"Polishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... giving the last rub to the shirt-bosom she was polishing, and setting her flat-iron back on the stove with a smack,—"there, honey; and I couldn't have done better by that buzzum if ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... of limestone that formed a miniature bluff twenty feet high and a hundred in length. Under an overhanging ledge, they found two cushions, a red-and-gray blanket, and some odds and ends of old garments that looked as though they had once been used for polishing rags. There was a broken kitchen spoon, and a cold chisel, and some other ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... soldiers. And, knowing that the great force of the barbarians lay chiefly in their swords, with which they laid about them in a rude and inartificial manner, hacking and hewing the head and shoulders, he caused head-pieces entire of iron to be made for most of his men, smoothing and polishing the outside, that the enemy's swords, lighting upon them, might either slide off or be broken; and fitted also their shields with a little rim of brass, the wood itself not being sufficient to bear ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... to a man who was polishing some newly laid tile, who replied, "Mrs. Sturgis? I think she's in her office. It's straight back through the door. She was there a minute ago, with ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... himself was rather disturbed by this countrified utterance, and it occurred to him that his new-found son needed considerable polishing. ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... novelties; for many experiments had to be made, to determine how best to employ oil colour so that the spots or pips may be equal-tinted, the outline clear and sharp, the pigment well adherent to the surface, and the drying such as to admit of polishing without stickiness. The plates for printing are engraved on copper or brass, or are produced by electrotype, or are built up with small pieces of metal or interlaced wire. The printing is done in the usual way of colour-printing, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... upon the other before the song-priest. Upon these was laid a blanket, and on the blanket pieces of cotton. These rugs extended north and south. The theurgist then produced a large medicine bag, from which a reed was selected. The reed was rubbed with a polishing stone, or, more accurately speaking, the polishing stone was rubbed with the reed, as the reed was held in the right hand and rubbed against the stone, which was held in the left. It was then rubbed with finely broken native tobacco, and afterwards was divided into four pieces, the ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... the tombs, may be arranged in the following classes: Pictured rocks, sculptured columns, images, mealing stones, stools, celts, arrowpoints, spearpoints (?), polishing stones, and ornaments. ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... inveighing against some conduct of the Southern whites, and said: "They say the South is quiet now. Order reigns in Warsaw. But where is Poland?" An irreverent newspaper man said: "He is up in Vermont polishing brass buttons." ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... master to give an eye to the shop, followed Jenkin's example, and ran after him as fast as he could, but with more attention to the safety and convenience of others; while old David Ramsay, with hands and eyes uplifted, a green apron before him, and a glass which he had been polishing thrust into his bosom, came forth to look after the safety of his goods and chattels, knowing, by old experience, that, when the cry of "Clubs" once arose, he would have little aid on the part of ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... to interfere with the work he had in hand, the preparation of a speech on the disturbed condition in Ireland which he was to deliver in the House of Lords that very day—a speech which should enhance his great and rapidly growing reputation as an orator. He spent some hours absorbed in polishing and repolishing his sentences, and in verifying his facts; and, when he rose in the House, he was as full of confidence as of ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... in their battered faces—with material to make my tale sure—so sure that the world would hail it as an impudent and vamped fiction. And I—I alone would know that it was absolutely and literally true. I—I alone held this jewel to my hand for the cutting and polishing. Therefore I danced again among the gods till a policeman saw me and took ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... to shop. She had asked Nora to look after Jane Gladys, and Nora promised she would. But it was her afternoon for polishing the silver, so she stayed in the pantry and left Jane Gladys to amuse herself alone in the big ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... much patronized by students. She accumulated much property by practising the gentle art of polishing shirts. ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... little woman was Helen now-a-days. I deplored the necessity for the graceful French governess who was polishing her into a conventional manner and preparing her for the dull routine which other girls must follow. I never analyzed my impressions of Helen then, but I am sure I considered her far above any commonplace ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... Arnold. ("Which of us does she mean?" thought Ulyth.) "She's evidently raw material. Every diamond needs polishing. What an opportunity for ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... owner of the hut was herself hanging on the edge of life; she was a toothless, bent, and withered old remnant; but her vigor and vivacity were those of a witch. Her hands and eyes were ceaselessly active; she was forever busy, fingering a fish-net, or polishing her Normandy brasses, or stirring some dark liquid in an iron pot over the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... of Stains. Stains as Imitations. Good Taste in Staining. Great Contrasts Bad. Staining Contrasting Woods. Hard Wood Imitations. Natural Effects. Natural Wood Stains. Polishing Stained Surfaces. ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... Sabine Farm." They profited by my advice, however, and postponed publication for two years, Field and his brother Roswell in the meantime working assiduously in making new paraphrases of Horace and in polishing the old ones. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... represented to the dealer the impossibility of selling his diamond at the price he hoped for, and the loss he would suffer in cutting it into different pieces, that at last he made him reduce the price to two millions, with the scrapings, which must necessarily be made in polishing, given in. The bargain was concluded on these terms. The interest upon the two millions was paid to the dealer until the principal could be given to him, and in the meanwhile two millions' worth of jewels were handed to him ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... it gave pleasure only to look in. In summer-time Rose-Red attended to the house, and every morning, before her mother awoke, placed by her bed a bouquet which had in it a rose from each of the rose-trees. In winter-time Snow-White set light to the fire, and put on the kettle, after polishing it until it was like gold for brightness. In the evening, when snow was falling, her mother would bid her bolt the door, and then, sitting by the hearth, the good widow would read aloud to them from a big book while the little girls were ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... forwarded to you the speech which you have often asked for, and which I have often promised to send, but not the whole of it. A portion thereof is still undergoing the polishing process. Meanwhile, I thought it would not be out of place to submit to your judgment the parts which seemed to me to be more finished. I hope you will bestow on them the same critical attention that the writer has given them. I have never handled any subject that demanded ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... Mag still at her post and begging of her a glass of milk and a biscuit. But as he stood in the doorway, instead of Mag he discovered Rose Mary with her white skirts tucked up under one of her long kitchen aprons, putting the final polishing touch to a shining pile of dishes. She looked up at him for a second, and then went on with her work, and Everett could see that her curled lips were ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... wanted to go in spite of Mildred's uncertainty, so R. S. V. P.'s were sent P. D. Q. and old Billy got busy greasing harness and polishing the coach so that his equipage might be fit for the first lady of the land to go ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... mathematician, were all traders. Plato, called the Divine by reason of the excellence of his wisdom, defrayed his travelling expenses in Egypt by the profits derived from the oil which he sold during his journey. Spinoza maintained himself by polishing glasses while he pursued his philosophical investigations. Linnaeus, the great botanist, prosecuted his studies while hammering leather and making shoes. Shakespeare was a successful manager of a theatre—perhaps priding ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... pleasure of going on my knees in your service. There's a pretty speech for you, eh! I'll tell you what—you'll make a lady's man of me now, before you've done with me. I'm polishing rapidly—I know ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... with a rapidity far exceeding that of the hand-work formerly executed by the gilders of books. But for choice books and select jobs, only the hands are employed, with such fillets, stamps, pallets, rolls, and polishing irons as may aid in the nice execution of the work. If a book is to be bound in what is called "morocco antique," it is to be "blind-tooled," i. e.: the hot iron wheels which impress the fillets or rolls, are ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... turreted castle, whence Launcelot would ride just now, would wave to her as he rode by, his scarlet cloak passing behind the dark yew trees and between the open space: whilst she, ah, she, would remain the lonely maid high up and isolated in the tower, polishing the terrible shield, weaving it a covering with a true device, and waiting, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... of Cecelia Anne. Mrs. Hawtry and the twins were by this time settled in their country home in Westchester, and Debrett, driving up from the station in the evening with Mr. Hawtry, found it difficult to accept the freckled, barelegged, blue-jumpered form which he saw in the garden, polishing the spokes of a bicycle, as the ward who had lived all these months in his memory: a fragile little figure in funeral black. Never had he seen so altered a child, he assured Mrs. Hawtry with many congratulations. She seemed taller, heavier, ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... still. The solid little building looked so quiet and well cared for in the bright sunshine, which shone on the polished window-panes and on the bright red top of the lantern, where he could see the lamp-trimmer going round on his little gallery, polishing the prisms. ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... polishing up his bugle," said Mrs. Mason. "But come in a minute, Mr. Strout, I have got ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... stalked around the apartment for an hour, smoking half a dozen cigarettes, chain fashion, and polishing off three glasses of Bristol Cream ...
— Dead Giveaway • Gordon Randall Garrett
... garment: he wished fervently that he could have been the Colonel's son: he expressed, repeatedly, a desire that some one would speak ill of the Colonel, so that he, F. B., might have the opportunity of polishing that individual off in about two seconds. He covered the Colonel with all his heart; nor is any gentleman proof altogether against this constant regard and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have ended his day's work with the polishing of the twenty-eight saki-bowls; he piled them up in a heap and disappeared with them into his cellar, followed with extraordinary agility by the Chinese sleeper. He hurried through the chop-house, the occupants of which were all fast ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... house-place at the Hanyards looked so fair. The firelight danced on the black oak wainscot which age and polishing had made like unto ebony, and the row of pewter plates on the top shelf of the dresser glimmered in their obscurity like a row of moons. Our special pride, a spice-cupboard of solid mahogany, ages old, glowed red across the room, and from the neighbouring wall the great sword and back-and-breast ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... mysterious and uncalled for to those not in the secret, but which for himself had the highest significance. When Sam is first introduced at the "White Hart," he is in the very act of cleaning boots, and we have almost an essay on the various species of boots and polishing. We are told minutely that he was engaged in "brushing the dirt off a pair of boots . . . " There were two rows before him, one cleaned, the other dirty. "There were eleven pair, and one shoe, as belongs to No. 6 with the wooden leg." "The ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... a strength and virility about everything, from the vulcanic pounding and crashing in mills and arsenals to the sturdy uniformed women who were pushing heavy trucks along railroad platforms or polishing railings and door knobs on the long lines of cars in the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... dreariness, attributed wholly to the salutary effect of a "good scolding" she had administered the day before. The work she got out of the girl that Thursday forenoon! Never once did Glory leave her scrubbing, or her dusting, or her stove polishing, to glance from the windows into the street, though the market boys, and the waiters, and the confectioners' parcels were going in at the Pembertons' gate, and the man from the greenhouse, even, drove his cart up, filled with beautiful ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... house, to see if he knew any of those whom he saw. But he knew none, and none knew him to do him the kindness to let him have arms either as a loan or for a pledge. And every house he saw was full of men, and arms, and horses. And they were polishing shields, and burnishing swords, and washing armour, and shoeing horses. And the knight, and the lady, and the dwarf, rode up to the Castle that was in the town, and every one was glad in the Castle. And from the battlements and the gates they risked their necks, through their eagerness to greet ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... but he does not hesitate to speak of his "imperious temper and that savage manner which was too haughty for a republic." "Indeed," he adds, "there is no other advantage to be had from a liberal education equal to that of polishing and softening our nature by reason and discipline." He also tells us that Coriolanus indulged his "irascible passions on a supposition that they have something great and exalted in them," and that he wanted "a due mixture of gravity ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... browner and rosier for a week among the mountains, came in to lunch at noon, she found no signs of that usually regular repast. The little maid was on her knees polishing the floor; Miss Prunty was scolding, dusting, ordering dinner, arranging vases, all at once; strangest of all, Madame Petrucci had taken the oil-cloth cover from her grand piano, and, seated before it, was practising her sweet and faded ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... always think you have on your shoulders your beadle's robe, and spend all your time reading your breviary. But I give you warning that if in polishing your chapel utensils you forget how to brighten up my sword, I will make a great fire of your blessed images and will see that you are ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dressed in dirt-coloured buckskin than a human being; and had his arms not been in motion, he might have been mistaken for such an object. Both his arms and jaws were moving; the latter engaged in polishing a rib of meat which he had ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... of a cotton-wood, dressed in dirt-coloured buckskin, than the body of a human being. On getting nearer, and round to the front of it, it was seen to be a man, though a very curious one, holding a long rib of deer-meat in both hands, which he was polishing with a very poor ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... from barbarism, two or three masterly writers may operate wonders; and the fewer the number of writers, as the number is small at such a period, the more absolute is their authority. But when a country has been polishing itself for two or three centuries, and when consequently authors are innumerable, the most supereminent genius (or whoever is esteemed so, though without foundation,) possesses very limited empire, and is far from meeting implicit obedience. Every petty writer will contest very novel institutions: ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... polish, and make ornaments of, from the beginning of time; and yet, so much of babies are they, and so fond of looking at the pictures instead of reading the book, that I question whether, after six thousand years of cutting and polishing, there are above two or three people out of any given hundred, who know, or care to know, how a bit of agate or a bit of marble ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... to Brosna as one who had a right. I would come in upon Terence Murphy scrubbing a floor or polishing silver or some such thing, and he would look up as my ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... know you're a diamond, decidedly in the rough, as a general thing. You need cutting down and polishing." ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Nay, Ben has parts, but as I told you before, they want a little polishing. You must not ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... "Willer." After this humble repast, which was relished as much as any could be, and was far less likely to leave unpleasant sensations than if it had been more costly, they draw round the fire; and master Ichabod Strap, one of the choristers of St. Stiff the Martyr, is playing with a shilling, polishing the coin upon his sleeve—it is the identical one said to have been put in the plate by Captain de Camp, and given by Mr. Flyntflayer (the gentleman who held the gothic platter) to Mrs. Strap, the pue-opener, advising her at the same time to nail it ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... dentists themselves have not been trained to realize that the teeth are a most dangerous source of infection when unclean. Does your dentist insist upon removing tartar and food particles beyond your reach, upon polishing and cleansing, or does he regard these as vanity touches, to be omitted if you ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... and on to the captain's house, where a guard of honor presented itself at the door, and ushered forth the chief, carefully dressed in his uniform of state, while at his side merrily clanked Gideon, resplendent, though none but he and his master knew it, in such a furbishing and polishing as seldom had fallen ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... crackled; the men sat upon the van tongues cleaning harness after the rain and mud of the afternoon before. The boys were polishing the coats of the beautiful horses, till ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... emerged from a recess in the room, a kind of dark alcove, where she had been amusing herself with what I took to be some sort of puzzle, but which I found afterwards to be the bit and curb-chain of her pony's bridle which she was polishing up to her own bright mind, because the stable-boy had not pleased her in the matter, and she wanted both to get them brilliant and to shame the lad for the future. I followed her to the window, where I was indeed as much surprised and pleased ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... if not yet awake, and rubbed away at his eyes with his big fists, as if they, too, required a great deal of polishing to make them ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... work faithfully according to the editorial standards of their day; and they were well within the latitude allowed them by the terms of Clarendon's instructions when they occasionally omitted a passage, or when they exercised their somewhat prim and cautious taste in altering and polishing phrases that Clarendon had dashed down as quickly as his pen could move.[3] Later editors have restored the omitted passages and scrupulously reproduced Clarendon's own words. But no edition has yet reproduced his spelling. In the characters printed in this volume the attempt is made, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... They were extant in the time of Quintilian, who speaks of them with the highest praise.[146] Cicero himself selects certain passages out of these speeches as examples of eloquence or rhythm,[147] thus showing the labor with which he composed them, polishing them by the exercise of his ear as well as by that of his intellect. We know from Asconius that this trial was regarded at the time as one ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... Hermy and Ursy did not appear, and had a great polishing of his knick-knacks afterwards, while waiting for them. No one ever felt anxious at the non-arrival of those sisters, for they always turned up from their otter-hunting or their golf sooner or later, chiefly later, in the highest spirits at the larks they ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... said the eunuch, polishing his carbuncle, with a visage radiant as the gem. "I never repented patronizing men of science. The prince waits without. Come along!" He took Iskander by the arm. "Where is your boy? What are you doing there, sir?" inquired the eunuch, sharply, of Nicaeus, who, was tarrying behind, ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... attending to everything, pronounced it perfect with gay little pats of quaint panniered costumes, fitting of banded sailor hats o'er white coifs, recurling of ringlets, and dainty polishing of slippers. The graceful little figures seemed elfin and fairy-like in the half sleeves and low corsages of tight bodices from which depended enormously full skirts set ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... sign of her profession. The artist was not able to avoid a certain heaviness in the treatment of her hair, and the careful execution of the whole work was not without a degree of harshness, but by dint of scraping and polishing the wood he succeeded in softening the outline, and removing from the figure every sharp point. The lady Nehai is smarter and more graceful, in her close-fitting garment and her mantle thrown over the left elbow; and the artist has given her a more alert pose and resolute air ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the ninth preparatory grade, under the direction of the indolent M. Tavernier, always busy polishing his nails, like a Chinese mandarin, the child had for a professor in the eighth grade Pere Montandeuil, a poor fellow stupefied by thirty years of teaching, who secretly employed all his spare hours in composing five-act tragedies, and who, by dint of carrying to and going for his manuscripts ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... will never be transcended, even if equalled again. They have expended all of their skill and ingenuity in the task, and have not succeeded sometimes until they have forged two or three new pieces. When a great work of this kind is done, it may be discovered in the turning, polishing, and fitting up, that it has at last a flaw, and that it will not do for the service intended. As a matter of course, it must be thrown aside and a new piece forged. This was but recently the case with one of the shafts of the "Leviathan," in England. So with the shafts of the ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... been by Bright Sun, he was impressed also by these warriors. Not one of them spoke to him or annoyed him in any manner. They went about their tasks, cleaning and polishing their weapons, or sitting on rough wooden benches, smoking pipes with a certain dignity that belonged to men of strength and courage. All around the lodge were rush mats, on which they slept, and near the door was ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... polishing up a bit. How would a course at one of our theological colleges down here do for you? It's a pity you couldn't have six months even at Laval—but, of course, Sabrevois and the long procession of colporteurs is more in your line. But in spite of such small defects you remain a man of cheerful ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... away, his business done. The prospect was rich recompense for everything. It came to him, suddenly and for the first time, that he hated his mission in Hunston with a disheartening and sickening hatred. And formulating this thought, polishing it to aphorism and sharpening it to epigram, he slumbered and slept for the last ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... young (that was one chance in my favour!)—plump, florid, and evidently not by any means careless about her personal appearance (that gave me another!) As she saw me approaching her, she smiled; and passed her apron hurriedly over her face—carefully polishing it for my inspection, much as a broker polishes a piece of furniture when you stop ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... hungry. In any other condition, the dingy little lunch-room she presently turned into, would hardly have invited her. But the spots on the frayed starchy table-cloth, the streakiness of the glasses, the necessity of polishing knife and fork upon her damp napkin, couldn't prevent her doing ample justice to a small thick platter of ham and eggs, and a ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... looking up from below the canyon for a mile or more it has the appearance of a series of irregular giant steps, each step gradually sloping back to the step above. From above the course of the glacier seems clear. It must have flowed downwards, polishing and smoothing each step in turn, then falling over the twenty, thirty or fifty feet high edge to the next lower level, to ascend the next slope, reach the next ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... grievance to the authorities in Washington. I dare not close my ear against such applicants, for in the mass of valueless dross which I receive, I sometimes discover a rough diamond which, after due cutting and polishing, I dispose of ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... bateaux and canoes lined the beach below the log palisade; and others drew near the shore, laden with fish. There was a stir and bustle about the square within the stone bastions; orderlies hurried from quarters to barracks, bugles sounded, and groups of ragged soldiers sat about, polishing muskets and belts, and setting new flints. Men of the commissary department were carrying boxes and bales from the fort to a cleared space ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... very soon be required for the more considerable business at the northern end of the desert; in other words, that we should shortly be on the move again. And for once the prophets were right, for suddenly there was a great to-do in the camp; such a polishing of guns and a burnishing of stirrup-irons and bits and chains, such a cleaning of harness and saddlery as had never ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... fires over the eastern waters when the two men boarded the Jennie P. Mr. McGowan noticed that the Captain took particular pains in cleaning and polishing the few brass trimmings. They both worked hard till the sun appeared, and then hastily ate a lunch which they had brought aboard with them. After finishing the sandwiches, the Captain went forward and dropped a measuring-stick into the ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... to help him, and it was difficult to find one who could hold his tongue. There was nothing for it but to turn Timar himself into an apprentice, and he now vied with his master from morning to night with chisel and gimlet, in carving, planing, polishing, and turning. But as to the cabinet-maker himself, if you had closed his mouth with Solomon's seal, you could not have made him discreet enough to refrain from letting out the secret to his Sunday evening boon companions, ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... on the other hand, was conservative, dainty, cultured, spiritual. He adored her as little less than a saint, and she became, indeed, his saving grace. She had all the personal refinement which he lacked, and she undertook the work of polishing and purifying her life companion. She had no wish to destroy his personality, to make him over, but only to preserve his best, and she set about it in the right way—gently, and with a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... iron. (2) The surface of the screwhead is coated with a very thin coating of shellac dissolved in alcohol and thoroughly dried, or a thin coating of collodion, which is also dried. The screw is placed in the ordinary polishing triangle and the flat face at a polished on a tin lap with diamantine and oil. In polishing such surfaces the thinnest possible coating of diamantine and oil is smeared on the lap—in fact, only enough to dim the surface of the tin. It is, ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... polishing you have had, my daughter, to let your mind run to such an unpolished young man. Drag a family down when a family is going up, and there's the end of that family—with society I mean." Mrs. Chapman tossed her head, and again returned to the ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... a slight crystallization of the surface which, if not removed, penetrates into the crucible. Gentle polishing of the surface destroys the crystalline structure and prevents further damage. If sea sand is used for this purpose, great care is necessary to keep it from the desk, since beakers are easily scratched by it, and ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... time Pugsy returned, carrying a five-cent bottle of milk, the animal had vacated the shelf, and was sitting on the table, polishing her face. The milk having been poured into the lid of a tobacco tin, in lieu of a saucer, she suspended her operations and adjourned for refreshments, Pugsy, having no immediate duties on hand, ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... well deserved, since our equals are always the best judges of our merit.[6] Insomuch as Mary was a foreigner, she expected to be criticised with severity, and therefore applied herself with great care to the due polishing of her works. Besides, she thought, as she says herself, that the chief reward of a poet, consists in perceiving the superiority of his own performance, and its claims to public esteem. Hence the repeated ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... the first to discover the ship, while she was up in the light-house tower polishing the reflector. She at once descended the steep stairs and sent off the boys to the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... kitchen, learning to make puddings and pies, and trying all sorts of recipes with very varying success, from an antiquated cookery book which she had discovered at the back of my bookshelves. At other times, when I expected her to be upstairs, languidly examining her finery, and idly polishing her trinkets, I heard of her in the stables, feeding the rabbits, and talking to the raven, or found her in the conservatory, fumigating the plants, and half suffocating the gardener, who was trying to moderate her enthusiasm in the production ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... advice, is it?" said the landlord testily. "Well then we shall soon know who is the fool, you or me, for I have spoken to her as it happens; and what is more, she has said Ay, and she is polishing the flagons ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... sold under the name of Dutch rushes, for the purpose of polishing wood and ivory. If the rush be burnt carefully, a residuum of unconsumable matter will be left, and this held up to the light will show a series of little points, arranged spirally and symmetrically, which are the portions of silex the fire had not dissipated; and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... same old codger. Haven't changed an inch in seven years. You've got to stay here a week, two weeks, a month. I've plenty of sick stock, and some of the boys have horses that need polishing." ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... vessel with such implements—it being, legs and bowl, in one piece—must have taken long months. Then came the filing down with strips of shark skin, which had first been softened, and then allowed to dry and contract over pieces of wood, round and flat; then the final polishing with the rough underside of wild fig-leaves, and then its final presentation, with such ceremony, to the chief who had ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... choice of a Stone which naturally resists the Fire, not so soft as to rub away easily, nor so hard as to endure polishing. They cut it from 16 to 18 Inches broad, and about 27 or 30 long, and 3 in thickness, and hollowed in the middle about an Inch and a half deep. This Stone should be fix'd upon a Frame of Wood or Iron, a little higher on one side than the other: Under, they place a Pan of Coals to heat ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... men made down their beds for a nap, while others announced their intention "to do some soldiering," a term which implied the cleaning and polishing ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... things first. We may be busy polishing our lenses when our primary and fundamental need is light. It is not a gift that we ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... and temper for receiving soft impressions, she sat negligently rocking herself in her chair, and polishing the lid of a copper saucepan! when the sweet, mellifluous strains of an itinerant band struck gently upon the drum of her ear. "Wapping Old Stairs" was distinctly recognized, and she mentally repeated the words so ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... nodded. "And as you point out, being a sort of non-professional expert, you should be free from mercenary bias." He nodded again, taking off his glasses and polishing them on an outsize white handkerchief. "Frankly, now that I understand your purpose, Mr. Rand, I must say that I am quite glad that Mrs. Fleming took this step. I was perplexed about how to deal with that collection. I realized that ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... me tired," confessed Bunker Hill frankly, now that he saw his sale gone glimmering, "I see you're never going to get very far. You'll tramp back to Globe and blow in your money and go back to polishing a drill. W'y, a young man like you, if he had any ambition, could buy one of these claims for little or nothing and maybe make a fortune. I'll tell you what I'll do—you stay around here a while and look at some of my claims; and if you see ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... the husband, polishing off his watery highball. "—To a great big beautiful cloud of atomic fallout, that's what. Don't laugh either, because everything points that way and you know it. Sputniks and ICBMs zooming around, both sides stockpiling like crazy, half the world scrapping as it is. It's just ...
— The Amazing Mrs. Mimms • David C. Knight
... Marguerite reappeared from her dressing-room, wearing a coquettish little nightcap with bunches of yellow ribbons, technically known as "cabbages." She looked ravishing. She had satin slippers on her bare feet, and was in the act of polishing ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... his room Carter watched the stir in the camp. In response to the first call from the bugles, the men were already bestirring themselves along the tent-marked company streets; some industriously polishing belt plates and buttons; some tightening the laces of their leggings, while still others, ruddy of visage, were plunging close-cropped heads into buckets of splashing cold water. At the far end of ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... of some group of story-tellers. Horses munched their grain just at our rear, and now and then some careful trooper sauntered back to make sure his mount was not neglected. One or two of the men were cleaning their revolvers, and an old corporal was polishing his sabre where a spot of rust disfigured its gleaming blade. You might have dreamed it a picnic, a military review, possibly, were it not for the travel-soiled and ragged uniforms, but a line held there for the stern purpose of deadly ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... farce, and yet a most useful farce, is gone through with. The retreat is ordered to be beat, and all retire; refill the armory with their deadly rifles and side arms, and then return to their respective watches, work, or recreation—some gathering round a canvas checker board; some polishing up bright work; others making pants, shirts, or coats, or braiding light straw hats. Some are aloft, and watching with eager eyes to catch the first glimpse of a sail on the distant horizon; and this he must ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Ned spent the day in going over the airship, making some minor repairs to it, and polishing and oiling the mechanism of the searchlight, to have it ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... as Scott was used to say, of "refreshing the machiner," Dryden wrote his famous ode, "Alexander's Feast," for a meeting of the Musical Society on St Cecilia's day,—wrote it, according to Bolingbroke, at one sitting, although he spent, it is said, a fortnight in polishing it into its present rounded and perfect form. It took the public by storm, and excited a greater sensation than any of the poet's productions, except "Absalom and Achitophel." Dryden himself, when complimented on it as the finest ode in the language, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... stood by him and cheered him on. People, I say again, don't die of overmuch love, but for the want of a bit of it. These boys stood by my champion swearer, and when he was putting the polishing touches on the last gun he stood up, his face radiant, like a man that has fought a battle and won: "Boys, this is the last gun I shall clean for anybody under these conditions, because, God helping me, I'm going ...
— Your Boys • Gipsy Smith
... shelf, fixed in the corner, was our tinware. Although called tinware, it really was zinc, and was susceptible, through much hard work, of a high polish, but this "polishing tinware" was a fearful curse to the poor prisoner. It consisted of a jug for water and a bowl for washing in and a pint dish for gruel. There were strict and imperative orders, rigidly enforced, that this tinware should be kept polished, the result being ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... of my tattling," and the boy smiled curiously to himself as he bent over the book, polishing ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... shoes, and the haberdasher all the other articles necessary to complete my wearing apparel in the most up-to-date style. The barber, the manicurists, and even the chiropodist had visited me and taken extra pains in polishing ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... greatly increased by the deep shades in which their place of concealment lay. Sir Alan roused the fire to a cheerful blaze, and lighting a torch of pine-wood, placed it in an iron bracket projecting from the wall, and amused himself by polishing his arms, and talking in that joyous tone his mother so loved, on every subject that his affection fancied might interest and amuse her. He was wholly unarmed, except his sword, which, secured to ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... another boy said, "you keep that for Russia. Fancy Bullen polishing off a gigantic Cossack, or defending the Czar's life against half a dozen infuriated Nihilists. That would be the thing, Bullen. It would be better than trade any day. Why, you would get an estate as big as an English ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... polishing and practice and all that; but I'm sure it is oceans better than half the sentimental twaddle we see in the papers, and I KNOW that some of those pieces ARE paid for, because I have a friend who is in a newspaper office, and he told me so. Yours ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... resented it; he considered additions unfair, and scoundrelly. In the midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the back of the pew in front of him and tortured his spirit by calmly rubbing its hands together, embracing its head with its arms, and polishing it so vigorously that it seemed to almost part company with the body, and the slender thread of a neck was exposed to view; scraping its wings with its hind legs and smoothing them to its body as if they had been coat-tails; going through its whole toilet as tranquilly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... test objects for microscopes. They contain in their outer coat or case a relatively large portion of silex, and their remains here and there form deposits—vast beds many feet in thickness—known as "tripoli," and used for polishing. The minute particle of their protoplasm is contained within the siliceous case. They may be entirely free, or cohere in aggregations, or be attached to a supporting surface by a slender stalk, which may ramify and bear a little siliceous ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... mother shot at father, and father laid down his paper and said, while he pretended his glasses needed polishing: "Now there is the right sort of a girl for you. No foolishness about her, when she has every chance. ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... addition as often as it is revised. Accordingly I frequently made an addition for the sake of the studious, and of John Froben; but so tempered the subject-matters, that besides the pleasure of reading, and their use in polishing the style, they might also contain that which would conduce to the formation of character. Even while the book I have referred to contained nothing but mere rubbish, it was read with wonderful favour by all. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... coming! You could feel the quiver of excitement in the air of the place. The boatmen were polishing the brasses of the launch; the yard-man was raking up the dry strips of palm from beneath the cocoanut trees; Aunt Varina was ordering new supplies, and entering into conspiracies with the cook. The nurses asked me timidly, what was He like, and even Dr. Gibson, ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... that, Lloyd saw Adler from time to time, Kamiska invariably at his heels. She came upon him polishing the brasses upon the door of the house, or binding strips of burlaps and sacking about the rose-bushes in the garden, or returning from the village post-office with the mail, invariably wearing the same woollen cap, the old pea-jacket, and the jersey ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Channel, which convey'd the Water under Ground; they laid a Bed of Coal upon the first Mortar, and having beaten them well, they cover'd them with another Cement or Mortar made of Lime, Sand and Ashes, which they made smooth when it was dry with a Polishing-Stone. These Floors presently drank up the Water that fell upon them, that one might walk barefoot without being incommoded ...
— An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius - Containing a System of the Whole Works of that Author • Vitruvius
... She stopped polishing and stood looking at her friend with the peculiar, radiant look which was her greatest charm, her dark eyes glowing, her lips in proud, sweet lines of resolution, her round chin held high. Then she laughed, throwing her head higher yet, with a gay spirit; came forward and caught Ellen ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... used before tools of iron were invented. But this age was preceded by one in which even bronze was unknown. Stone implements, and some of bone and horn, were alone used. It is also well ascertained that there were two widely divided stone ages. The latter, distinguished by the polishing of the stones, is described as the neolithic; the former, in which flint and other hard stone fragments were merely chipped or flaked to an edge, ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... grunted the waiter cheerfully, polishing off the top of the table with a saturated towel, "yuh don't come ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... the kitchen, polishing the silver, and listening to Biddy's raptures. "Sure, thin, Conny, and it's a young gintleman ye'll be seein' as there isn't the likes in ahl this miserable coontry, bad ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... is not restricted to poets. Composers of genius are also inveterate strivers after perfection, are continually occupied in polishing and revising their music. And not all the modifications they make, or sanction, are recorded in the printed versions. For many are the outcome of after-thoughts, of ideas suggested during the process of what I have called ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... satisfaction what I believed to be an exceedingly pleasant set of verses that needed no more than to be engrossed on a fair piece of sheepskin and tied with a bright ribbon and sent to the exquisite frailty. And all these things I did in due course, after the proper period of polishing and amending and straightening out, until, as I think, there never was a set of rhymes more carefully fathered and mothered into the world. And here is ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... when Poll was hanging up at a back window, she saw Tom polishing the boots, and whistling a merry tune, never once thinking of his enemy near him. Squeezing herself, as she often did, through the wires of her cage, she crept silently along through an inner room into the shed, when she flew directly ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... smiled reassuringly. He had begun to speak and, though apparently engaged with the beer-glass he was polishing, the ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... Germany: and if she is the equal of the best in the nineteenth, it is at the very most a bare equality. But in the twelfth and thirteenth France, if not Paris, was in reality the eye and brain of Europe, the place of origin of almost every literary form, the place of finishing and polishing, even for those forms which she did not originate. She not merely taught, she wrought—and wrought consummately. She revived and transformed the fable; perfected, if she did not invent, the beast-epic; brought ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... country. The governors of these provinces were invested with great dignity and splendor. The gubernatorial courts, if they may so be called, established centers of elegance and refinement, which it was hoped would exert a powerful influence in polishing a people exceedingly rude and uncultivated. There were also immense advantages derived from the uniform administration of justice thus established. This new division of the empire was the most comprehensive ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... person is enjoyed by the conqueror of her country. But when the ways of thinking of two nations are so totally different, why should there be so painful an effort to polish a subject founded on the manners of the one, with the manners of the other? What is allowed to remain after this polishing process will always exhibit a striking incongruity with that which is new- modelled, and to change the whole is either impossible, or in nowise preferable to a new invention. The Grecian tragedians certainly allowed themselves a great latitude in changing ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... for his companion, a mental picture of an Indian camp as he had seen it in Wyoming in the middle '90's, when Sergeant Williamson came out from the house, carrying a pair of the Colonel's field-boots and a polishing-kit. Unaware of the Colonel's presence, he set down his burden, squatted on the floor and began polishing the boots, humming softly to himself. Then he must have caught a whiff of the Colonel's cigar. Raising ...
— Dearest • Henry Beam Piper
... dusk when the Green Imp got away. Johnny Caruthers had the satisfaction of lighting up the car's lamps—always a joy to him, and particularly so to-night, for even the oil taillight bore witness to his trimming and polishing till its red eye could gleam no brighter. As for the front lamps and the searchlight the Imp's progress would be as down an avenue of brilliance if its driver allowed them all ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... blood, genuine intelligence, and literary ability ever assembled from motives other than those of politics or intrigue; here was a gathering purely social and for purposes of mutual refinement. The nobility went through a process of polishing, and the men of letters sharpened their intelligence and modified their manners ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... gingham, cooked and cleaned and sewed, and put her garden in shape for the winter. In spite of her year's training at Mrs. Gray's capable hands, she made mistakes; she burnt the grape jelly, and forgot to put the brown sugar into the sweet pickle, and took the varnish off the dining-room table by polishing it with raw linseed oil, and boiled the color out of her sheerest chiffon blouse; and they laughed together over her blunders. Then, when evening came, she was all in white again, and there was the simple supper served by candle-light in the little dining-room, and ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... and the sun shone brightly. "We'll have fog to-night," observed Dumsby to Brand, pausing in the operation of polishing a reflector, in which his fat face was mirrored with the most indescribable and ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... expert in panto-mimic action, that in the single moment of answering my request to have a pair of shoes cleaned which I have left up-stairs, she plies imaginary brushes, and goes completely through the motions of polishing the shoes up, and laying them at my feet. I smile at the brisk little woman in perfect satisfaction with her briskness; and the brisk little woman, amiably pleased with me because I am pleased with her, claps her hands and laughs delightfully. We are in the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... judged by the accompanying plates. It is superior in quality, as well as in decoration, to that produced by the Pueblos of the Southwest of the United States. The clay is fine in texture and has often a slight surface gloss, the result of mechanical polishing. Though the designs in general remind one of those of the Southwestern Pueblos, as, for instance, the cloud terraces, scrolls, etc., still most of the decorations in question show more delicacy, taste, and feeling, and are ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... and Charlotte were busy stuffing Edward's rabbits with unwonted forage, bilious and green; polishing up the cage of his mice till the occupants raved and swore like householders in spring-time; and collecting materials for new bows and arrows, whips, boats, guns, and four-in-hand harness, against the return of Ulysses. Little did they dream ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... companion-stairs, and immediately in its wake came a girl who made me think, as I compared her to Miss Edith, of a beautiful yacht alongside a stately liner. Barbara Herndon was sunshine personified. Laughter went with her wherever she went, and a pair of Tongans, polishing brasses, immediately put their molars on view, as if they had understood what caused the smiles upon her pretty face as she ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... afternoon of the following day, and the two men had been busy with the care of the machinery in the great hall, polishing up the bright parts and examining with infinite patience the innumerable bearings, their oil-cups and dust-caps. The conversation had naturally been colored by the pious character of their task, and Prosper had spoken more unreservedly ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... The helper would seize a boot and give a tremendous "hawk," which would cause the sleeping inmate of the room to start up in his bed and rub his eyes. He would then apply the blacking and hand the boot to Tom, who stood ready to artistically apply the polishing brush. During the whole of this latter operation the little negro would dance a breakdown, while Tom, seated on the chair brought for his accommodation, would whistle or sing an accompaniment. By this time the inmate of the room would have sprung from his ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... polishing. "Should think you'd be more interested in these," he observed, giving a nod of the ragged hat toward a shallow dish at his ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... which it is desirable and agreeable to know—which has passed into common knowledge through the medium of his poetry. It is true that he wrote his plays and poems at lightning speed, and that if he was at pains to correct some obvious blunders, he expended but little labour on picking his phrases or polishing his lines; but it is also true that he read widely and studied diligently, in order to prepare himself for an outpouring of verse, and that so far from being a superficial observer or inaccurate recorder, his authority is worth quoting in questions ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... such geometry operations, as he termed them; that it might be well enough, perhaps necessary, for your counting-house, silk-gloved captains, who run between New York and Liverpool, to be rubbing up their glasses and polishing their sextants, for they hardly ever knew where they were, except at such times; but as for himself, he had little need of turning star-gazer at his time of life, and that as he had already told me, he was getting to be near-sighted, and had some doubts whether he could discern an object ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the engineer is twofold—to design the work, and to see the work done. We have seen already something of the vociferous thoroughness of the man, upon the cleaning of lamps and the polishing of reflectors. In building, in road-making, in the construction of bridges, in every detail and byway of his employments, he pursued the same ideal. Perfection (with a capital P and violently under-scored) was his design. ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stimulus. That is the raw material of poetic emotion. Let the diamond represent the second stage, the chemical change, as it were, produced in the mental images under the heat and pressure of the imagination. The final stage would be represented by the cutting, polishing and setting of the diamond, by the arrangement of the transformed and now purely verbal images into effective rhythmical ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... till our days," says Camden under the year 1577, "certain young men of promising hopes, out of both Universities, have been maintained in foreign countries, at the King's charge, for the more complete polishing of their Parts and Studies."[30] The diplomatic career thus opened to young courtiers, if they proved themselves fit for service by experience in foreign countries, was therefore as strong a motive for travel as the desire to ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... the more experienced workers earn as much as ten and twelve shillings per diem—higher pay being given to the best polishers. Flat polishing can be done by machinery, but one of the four pedestals intended to support the great Alexander monument was being polished round the crevices by three men, who had spent twenty-two days doing those few square feet, and on which, when we left, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... unmelted ice called the glaciers act more slowly, but they also have the power of transporting gravel, sand, and boulders to great distances, and of polishing and scoring their rocky channels. Icebergs, too, are potent geological agents. Many of them are loaded with 50,000 to 100,000 tons of rock and earth, which they may carry great distances. Also in their course they must break, and polish, and scratch the peaks and ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... blame to thim in that matther. No; a bright Irish nag, with lots of heart, like Brien Boru, is the hoss to stand on for the Derby; where all run fair and fair alike, the best wins;—but I won't say but he'll be the betther for a little polishing at Johnny Scott's." ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... bright; the tiny panes of the casement twinkled in the autumn sunlight, birds sang, and hardy red geraniums bloomed in the cottage windows. What pleasure or distraction had the good housewives of Huxter's Cross to lure them from the domestic delights of scrubbing and polishing? I saw young faces peeping at me from between snow-white muslin curtains, and felt that I was a personage for once in my life; and it was pleasant to feel one's self of some importance even in the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... a noise or to get into mischief. All the day-time, from morning till evening, was occupied in the various branches of their duty; and the hours which then remained were completely filled up with the brushing and polishing of their clothes and accoutrements. It they could have done as they liked, they would have gone to bed directly after evening stable-duty; but that was not ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... a very fine and instructive gorge is to be seen. The river from the Morteratsch glacier rushes through a deep and narrow chasm which is spanned at one place by a stone bridge. The rock is not of a character to preserve smooth polishing; but the larger features of water-action are perfectly evident from top to bottom. Those features are in part visible from the bridge, but still better from a point a little distance from the bridge in the direction of the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... RUSH.—Of this article great quantities are brought from Holland for the purpose of polishing mahogany. The rough parts of the plant are discovered ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... cutting and polishing, textiles and apparel, chemicals, metal products, military equipment, transport equipment, electrical equipment, potash mining, ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Moyne. McConkey's wife, assuming for the moment that he had not abstained from matrimony as he had from tobacco, shared his joys and sorrows, his hopes and fears, heartened him for his daily toil, would join no doubt in polishing the muzzle of the machine gun. So Lady Moyne in her gorgeous raiment, sustained Lord Moyne, her man. That was the suggestion of the possessive pronoun, and the audience was not allowed to miss it. Poor Moyne did miss it, for he was ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... you doing? Polishing the ramekins? Oh, that's right. Did the extra ramekins come from Mrs. Brown? Didn't! Then as soon as the children come back I'll send for them; I wish you'd remind me. Did Mrs. Binney come? and Lizzie? Oh, that's good. Where are they? Down in the cellar! Oh, did ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... to the door, and from that together they went in to their father's study. Ellen was left alone on the lawn. Something was the matter; for she stood with swimming eyes and a trembling lip, rubbing her stirrup, which really needed no polishing, and forgetting the tired horses, which would have had her sympathy at any other time. What was the matter? Only that Mr. John had forgotten the kiss he always gave her on going or coming. Ellen was jealous of it as a pledge of sistership, and could not want it; and though she tried as hard ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of mere flexible cartilage, a poor pseudarthrosis. The explanation of this appears to be that, first, the sharp edges of the ends of the bone disappear by becoming rounded at their extremities by friction and polishing against each other. Then follows an exudation of a plastic nature which becomes transformed into a cartilaginous layer of a rough, articular aspect. In this bony nuclei soon appear, and the lymph secreted between the segments thus ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... wrote poems for forty-three. Many of "the Boys" whom he celebrated became famous in their own right, but they remain "the Boys" to all lovers of Holmes's verses. His own career as a poet had begun during his single year in the Law School. His later years brought him some additional skill in polishing his lines and a riper human wisdom, but his native verse-making talent is as completely revealed in "Old Ironsides," published when he was twenty-one, and in "The Last Leaf," composed a year or two later, as in anything he was to write during ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... Marvin, taking off his spectacles and polishing them with a silk handkerchief. Loo turned and looked at him, for the action so characteristic of a mere onlooker indicated that the momentary concentration of a mind so stored with knowledge that confusion reigned ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... with English and French furniture; and all as different as possible from the houses I saw in Bahia. I am told that they are likewise as different from what they were here twenty years since, and can well believe it; even during the twelve months of my absence from Rio, I see a wonderful polishing has taken place, and every thing is gaining ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... just idea of these brown burnished stones which glitter in the sun's rays. They occur only within the limits of the tidal waves; and as the rivulet slowly trickles down, the surf must supply the polishing power of the cataracts in the great rivers. In like manner, the rise and fall of the tide probably answer to the periodical inundations; and thus the same effects are produced under apparently different but really similar circumstances. The origin, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... without blacking myself." But little Phoebe promised so far to out-do her mother, that it seemed doubtful if she could "black herself" if she tried. Only the bloom of childhood could have resisted the polishing effects of yellow soap, as Phoebe's brow and cheeks did resist it. Her shining hair was—compressed into a plait that would have done credit to a rope-maker. Her pinafores were speckless, and as to her white Whitsun frock—Jack could think of ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... carbon, either by using the electricity from a Ruhmkorff coil or the current from a weak Daniell's battery. In both cases, he obtained on the platinum wires a black powder, in which were found very small octohedral crystals, having the property of polishing rubies rapidly and perfectly—a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... the higher ranges contains stones of more or less value, and the beds of the rivers flowing southward from the mountain chain are so rich in comminuted fragments of rubies, sapphires, and garnets[1], that their sands in some places are used by lapidaries in polishing the softer stones, and in sawing the elephants' grinders into plates. The cook of a government officer at Galle recently brought to him a ruby about the size of a small pea, which he had taken from ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent |
