of a husband took the money and put it in his pocket. He had not lifted a finger to lighten that woman's burdens.... Yet the law gives him the right to every dollar she earns, and when she needs two cents to buy a darning needle she has to ask him and explain ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... Walter judged that the other four convicts were in doubt as to which of the two plans they should lend their support to. "Are you sure we'll catch 'em, Cap?" inquired one, doubtfully, "there are so powerful many forks to this river, it's like hunting for a needle in a haystack." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... is like going to sea, they must have a compass, some friendly directing needle; or else they will uselessly err and wander for a long time, even with a fair wind: yet these are the struggles through which our forefathers have waded; and they have left us no other records of them, but the possession of our farms. The reflections I make ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... needle-valve was worn so that it leaked; that was replaced. A stiffer spring was inserted in the intake-valve so it would not open quite so easily. A number of minor things were done, and every nut ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... heart fairly sink within him. Now it was a piercing scream, now it was a sob, and now it died away in a low moan, only to rise again, wilder and more agonized than ever. He knew without a doubt that it was only some kind of a cat—knew it just as well as he knew that his compass needle pointed north. Yet there had been times in his land-looking experience when he had been ready to swear that the needle was pointing south-southeast; and to-night, in spite of his certain knowledge that the voice he heard was that of a lynx or a wild-cat or cougar, he couldn't help being almost ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... the shop-board, Lightly crooked his manly limb, Lightly drove the glancing needle Through the growing doublet's rim Gaberdines in countless number Did the taylzeour knyghte repair, And entirely on cucumber And on cabbage lived ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... would feel inclined to ridicule rather than applaud the patience of a poor Chinese woman who tried to make a needle from a rod of iron by rubbing it ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... a provisional pat upon one fold of the white table-cloth and regarded the result with critical approval. All being in blameless order, she moved one of the candlesticks the width of a needle. The table was now garnished to the last resource of the Golden Pomegranate: the napery was snow, the glassware and the cutlery shone with a frosty glitter, and the great bowl of crimson roses afforded the exact splurge of vainglorious color and glow ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... and joy to believe so, my sweet Emily. I know in my own heart that the needle is not more true to the magnet than my thoughts and feelings are to you. It shall be the chief care of my life to save you from all uneasiness; but, Emily, I expect the same devotion I give: unkindness from you, of all the world, I could not ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the document in his pocket; took up his hat. "To-morrow," he said after farewells, "I or one of my staff will return to scour the immediate neighbourhood. It has been done, you tell me, but only by amateurs. The skilled detective, sir, will see a needle where the amateur ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... and hastily entering he approached the anxious figure laboriously pushing her needle in and out of the torn goods, and pricking herself more than once ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... accuracy than by melted metals,—taking them, too, from the most fragile and perishable moulds? What sounds more purely fanciful than to assert a connection between variations in the direction of the compass-needle and spots on the surface of the sun! or what is more improbable than that the period of solar spots should be ten years? What would seem to be more completely beyond the reach of human measurement than the relative velocities of light in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... went on chattering and soon forgot her uncle over a butterfly. Not so her mother. She no longer heard what the child said. What a queer feeling was this that had come over her, happy and unhappy at the same time! She had let her needle fall without noticing it. Was she startled? It seemed to her that she was startled, much as she would have been if she had been speaking to some one and suddenly realized that it was not the person she thought. She had thought that Apollonius ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... him hither," I remarked. "The attraction of your bar to his appetite is like that of the magnet to the needle. He ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... pursuits or aims of her future husband; she is not to be a help-meet to him in the way of companionship and counsel, except in the care of his house and children. Her youth is to be passed partly in learning to keep house and the use of the needle, partly in the social circle, where her manners may be formed, ornamental accomplishments perfected and displayed, and the husband found who shall give her the domestic sphere for which she is ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... from his chair with energetic action. "Never. You may as well tell me that the needle does not point to the pole, that the planets have not their appointed courses, that the swelling river does not run to the sea. There are facts as to which the world has ceased to dispute, and this is one of them. Advertise, advertise, ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... and teach me that trick of the broidering needle. I never can do it but I prick myself. Nevertheless, I can fashion the Red Axe almost as clearly as the pattern, and ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... cancer of the stomach, tumor of the brain. He'd had them all, and many others. They had swarmed to him through the gouged skin-openings made by the gleaming needle. And each had brought the freedom of blackness, of death, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a whole week. But always life returned again, and ...
— Life Sentence • James McConnell
... set that ancient Compass to bear; for, as he made explanation to us through the Instrument, so great a power of the Earth-Current must be ours that, perchance it was our force which did affect the pointer from steadfastness. For, indeed, the needle did swing in an arc, as we heard, that held between the North and the South; within the Westward arc; but this it had done ever with them, and so was a very helpless guide; save that, maybe, as we had thought, the force of the Earth-Current that was with us, had in truth some power to pull the needle ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... made as that of the Baltimore. It is suspended from a small twig, often at the very extremity of the branches. The outer part of the nest is usually formed of long, tough grass, woven through with as much neatness and in as intricate a manner as if sewed with a needle. The nests are round, open at the top, about four inches ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... drink water and honey, and if afterwards she feels a beating pain in her stomach and about the navel, she has conceived. Or let her take the juice of cardius, and if she brings it up again, that is a sign of conception. Throw a clean needle into the woman's urine, put it into a basin and let it stand all night. If it is covered with red spots in the morning, she has conceived, but if it has turned black ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... the captain in a deep, unsteady voice. "There is but one course for us, Buzzby," he continued, glancing towards his wife, who, all unconscious of their danger, sat near the taffrail employed with her needle; "these fellows show no mercy, because they expect none either from God or man. We must fight to the last. Go, prepare the men and get out the arms. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... transmitting mechanisms, it is to the working machine we must look in order to get a clear idea of the differences between machines and tools. A tool may be quite simple in form and action as a knife, a needle, a saw, a roller, a hammer, or it may embody more complex thought in its construction, more variety in its movement, and call for the play of higher human skill. Such tools or implements are the hand-loom, the lathe, the potter's-wheel. To these tools ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... came, clear, cold, shining bright. A slight thaw the day before had left every bough and twig and pine-needle covered with a moisture that had frozen in the night into glittering crystal sheaths, which flashed like millions of prisms in the sun. The beauty of the scene was almost solemn. The air was so frosty cold that even the noon sun did not melt these ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... slowly urged by the laboring oar. The sail, at length, arose and spread its wings to the wind. Still he had no power to direct his course when the lofty promontory sunk from sight, or the orbs above him were lost in clouds. But the secret of the magnet is, at length, revealed to him, and his needle now settles, with a fixedness which love has stolen as the symbol of its constancy, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... arrangements to go abroad, or to any distant place. Her guilt seems to me probable, because she has literally abandoned her house and her belongings. An innocent woman would scarcely leave all those modern and valuable furnishings unless for some very strong reason. But as to finding her—a needle in a haystack presents an ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... chance for a good needle-woman in a large and well-conducted mantua-making establishment, she secured it as a temporary thing, for she wanted to divert her mind from that last sad experience by entirely different employment and surroundings. She liked to return at night to her own little home, solitary and simple as ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... a chap in his hammock as dies at sea, which I've often had to do as part of the sail-maker's duty in the many ships I've been in, I allers makes a p'int of sticking my needle through the corpse's nose, to prevent him ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and get some more ice. It's in the bucket in the bath-room. Break it up into little pieces, like that. You split it with a needle." ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... not to be diverted from the straight path of help to the most useful man in England on all possible occasions. Forster I will speak to carefully, and I have no doubt it will quicken him a little; not that we have anything to complain of in his direction. If you ever see any new loophole, cranny, needle's-eye, through which I can present your case to "Household Words," I most earnestly entreat you, as your staunch friend and admirer—you can have no truer—to indicate it to me at any time or season, and to count upon my being Damascus ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... looked very aged; two fine looking young squaws were seated at the door of the tent, embroidering a deer skin to make a coat, they showed me one they had already made, & I must say that nicer work with a needle I never saw, or any thing more beautiful, it looked like sattin, & was finely ornamented with various colored beeds. These two girls probably were this old mans descendants of ...
— Across the Plains to California in 1852 - Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell • Lodisa Frizell
... and subsistence of many thousands of men, women and children depends upon the making of silk, mohair, gimp, and thread buttons, and button-holes with the needle,' and these have been ruined by 'a late unforeseen practice of making and binding button-holes with cloth, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... from the room, Walter Harkness also understood, and he knew that this was no idle threat. He had heard ugly rumors of Herr Schwartzmann and his methods. One man, he knew, had dared to oppose him—and that man had gone suddenly insane. A touch of a needle, it ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... good thing came from the Gilchrists to Mrs Malcolm. Miss Girzie, whom they called Lady Skimmilk, had been in a very penurious way as a seamstress, in the Gorbals of Glasgow, while her brother was making the fortune in India, and she was a clever needle-woman— none better, as it was said; and she, having some things to make, took Kate Malcolm to help her in the coarse work; and Kate, being a nimble and birky thing, was so useful to the lady, and the complaining man the major, that they invited her to stay with them at the Breadland for the winter, ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... some trinkets attached to his watch chain;—a very small gold compass especially impressed her fancy by the trembling and flashing of its tiny needle, ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... have been determined in altitude by means of 1,319 barometric observations, and seventeen by means of the theodolite and spirit level. One hundred and ninety-two observations have been made for determining the variation of the magnetic needle at ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... know whether up till then I had had the least consciousness of possessing what is called the detective instinct. But, at the prospect of this quest, so much like that of the proverbial needle in a haystack, as I did not even know my sister's married name and something within me forbade my asking it, I experienced an odd sense of elation followed by a certainty of success which in five minutes changed me from an irresponsible girl to a ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... plenty ob hands, I didn't hab no fear o' being a burden to him. I knew he would get good pay fer my support, fer I did de shoemakin' fer his people, and made a good many clo'es fer dem too. Thanks to Miss Hester's care, I had learned to use my needle, as you know, an' could do common tailorin' as well as shoemakin'. I got very little fer my wuk but Confederate money and provisions, which my mother always insisted that Mr. Le Moyne should have the benefit on, as he had ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee |
