"Oyster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in monosyllables; but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through the whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his presence ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... paper bands, or with Paris green showered in water. The round-headed apple-tree borer is to be cut out, and the eggs excluded with a sheet of tarred paper around the stem, and slightly sunk in the earth. For the oyster-shell bark louse, apply linseed oil. Paris green, in water, will kill the canker worm. Tobacco water does the work for plant lice. Peach-tree borers are excluded with tarred or felt paper, and cut out with a knife. Jar the grape flea beetle on an inverted umbrella ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... part," replied H., "because the more you enlarge a person's general capacity of feeling, and his quantity of being, the more you enlarge his capacity of suffering. A man can suffer more than an oyster. Christianity, by enlarging the scope of man's heart, and dignifying his nature, has deepened ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the women are made by themselves of the bark of a small tree which they find in the neighbourhood. Their hooks are made of the mother-of-pearl oyster, which they rub on a stone until it assumes the shape they want. It must be remarked, that these hooks are not barbed; they nevertheless catch fish with ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... waves prolific Volvox dwells, And five descendants crowd his lucid cells; So the male Polypus parental swims, And branching infants bristle all his limbs; So the lone Taenia, as he grows, prolongs His flatten'd form with young adherent throngs; Unknown to sex the pregnant oyster swells, And coral-insects build their radiate shells; 90 Parturient Sires caress their infant train, And heaven-born STORGE weaves the social chain; Successive births her tender cares combine, And soft ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... starvation, President Smith, like Lane at Roanoke Island, in May, 1609, dispersed the whole colony in three parties, sending one to live with the savages, another to Point Comfort to try for fish, and another, the largest party, twenty miles down the river to the oyster-banks, where at the end of nine weeks the oyster diet caused their skins "to peale off from head to foote as ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... at poker, as well as an oyster supper given to the two principal actresses of the "North Star Troupe," then performing in the town, convinced Mr. Pyecroft that the colonel was in one of his "moods," and ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Martha. Ten minutes before, she had been sitting with two boon companions in the oyster saloon next door, discussing their night's catch. Elsie "Specs" was one of the two; the other was known to the street simply as Mame. Elsie wore glasses, a thing unusual enough in the Bowery to deserve recognition. From their presence Martha rose suddenly, to ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... of an oyster-fisher from Rozel Bay, who lived in hourly enmity with the oyster-fishers of Carteret, gashed his cheek with the shell of an ormer. A potato-digger from Grouville parish struck at his head with a hoe, for the Granvillais ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... shell, got possession of the animal.—A certain philosopher (I think it was Anaxagoras) walking along the sea-shore to gather shells, one of these unlucky birds mistaking his bald head for a stone, dropped a shell-fish upon it, and killed at once a philosopher and an oyster. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... fettered," as the poet says,—what poet, I don't know and don't care, but he said it, whoever he was, and he was right. If there is no English Opera for my House, then I get a French Opera, or a Dutch one, just as at an oyster-shop—but perhaps this is not quite the illustration I should like, as, at an oyster-shop, they do ask you which you will have, "Natives," or "Seconds," or "Anglo-Dutch"; and, when you can't afford Natives, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... charge of work connected therewith—that one of the provisions we would insist on being put in the law would be one to control the pests which may come. Right in our district today the tent caterpillar is playing havoc with our walnuts; the oyster shell scale is going through our timber in Center County; and I can take you into the mountains five miles from any residence and I can show you oyster shell scale on half a dozen of our native species. It is nice to kid ourselves ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... Mara was the pearl of the old seaman's life, every finer particle of his nature came out in her concentrated and polished, and he often wondered at a creature so ethereal belonging to him—as if down on some shaggy sea-green rock an old pearl oyster should muse and marvel on the strange silvery mystery of beauty that was growing in the silence ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... not that an oyster is colder or that a rabbit is hotter. The pleasure of that is that there is need ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... Why have they not chosen the sweet ways of peace, which are strewn with flowers, which flow with milk?"—The priest spread his hand open for Vittoria's, which she gave to his keeping, and he enclosed it softly, smoothing it with his palms, and retaining it as a worldly oyster between spiritual shells. "Why, my daughter, why, but because we do not bow to that Image daily, nightly, hourly, momently! We do not worship it that its seed may be sown in us. We do not cling to it, that in return it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... proud and vain of one's country, and to boast of it, is a natural feeling; but, with a Virginian, it is a passion. It inheres in him even as the flavor of a York river oyster in that bivalve, and no distance of deportation, and no trimmings of a gracious prosperity, and no pickling in the sharp acids of adversity, can destroy it. It is a part of the Virginia character—just as the flavor is a distinctive part of the oyster—"which cannot, save by annihilating, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... exist in various parts of Europe, which are found to consist of the bones, shells, and other refuse thrown out by these later Palaeolithic men, who had no reverence for the dead, casting out the bodies of their relations to decay with as little thought as they threw away oyster-shells or reindeer-bones. Traces of Palaeolithic men of this type have been found as far north as Derbyshire. Their descendants are no longer be met with in these islands. The Eskimos of the extreme north of America, however, have the same artistic ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... occasionally carried by shellfish, especially oysters, on account of the interesting modern custom of planting them in bays and harbors near the mouths of sewers to fatten them. The cheerful motto of the oysterman is, "The muddier the water the fatter the oyster." And nowhere do the bivalves plump up more quickly than near the mouth ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... mean of proportions, too dull and commonplace of colour to be termed pretty, worth nothing, and justifying, in appearances its worthlessness, is remarkable for the exercise of a certain sort of deliberate wit in accordance with special conditions. Nature provides various species of the great oyster family with respective methods of holding their own in the sea, and in the case under review she permits the individual to exercise a choice of two different methods of fixture as chance and the drift of circumstances decide its location. From the bases of the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... so moved and amused the world; among others, his famous and triumphant confutation of Canon ——, on one hand, and Professor ——, the famous scientist, on the other, which has been compared to the classic litigation about the oyster, since the oyster itself fell to Barty's share, and a shell to each of the ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... she went on, "is an oyster stew. The true hostess, you see, studying her guest's special tastes. It is very nearly cooked and if you do not pronounce it the most delicious thing you ever ate in your life, I shall be ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... no limit to the marvellous things animals do. Elephants, for example, carry leafy palms in their trunks to shade themselves from the hot sun. The ape or baboon who puts a stone in the open oyster to prevent it from closing, or lifts stones to crack nuts, or beats his fellows with sticks, or throws heavy cocoanuts from trees upon his enemies, or builds a fire in the forest, shows more than a glimmer ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... Edible.—The elm pleurotus is so called because it is often found growing on dead elm branches or trunks, or from wounds in living trees, but it is not confined to the elm. It is a large species, easily distinguished from the oyster agaric and the other related species by its long stem attached usually near the center of the cap, and by the gills being rounded or notched at their inner extremity. The cap is 5—12 cm. broad, the stem 5—10 cm. long, and 1—2 ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... found it said to him—Prey upon us, we are your oyster; let your wit open us. If you will only do it cleverly—if you will take care that we shall not close upon your fingers in the process, you may devour us at your pleasure, and we shall feel ourselves highly honoured. Can we wonder at a fox of Reineke's abilities taking such ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... are very thick,—their trunks covered with oyster-shells that adhere to them like barnacles to a vessel's bottom, which annoy those who attempt to pass among them, by tearing their clothes and wounding the flesh as ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins
... manager, recognized as one who could make incongruous elements meet and marshal into working order. In that capacity she found her place even in the First Church, for they had fairs and festivals, and oyster suppers, and other trials even in the First Church; and there was much work to be done, and Marion Wilbur ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... Above the swamp through which the Sabine finds an outlet to the Gulf, the shore lies low and barren. The fort or sand battery was placed at the turn about one half mile below the hamlet called Sabine City, opposite the upper end of the oyster reef that for nearly a mile divides the channel into two parts, each narrow and neither straight. The Sachem, followed by the Arizona, took the eastern or Louisiana channel, and was hardly under fire before a shot struck her steampipe and completely disabled her. The Clifton moved ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... the fire where it cannot possibly boil, and cook the klopps slowly for five or six minutes. When done they will float on the surface. Lift, drain carefully, put on to a heated dish, pour over cream celery or cream oyster sauce, and serve with them peas ...
— Made-Over Dishes • S. T. Rorer
... improvising, construction with squared posts, and later with quarterings (studs), came into practice. There was probably little thought of plastering walls during the first two decades, and when plastering was adopted, clay, or clay mixed with oyster-shell lime, was first used. The early floors were of clay, and such floors continued to be used in the humbler dwellings throughout the 1600's. It can be assumed that most of the dwellings, or shelters, of the Jamestown settlers, certainly ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... who is roused at last to be somewhat more manly, but could never be better than "a boiled rabbit without oyster ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... The "Indiana girl" impossible to Yank. "A superior and splendid woman, but no polish". Yank's "olla podrida of heterogeneous merchandise". The author meets the banished gold-dust thief. Subscription by the miners on his banishment. A fool's errand to establish his innocence. An oyster-supper bet. The thief's ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... business is to reconcile farmers by robbing them. O logic! O justice! O the marvellous wisdom of economists! The proprietor, if they are right, is like Perrin-Dandin who, when summoned by two travellers to settle a dispute about an oyster, opened it, gobbled it, and said ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... you'd tell people who come here that while I undoubtedly am a bear, I have not yet lost my womanly taste, and I don't want to be fed all the time on buns. If anybody asks you what you think I'd like, tell them that an occasional omelette soufflee, or an oyster pate, or a platter of petits fours ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... idea of a complete feast. It represents a table set out with every requisite for a grand dinner. In the centre is a large dish, in which four peacocks are placed, one at each corner, forming a magnificent dome with their tails. All round are lobsters—one holding in his claws a blue egg, a second an oyster, a third a stuffed rat, a fourth a little basket full of grasshoppers. Four dishes of fish decorate the bottom, above which are several partridges, and hares, and squirrels, each holding its head between its paws. The whole is surrounded by something resembling a German sausage; ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... be plate chests and silver chargers, to say nothing of my lady's jewels and other such trifles to reward a faithful soldier. What would war be without plunder! A bottle without the wine—a shell without the oyster. See the house yonder that peeps through the trees. I warrant there is a store of all good things under that roof, which you and I might have for the asking, did we but ask with our swords in our grip. You ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lips," declared he to Mr. Burton. "What he's done with those diamonds we can't find out. He's mum as an oyster. I hoped we might tempt him into making a clean breast of the matter—but not he! He's too hardened a chap for repentance, ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... Jack went to dig for clams. There were very nice clam and oyster beds along the river then. There were not many people to disturb them, and no ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... question, when one invites company," she said; "but I don't mind answering it. For one thing I thought we would have an oyster stew and some good coffee together. Then, if any of you like music, I have a friend with me who is a good singer; and I have a few pictures I should like you to see, if you cared to; and—I don't know whether you are fond of flowers, but some of you may have a mother, ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... and opium together—probably an unaccustomed combination—were too much for his ill-balanced control. Every indication of his face and his narrow eyes was for secrecy and craft; yet for the moment he was opening up to me, a stranger, like an oyster. Even my inexperience could see that much, and I eagerly took advantage of ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... think, it will be granted easily, that if a child were kept in a place where he never saw any other but black and white till he were a man, he would have no more ideas of scarlet or green, than he that from his childhood never tasted an oyster, or a pine-apple, has of those ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... encouragingly, and Mount did so, dumb as a Matanzas oyster and crimson as a boiled sea-crab. Then, doubtless, deeming that gentility required some polite observation, he spoke in a high-pitched voice of the balmy weather and the sweet profusion of birds and flowers, when there was more like to be a "sweet profusion" of Indians; and I nigh stifled ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... to grow broader as I advanced. The bay was still bordered by extensive marshes, with here and there the habitation of man located upon some slight elevation of the surface. Having rowed twenty-six miles, and being off the mouth of Murderkill Creek, a squall struck the canoe and forced it on to an oyster reef, upon the sharp shells of which she was rocked for several minutes by the shallow breakers. Fearing that the paper shell was badly cut, though it was still early in the afternoon, I ascended the creek of ominous name and associations ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... telegraph poles. One fellow pounded lustily on a piece of leather nailed over the mouth of a keg, while the others hopped around in a circle, first upon one leg, then the other, shaking over their heads oyster-cans, that had been filled with pebbles, and keeping time to the rude music, with a sort of guttural song. Now it would be low and slow, and the dancers barely move, then, increasing in volume and rapidity, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... at the head of the table, stood a large tureen of smoking terrapin-stew; next to that a stuffed and baked freshly caught fish; and waiting their turn in the center of the spread, a couple of brace of wild geese from the inland lakes, brown and glistening, oyster-dressed and savory. Farther along was a steaming plum-pudding, overhead on a swinging tray a dozen bottles of wine, by the captain's elbow a decanter of yellow fluid, and before each man's plate a couple of ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... danger to British rule in Egypt. And yet he had heard nothing of the unrest to which he alluded while he was in Luxor or in Cairo; it seemed to flourish in the desert. When he questioned the old man, he became as secret as an oyster; what he definitely knew he did not mean to present to every ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... said Peter, "the king can make an offisher, but she can't make a shentleman. She took the oyster hern ainsel, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... you speak of an acanthopterygian, it is plain that you are not discussing perch in reference to its roasting or boiling merits; and if you make an allusion to monomyarian malacology, it will not naturally be supposed to have reference to the cooking of oyster sauce. ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... voices and bird movements that might well give us the dates, day by day. To me the first warning of the passing of summer comes in the tin-trumpet notes of the blue jays. While the nesting season is on the blue jay is as dumb as an oyster. The woods may be full of him and his tribe, but never an old bird says a word. After the young can fly you may hear them if you slip quietly along in the pine woods. You have to be pretty near though, to do it. They sit in a family group in the treetops and complain, ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... of Mexico does not ebb and flow above two feet, except at the springs, and the ends of the drooping branches of the mangrove—trees, that here cover the shore, are clustered, within the wash of the water, with a small well—flavoured oyster. The first thing the seamen did when they got ashore, was to fasten an oakum tail to the rump of one of the most lubberly of the cutter's crew; they then gave him ten yards' law, when they started in chase, shouting amongst the bushes, and switching each ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... water just upon the simmer; while up into the air above our heads rose a great column of vapour, looking as if it was going to turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The ground about the brim was composed of layers of incrusted silica, like the outside of an oyster, sloping gently down on all sides from ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... this way, I shall excite the mistrust of everyone I chance to meet," thought Tom, who wondered what he could have said that had caused this sudden change in the darky's behavior. "I have shut him up like an oyster, and not another thing can I get out of him. I shall be with him over half an hour longer, and then he can do what he pleases ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... cut wood, I went myself in the pinnace to sound, and examine the bay; during my excursion I saw several of the natives, but they all fled at my approach. In one of the places where I landed, I found several small fires, and fresh mussels broiling upon them; here also I found some of the largest oyster-shells I ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... sat smoking and talking with Paul Lathrop in the hook-littered sitting-room of his cottage. One was a young journalist, Roger Blaydes, whose thin, close-shaven face wore the knowing fool's look of one to whom the world's his oyster, and all the bricks for opening it familiar. The other was a god-like creature, a poet by profession, with long lantern-jaws, grey eyes deeply set, and a mass of curly black hair, from which the face with its pallor and its distinction, shone ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dark, quick, his face seamed with a quiet, soft irony, is opening oysters and listening to the robust joy of a distant supper-party, where a man is playing the last bars of: "Do ye ken John Peel" on a horn. As the sound dies away, he murmurs: "Tres Joli!" and opens another oyster. Two Ladies with bare shoulders and large hats pass down the corridor. Their talk is faintly wafted in: "Well, I never like Derby night! The boys do get so bobbish!" "That ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... unite against this common enemy. The bold frontiersman, with his trusty rifle, was often unable to defend his home. His cattle were run away or slaughtered before his very eyes. Old Town was the first point selected for the capital; but Charleston was finally laid out on Oyster Point, and the seat of government was removed to this city, where the second assembly met, in 1682. Immigrants flowed in with a full and continuous stream. Families came from Ireland, Scotland and Holland, and when the edict at Nantes, which secured toleration to Protestants in France, ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... that night, as the two Rosemonters were about to walk past an open oyster saloon hard by the Capitol, John caught his fellow's arm. They stopped in a shadow. Two men coming from an opposite direction ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... trees didn't grow any faster than my seed," mourned Sarah, scratching around in the soil with an oyster shell, the shovel having been confiscated by Winnie, "I don't see how people get ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... fix you out in good shape," suggested Harrison, now becoming thoroughly interested. "I saw several of those big flat bottomed oyster boats a ways back as I came to your vessel some time ago. I believe with a little persuasion I ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... darlin, and be happy. We're all mighty comfortable in here and lots of good victuals, if so be we get hungry. Plenty to drink, too, for I just brought in a crock of fresh water to cool my eggs in. I've got my knittin' work and am as happy as an oyster. Go back, for I ain't ready to talk yet. When I am I'll come out and bring these ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... 22d he saw some barnacles on the boat's rudder, very similar to the spawn of an oyster, which filled him with greater hopes of being near land. He unshipped the rudder, and scraping them off with his knife, found they were of a salt fishy substance, and eat them; he was now so weak, the boat having a great motion, that ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... of mule-train bells, we gallops into Oratama, and the town belonged to us as much as Long Island Sound doesn't belong to Japan when T. R. is at Oyster Bay. I say us; but I mean me. Everybody for four nations, two oceans, one bay and isthmus, and five archipelagoes around had heard of Judson Tate. Gentleman adventurer, they called me. I had been written up in five columns of the yellow journals, 40,000 words (with marginal ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... here, if you will," he said. "I have much to ask, and, I doubt not, you to tell. That worthy physician of yours is dumb as any oyster. Were it not for my boy bringing me scraps of news now and again, I should indeed feel out of touch with ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... furnishing the necessary materials. But there was neither chimney nor plastering, for Heaton had neither bricks nor lime. Bricks he insisted he could and would make, and did, though in no great number; but lime, for some time, baffled his ingenuity. At last, Socrates suggested the burning of oyster-shells, and by dint of fishing a good deal, among the channels of the reef, a noble oyster-bed was found, and the boats brought in enough of the shells to furnish as much lime as would put up a chimney for the kitchen; one apartment for that sort of work being made, as yet, to ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... and it's wasting postage to write him. He's a hermit, sir—a regular hermit, and is about the same as dead, for nobody ever sees him. The tradesmen tell me that his old servant comes out of an evening, once in a while, to buy provisions, but he's deaf as a post and dumb as an oyster." The interview had at least shown me the futility of trying ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... is, Sarah Walker did, with deft womanliness—carried it darkly along the hall to No. 27, and deposited it in Peters' bed, where it lay like a freshly opened oyster. We then returned hand in hand to my room, where we looked out of the window on the sea. It was observable that there was no lack of interest in Sarah ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... the beaver builds his house Within his winter dam; And how the oyster lays its egg, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... Russell's own way of arguing, whenever he approaches some concrete ethical question. For instance, to show that the good is not pleasure, he can avowedly do nothing but appeal "to ethical judgments with which almost every one would agree." He repeats, in effect, Plato's argument about the life of the oyster, having pleasure with no knowledge. Imagine such mindless pleasure, as intense and prolonged as you please, and would you choose it? Is it your good? Here the British reader, like the blushing Greek youth, is expected to answer instinctively, No! It is an argumentum ad hominem (and there can ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... brave man—a brother to him who first ate an oyster—put up the window out of bravado to snap thereby his fingers at the forms of darkness, and being found whole and without blemish or mark of witch upon his throat and without catarrhal snuffling in his nose, of a consequence ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... information. She knew Brinton perhaps better than any one else in the company. Couldn't she give him some "points"? Alas! she had no "points" to give, for, however expansive Brinton may have been under Cupid's influence, he was as close as an oyster in what related to his profession, as has already been said. There was but one course left for Rounders to pursue, which was to play a close ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... the lieutenant to his signaller, "what are you grinning at?" The submarine has hung on to ask if the destroyer will "kiss her and whisper good-night." A breaking sea smacks her tower in the middle of the insult. She closes like an oyster, but—just too late. Habet! There must be a quarter of a ton of water somewhere down below, on its way to ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... at him from under his badger-gray brows. "We may be coming to the oyster, sir, if you have patience. Crest, a wivern proper: motto, 'God is love.' I am thinking, ma'am, a child of yours might find some use for that motto, since children of my own I ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... side a basilica, or municipal hall, in which prisoners were tried, business transactions executed, and the general affairs of the city carried on. On the other side of the square were the shops, where the butchers, bakers, or fishmongers plied their trade. You can find plenty of oyster shells, the contents of which furnished many a feast to the Romans who lived there seventeen hundred years ago. The objects which have been found tell us how the dwellers in the old city employed themselves, ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... oyster, is another vegetable which would find great favour were it not so scarce and dear. Scrape the roots and throw into cold water. Cut in 2-inch pieces and simmer gently for an hour or till tender in stock with ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... window, made about twelve or fourteen francs a week. He worked still, though he was fifty-eight years old, but fifty-eight is the porter's golden age; he is used to his lodge, he and his room fit each other like the shell and the oyster, and "he is known ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... was completely deceived by it, and I could then understand why mariners sometimes ran ashore in such cases, especially in the night, supposing it to be far away, though they could see the land. Once since this, being in a large oyster-boat two or three hundred miles from here, in a dark night, when there was a thin veil of mist on land and water, we came so near to running on to the land before our skipper was aware of it, that the first warning was my hearing the sound of the surf under my elbow. I could almost have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... The pearl-breeding oyster (Avicula margaritifera, Cuvier) abounds on the shoals which extend from Cape Paria to Cape la Vela. The islands of Margareta, Cubagua, Coche, Punta Araya, and the mouth of the Rio la Hacha, were, in the sixteenth century, as ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... by a reader of canoe books, and next day we inspected the oyster-beds, and a curious corn-mill driven by tide-water confined in a basin—one of the few mills worked by the power of the moon. Also we wandered over the new sea fortifications, which are built and hewed by our Government one week, and the week ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... in their own liquor until they curl, cut in small pieces. Chop brains and mix with oysters; two tablespoonfuls melted butter; a few drops onion juice; four tablespoonfuls bread crumbs; one-half cup cream. If too dry add a little of the oyster juice. Bake in shells. ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... morning?" asked her chum, Cicely Powell, joining her upon the piazza. "You look as solemn as an oyster, and I should think you'd feel jolly because it's Saturday, and that horrid Grace Thatcher won't be here to poke her inquisitive nose into all our plans," referring to the prime mischief-maker of the school, already ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... can never be twenty again,' said the old man, sighing. 'Twenty years hence you will wonder where the magic came from. Never mind—just now, anyway, the world's your oyster.' ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... famous, and sometimes infamous, for their devotion to the grotesque in humor. Yet, a conspicuous example of such amusing absurdity was given by Thackeray, who made reference to an oyster so large that it took two men to swallow ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... doctor smiled at her, and finished his oyster. Brave child! Had that odious young woman been behaving in character that morning? He would like to have the dealing with her! As for Diana, her face reminded him of Cowper's rose "just washed by a shower"—delicately fresh—yet eloquent of some past storm.—Good Heavens! Where ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hiding another yawn behind his gauntlet; "the Line's nothing half so bad as this; one day in a London mob beats a year's campaigning; what's charging a pah to charging an oyster-stall, or a parapet of fascines to a bristling row ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... owned a little farm on the neck of land in New Haven which is now known as Oyster Point, and it was here that Charles spent the earliest years of his life. When, however, he was quite young, his father secured an interest in a patent for the manufacture of ivory buttons, and looking for a convenient location for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... wire and bent his neck back to watch a huge black and silver oyster feel the dusk for a landing-field with its single white foot and its orange toes. Blindingly, lights sprang to attention ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... all we face the gantlet. Young Andy Lowes hates to have us beg him not to miss the morning train back, as we do three times a week; but he simply has to go to Jonesville that often, and we all know why, and he knows we know. The Parsons are rid of their Aunt Mary at last. She's worse than an oyster. Put her in a guest-room and she grows fast to it. They've had her for six months now. Hello! Peter Link's son is going down to Jonesville. Guess he's got his job back. Andy would be a good boy if he would only stop ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... silk gown—condescended to wait upon and carve for us. She had each dish and its proper accompaniments brought by Rose to the side-table, where all was neatly divided into portions, and handed round, one dish at a time, hot from the fire. We had, first, ox-tail soup; second, fried soles; third, oyster pates; fourth, Maintenon cutlets and cauliflower; fifth, roast lamb and potato-ribbons; sixth, pheasant, with both bread-sauce and toast. Tartlets and creams followed, and a cream-cheese finished the repast; then we ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... Captain rubbed his eyes, and began to pour out a glass of water; and dryly said he'd no choice, which was responded to by the rest. It was left to Master George, and he ordered a bountiful supply of grouse, partridges, oyster, and champagne of his favourite brand-none other. There was also a billiard-room, reading-room, a room for more important gambling, and a bar-room, up-stairs. All these were well filled with very well-dressed and very noisy people; the latter being a very convenient ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Queenborough, an ancient, but poor town of Kent, in the Isle of Sheppey, situated at the mouth of the river Medway. The chief employment of the inhabitants is oyster-dredging. Walker's ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... amuse her, for she smiled as she wrote his name and bed number in a small notebook, with the added entry: "Oyster soup, cigarettes, and ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... he turn'd orthography, his words are a very fantasticall banquet, iust so many strange dishes: may I be so conuerted, & see with these eyes? I cannot tell, I thinke not: I will not bee sworne, but loue may transforme me to an oyster, but Ile take my oath on it, till he haue made an oyster of me, he shall neuer make me such a foole: one woman is faire, yet I am well: another is wise, yet I am well: another vertuous, yet I am well: ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... intercourse with the world was at the root of all the evil which crept into the monastic system. The orthodox saying was that a monk out of his cloister was like a fish out of water; and it will be remembered that Chaucer's monk thought the text not worth an oyster. Indeed most of the monks managed to swim very well in the air, and the nuns too persisted in taking every sort of excuse for wandering in the world. Right through the Middle Ages council after council, bishop after bishop, reformer after reformer, tried in vain to ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... sydewayes lyke a crabb, gapst on mee lyke an oyster, Followe thy flat nose and smell them there, in th'out part ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... just about as good as the election. That's a cinch. He's a standpatter of the gilt-edged variety. The only issue on which he hasn't shot his mouth off is on votes for women. Nobody quite knows how he stands on that issue, because he keeps dumb as an oyster on that point. But—I'm telling you all this so you can see that in a way it's unlucky you look ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... and go. I want no more holiday—I could not enjoy it if I had it. Certainly not with you in my chair. I would always stand in dread of what you might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose all patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under the head of 'Landscape Gardening.' I want you to go. Nothing on earth could persuade me to take another holiday. Oh! why didn't you tell me you didn't know anything ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... with the rapture of a new love in her heart, followed her father, Oyster McOyster McShamus, to the cottage. Oyster McOyster, even in advancing age, was a fine specimen of Scotch manhood. Ninety-seven years of age, he was approaching the time when many of his countrymen begin to show the ravages of time. But he bore himself straight as a lath, while his ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... passed about the fact that it was quite possible to go on in complete content in a quiet monotonous life, in an oyster- like way, till suddenly there was an unveiling and opening of unimagined capacities of enjoyment—as by a scene like this before us, by a great poem, an oratorio, or, as I supposed, by Niagara or the Alps. Ellen put it—'Oh! and by feelings for the great and good!' Dear girl, her colour deepened, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gentle Fishmonger, and WILLIAMSON his name, No doubt you may have heard before his philanthropic game. The lack of oysters pained him much, for how could people royster And happy be in r-less months without the luscious oyster? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... journalist. "If I fell from grace to-day, remember my unswerving loyalty since the hour we met on the platform at Knoleworth! Haven't I kept close as an oyster? And would any consideration on earth move me to publish an accurate and entertaining account of the roasting of Chief Inspector Winter by Wally Hart? Think what I'm ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... do his dirty work hisself. Mark my words, Tagg, he'll not tackle the job for fear it comes to the gal's ears. You watch him close up like an oyster." ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... down upon commerce, though not upon oppression, or even on robbery. But the true man will change to nobility even the instincts derived from strains of inferior moral development in his race—as the oyster makes, they say, of the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... place these sinkings would be opposite to each other; a small hole one-eighth inch in diameter was then bored in the upper stone, through which lead was poured into the sinkings. The mortar used between the outer stones of the fourteenth-century bays of the nave was mixed with oyster-shells, contained a large amount of lime, and was very hard. There is much clunch stone used in the interior and this is in a good state of preservation, but any that has been used externally has decayed. The abaci of the Early English capitals in ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... of passage, the shoals of wandering fishes, come from distant regions, flying and swimming into our nets, for the mere pleasure of our palates; and the fruits of every climate, of every soil, of every quarter of the globe, blend into enjoyment within us. Who does not perceive in an oyster, if at least he is gifted with a true sense for it, the might and the freshness of the sea! O asparagus, he that has not the wit to enjoy thee, can know nothing of the mysteries which the dreaming world of plants reveals ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... large size and brilliant color, the echinus with its prickly outside and dainty morsel within, the clovis, esteemed by the epicures of the South as more than rivalling the exquisite flavor of the oyster,—all the delicacies, in fact, that are cast up by the wash of waters on the sandy beach, and styled by the grateful fishermen "fruits of ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... York REPUBLIC sent Sam Ward to cover the story, and with him Redding to take photographs. It was a crisp, beautiful day in October, full of sunshine and the joy of living, and from the great lawn in front of the Home you could see half over Connecticut and across the waters of the Sound to Oyster Bay. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... tongue is feared, he could be silenced by a well-directed thrust which, for want of practice and experience in defence, he knew not how to parry. Mr. Charles Williams tells me the story, recounted to him by Thackeray, of how, when one wet night they were all at a little oyster-shop then facing the Strand Theatre, the barmaid Jane, thoroughly out of humour at Jerrold's chaff, slapped down before the little man the liquor he had ordered, with the words, "There's your grog and take care you don't drown yourself;" with the effect of damping ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... like—exactly like the eye of an oyster in its pulp. And, by Jove, there's another!" added ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... last year. Had undoubtedly been to South America, but refused to say exactly where. Began to tell his adventures in a vague way, but somebody started to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster. Something wonderful happened—or the man's a champion liar, which is the more probable supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to be fakes. Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions, and heaves reporters down the stairs. ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... baseball teams, and follows them everywhere in the seasons. You also know that Len is a pretty good friend of mine. If I put Len up to a scheme that will furnish him with good 'copy' for two mornings, he'll put it through for me, and be as mum as an oyster." ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... take (says Justice), take ye each a shell: We thrive at Westminster on fools like you; 'T was a fat oyster,—live ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... oyster may be cross'd in love,'—and why? Because he mopeth idly in his shell, And heaves a lonely subterraqueous sigh, Much as a monk may do within his cell: And a-propos of monks, their piety With sloth hath found it difficult to dwell; Those vegetables of the Catholic creed Are ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... though? I think he does, exactly. He's ma's uncle, but he's sich a nice man that even pa likes him. They can't nobody help likin' him, he's so nice; but ever'body laughs at him, he says sich blunderin' things sometimes. Onct when Aunt Alviny (that's his wife) was a-makin' oyster soup, Uncle Mel he come and looked over her shoulder and says, 'Put lots o' water in it, mother, 'cause ...
— The Fotygraft Album - Shown to the New Neighbor by Rebecca Sparks Peters Aged Eleven • Frank Wing
... into the oil country, lured by the tales of enormous fortunes and rich finds. No one could say what you might discover by digging down into the ground. One man claimed to have struck a vein of oyster-soup. And anyway he sold oyster-soup over his counter at a dollar a dish. Gas-gushers were lighted and burned without compunction as to waste. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... albumen water, oyster or clam broth, milk toast, buttermilk, kumiss. Do not give solid food. Water, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... "A Oyster sit upon the Spanish throne, my dear!—ay, ay—it just serves the Spanish right. They was always in a Stew, and is the most Shellfishest of people ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... longer then his wonte, so that they can not haue this benefight of fisshing, and their store is all spent: they gather a kynde of great shelle fysshe, whose shelles they grate open with stones, and eate the fisshe rawe, in taste muche like to an oyster. If it fortune this ouerflowing by the reason of the winde, to continue longe, and their shellefysshe to fayle them: then haue they recours to the fysshebones (which they do of purpose reserue together in heapes) and when thei haue gnabeled of the softest and gristely ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... that surround him. It is not love, but instinct. The new inhabitant—who came himself from a foreign land, or whose father or grandfather came—has little claim to be called a Salemite; he has no conception of the oyster-like tenacity with which an old settler, over whom his third century is creeping, clings to the spot where his successive generations have been imbedded. It is no matter that the place is joyless for him; that ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Cream of oyster soup served in bouillon cups—salted crackers.—Celery; pimentos cut in small pieces; salted peanuts in red paper cups. Serve on individual plates, chicken chartreuse with ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... another example. Fisheries in the open sea are not appropriated, but fisheries in lakes or rivers almost always are so, and likewise oyster-beds or other particular fishing-grounds on coasts. We may take salmon-fisheries as an example of the whole class. Some rivers are far more productive in salmon than others. None, however, without being exhausted, can supply more than a very limited demand. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... Oyster Cocktail Snowed Potatoes Roast Turkey Turkey Filling Cranberry Sauce Celery Peas Oranges Apples Candy Cake Nuts Bread Butter Coffee Mince Pie ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... attracted them as naturally as a sugar hogshead does flies. Ruth had an idea that a large portion of the world lived by getting the rest of the world into schemes. Mr. Bolton never could say "no" to any of them, not even, said Ruth again, to the society for stamping oyster shells with scripture texts before they ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... man in his own image hath endowed him with this forceful presence. Ten-talent men, eminent in knowledge and refinement, eminent in art and wealth, do, indeed, illustrate this. Proof also comes from obscurity, as pearls from homely oyster shells. Working among the poor of London, an English author searched out the life-career of an apple woman. Her history makes the story of kings and queens contemptible. Events had appointed her to poverty, hunger, cold and two rooms in a tenement. ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... curly-headed son. Later she was moved to Amiens, where she had relatives. After about six months she became quite normal again, and does not remember anything about it. The last time I saw her she was cleaning the upstairs rooms at "Josephine's," the little oyster-shop off the Street of ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... that we work through until about 7:45 and then hit the Regal roof for a $2 feed and a view of some of this fancy skatin' they're pullin' off there. But that ain't Ernie's plan at all. He has his mouth all set for an oyster stew and a plate of crullers down ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... of omnibuses, dining at cheap restaurants, making music at each other's studios. His personal charm was great, as great in its way as Leech's; he was democratic and so was I, as one is bound to be when one is impecunious and the world is one's oyster to open with the fragile point of a lead-pencil. His bohemian world was mine—and I found it a very good world and very much to my taste—a clear, honest, wholesome, innocent, intellectual, and most industrious British bohemia, with ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... what's bothering the boss?" asked one of the young fire-eaters of another. "He nearly made a slip when he was lifting up that fake fried oyster." ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... much trust in me." My old boatman took me over safely, and left me on the island; but in returning by himself, the poor fellow's little boat was caught by a wave, and it skimmed to the bottom like a slate or an oyster-shell that is thrown obliquely into the water. A general exclamation was uttered from the shore; but, in a few minutes, the boatman was seen sitting upon a row of piles in the middle of the river, wringing his long hair with ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... famous piece! Look, it is all wriggled; it is a mermaid's old stay-lace that she has used and thrown away. Perhaps she broke it in a passion because her grandmother made her wear so many oyster- shells on her tail!" ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... petticoat is made at least six or eight inches thick, but not one inch longer than necessary for the use designed. The outer filaments are dyed black; and, as an additional ornament, the most of them have a few pearl oyster-shells fixed on the right side. The general ornaments of both sexes are ear-rings of tortoise-shell, necklaces or amulets, made both of shells and stones, and bracelets, made of large shells, which they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... place,' sis he; so wid that he begins to gut them wid his knife, nate and clain, an afeereed ov dirtying the flags, begor, he swallowed the guts himself from beginnin to ind, tal he had thim as dacent as you see thim here"—dashing down at his master's feet his bag of oyster shells, to the no small amazement of the Connaught worthy, as you may ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... a magnificent plumber, George!" retorted the Big Business Man. "You're about as helpful in this little gathering as an oyster!" ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... relative term, like anything else connected with morality. What would be stealing in the immediate neighborhood of a city is not even what the old South County oyster fisherman once described as "jest pilferin' 'round," out here on the edges of the wilderness. I go out with the trailer hitched to the back of my Ford, half a mile in any direction, and I pass roadsides where, if there are any farmer ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... written me a perfectly beautiful letter. He has told me that he is very celebrated. And I am glad to know it. He said also: 'The glory of other poets reposes in myrrh and aromatic plants. Mine bleeds and moans under a rain of stones and of oyster-shells.' Do the French, my love, really throw stones ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... asserted that he could make pearls grow, and give them the finest water. The King paid him great attention, and so did Madame de Pompadour. It was from her I learnt what I have just related. M. Quesnay said, talking of the pearls, "They are produced by a disease in the oyster. It is possible to know the cause of it; but, be that as it may, he is not the less a quack, since he pretends to have the elixir vitoe, and to have lived several centuries. Our master is, however, infatuated by him, and sometimes talks of him as ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... thought to get some fun out of him by giving him an oyster to open in which they had previously planted a pearl; he never saw the pearl and threw the oyster into the scuppers with the rest, and the pearlers had to go down on all fours and grope for that pearl among the ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... his intentions, which made her dance with joy. Besides, she had a little money, left her by a female oyster-dealer, who had picked her up when she had been left on the quay at Havre by an American captain. This captain had found her, when she was only about six years old, lying on bales of cotton in the hold of his ship, some hours after his departure from New York. On his arrival in Havre, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant |
