"Quill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I looked at each other in an ironical silence. Basil, who was sitting by his desk, swung the chair round idly on its screw and picked up a quill-pen. ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... Christine's new name in the register; he looked up at her with short-sighted eyes, a quill pen held between ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... "letter-writing habit," which has clung to her through life. The letters of that time were laborious affairs, often consuming days in the writing, commencing even to children, "Respected Daughter," or "Son," and rarely exceeding one or two pages. They were written with a quill pen on foolscap paper, and almost wholly devoted to the weather and the sickness in the family. The amount of the latter would be appalling to modern households. The women's letters were written in infinitesimal characters, it being considered unladylike ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... had. He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a quill, as such silly, shallow-hearted ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Pathan who attains a commission, and deports himself like an officer, never thinks himself, or is thought by others, deficient in anything that constitutes the gentleman, because he happens not to be at the same time a clerk. He has from his childhood been taught to consider the quill and the sword as two distinct professions, both useful and honourable when honourably pursued; and having chosen the sword, he thinks he does quite enough in learning how to use and support it through all grades, and ought not to be expected to encroach on the profession ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... done? How does the Shamrock sail? Watch, and you will see. When the wind is behind, each stiff quill at the end of the wing stands out by itself and is caught and driven by the blast; but as the bird turns round to face the gale, they all close up and form a continuous mainsail, close-hauled. And all the while the expanded tail is in play, dipping first ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... the doors are opened, and the whole crowd rush elbowing in. How provokingly calm are the countenances of the five legislators! Not a twinkle in the eye of any of them to betray the nature of their decision—nay, with a refinement of cruelty positively appalling, the chairman is elaborating a quill into a toothpick until order shall be partially restored. Now for the dictum—"The Committee, having heard evidence, are of opinion that the preamble of the Dreep-daily Extension Bill has not been proved, and further, that the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... all love her," but the thought made little impression at the time; the mind was too full of terror and woe. The doctor now asked for brandy in a whisper. Mrs. Dodd left the room with stealthy foot, and brought it. He asked for a quill. Julia went with swift, stealthy foot, and brought it. With adroit and tender hands they aided the doctor, and trickled stimulants down her throat. Then sat like statues of grief about the bed; only every now and then eye sought eye, and endeavoured to read what the other thought. Was there ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... strip a goose feather from the quill and, after clipping off the part near the quill-end, you mark a line down the arrow from a point one inch from the nock and, spreading some Spaulding's glue along that line apply the feather, lightly pressing ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... same country such a grass exists. Yes—there is a species of "panic-grass," the Panicum arborescens, which actually grows to the height of fifty feet, with a culm not thicker than an ordinary goose-quill! This singular species is, however, a climbing plant, growing up amidst the trees of the forest, supported by their branches, and almost ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... tailor's patches, flanked by piles of docketed letters and Records closed, bastioned by deed-boxes blazoned with the indication of their offices—MacGibbon's Mortification, Dunderave Estate, Coil's Trust, and so on; he sat with a shrieking quill among these things, and MacTaggart entering to him felt like thanking God that he had never been compelled to a life like this in a stinking mortuary, with the sun outside on the windows and the clean sea and the singing wood calling in vain. Perhaps some sense of contrast seized the writer, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... Randolph expressed the real feeling of his nature toward soldiers, when, a few years later, on the same floor, he said: "If I must have a master, let him be one with epaulets; something which I can look up to; but not a master with a quill behind his ear." In 1800, however, it pleased him to style the soldiers of the United States ragamuffins and mercenaries; which induced two young officers to push, hustle, and otherwise discommode and insult ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... with quill pens, which he trimmed himself; he had often trimmed them for his son James. He recalls this detail about the quill pens at one ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... faviour to 'and in doo course, as the quill-drivers say; Likeways also the newspaper cuttins enclosed. You're on Rummikey's lay. Awful good on yer, CHARLIE, old chummy, to take so much trouble for me; But do keep on yer 'air, dear old pal; I am still right ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... all her will: Field, bright and loud with laughing flower and bird And keen alternate notes of laud and gird: Barnes, darkening once with Borgia's deeds the quill Which tuned the passion of Parthenophil: Blithe burly Porter, broad and bold of word: Wilkins, a voice with strenuous pity stirred: Turk Mason: Brewer, whose tongue drops honey still: Rough Rowley, handling song with Esau's hand: Light Nabbes: ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... phrase "mad as a hornet" has become a proverb. Think, then, of a brush loaded and tipped with this martial spirit of Vespa, this cavorting afflatus, this testy animus! There is more than one pessimistic "goose-quill," of course, "mightier than the sword," which, it occurs to me in my now charitable mood, might have been thus surreptitiously voudooed by the war-like hornet, and the plug ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... not have been afraid. With the next night Hepburn came; and Kinraid did not. After a few words to her mother, Philip produced the candles he had promised, and some books and a quill or two. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... we with ink the ocean fill, Were the whole earth of parchment made, Were every single stick a quill, Were every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God alone, Would drain the ocean dry; Nor would the scroll contain the whole Though ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... feather, when it first comes, is protected by a little case, and the end of the feather, which sticks out of the tip of the case, does look very much like the soft hairs at the end of a paint-brush, the kind that has a hollow quill stem, you know. After they were once started, dear me, how those feathers grew! It seemed no time at all before they covered up the ear-holes in the side of his head, and no time at all before a little bristle fringe grew down over the nose-holes ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... nakedness, till the lowering faces and weather-beaten skins of those hardly-entreated thralls looked grimly out from amidst the knots of cowslip and oxlip, and the branches of the milk-white blackthorn bloom, and the long trumpets of the daffodils, of the hue that wrappeth round the quill which the webster takes in hand when she would pleasure her soul with the sight of the yellow growing upon the dark ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... commanded (not without, I shrewdly suspect, some fear), "come down! This is no place for thee!" "I will!" said the weaver, "as soon as I have worked out my quill." "Nay," said the vicar, "thou hast been long enough at thy work; come down at once." The spirit then descended, and, on being pelted with earth and thrown on the ground by the parson, was converted into a black hound, which ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... painting need, And therefore to your fair no painting set; I found, or thought I found, you did exceed That barren tender of a poet's debt: And therefore have I slept in your report, That you yourself, being extant, well might show How far a modern quill doth come too short, Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute, Which shall be most my glory being dumb; For I impair not beauty being mute, When others would give life, and bring ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... sharp nails they learned to scratch letters. Probably mischievous boys sometimes drew pictures instead of practicing the words assigned to them. After they could write fairly well they were given wax tablets, or even a bit of papyrus, a quill pen, and an ink horn. Papyrus was expensive and had to be ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... smallish fruit to sell, some with smaller news to give. Nobody knew whether Washington was taken. Nobody knew whether Jeff. Davis was now spitting in the Presidential spittoon, and scribbling his distiches with the nib of the Presidential goose-quill. We were absolutely in doubt whether a seemingly inoffensive knot of rustics, on a mound without the inclosure, might not, at tap of drum, unmask a battery of giant columbiads, and belch blazes at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... For some time the crow-quill had been cut ready for use; for some time the paper with its coloured vignette had been waiting by the side of the amber writing-case; yet Edmee paid no attention to them and made no attempt to use them. The letter lay open in her lap; her feet were on the fire-dogs, her elbows on the ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... 20 is quite simple, and presents no resemblance to the elaborate gear of Plate LX, in which the ornament of a leaf (?), or more probably feather, cross-hatched at the end and divided symmetrically by a stem (?) or quill about which four dots ...
— Studies in Central American Picture-Writing • Edward S. Holden
... great galleries were still thronged—though only with men, now; the bright colors that had made them look like hanging gardens were gone, with the ladies. The reporters' gallery, was merely occupied by one or two watchful sentinels of the quill-driving guild; the main body cared nothing for a debate that had dwindled to a mere vaporing of dull speakers and now and then a brief quarrel over a point of order; but there was an unusually large attendance of journalists ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... uproar; Mayor, Aldermen, laid down the uplifted fork; The Bench of Bishops half forgot to snore; Stern Cobbett,[Sec.]—who for one whole week forbore To question aught, once more with transport leapt, And bit his devilish quill agen, and swore With foes such treaty never should be kept, While roared the blatant Beast,[Sec.Sec.] and roared, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... now armed, and awaited the victims they were to chastise. These were dragged out of the guard-house. First came tottering the gray-headed Mr. Krause, slowly and sadly; then came Mr. Kretschmer, formerly the brave, undaunted hero of the quill—now a poor, trembling, crushed piece of humanity. They stood in the middle of the square, and, bewildered with terror, their help-imploring looks swept over the gaping, silent multitude, who gazed at them with eager countenances and malicious joy, and would ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... practise: in nothing the man for Diana. Letters came from the house of the Pettigrews in Kent; from London; from Halford Manor in Hertfordshire; from Lockton Grange in Lincolnshire: after which they ceased to be the thrice weekly; and reading the latest of them, Lady Dunstane imagined a flustered quill. The letter succeeding the omission contained no excuse, and it was brief. There was a strange interjection, as to the wearifulness of constantly wandering, like a leaf off the tree. Diana spoke of looking for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... violent seduction of the President and the Heads of Department by importunate Congressmen; and you may rest assured that this criminal multiplication fills nobody with half so much righteous indignation and virtuous sorrow as the clerks themselves. Emerging from the palace of quill-drivers, a new surprise awaits you. The palace is surmounted by what appear to be gigantic masts and booms, economically, but strongly rigged, and without any sails. In the distance, you see other palaces rigged in the same manner. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... trial to us sometimes!" she whispered to the Mole-mother. "Such bad taste to mention Gypsies. It makes me tremble in every quill!" ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... that accompanied dinner-parties during the reigns of the last few Caesars. It was a device that accomplished, two thousand years ago, the function of our proud Bureau of Seasonal Gratuities. A feather, my boy. A simple goose-quill." ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... of manufacturers continually places before us fresh choice of pen-points to work with; but though one occasionally meets with a good steel pen, I have found it too often fails one just when it is sufficiently worn to the right degree of flexibility. One returns to the quill, which can be cut to suit the particular requirements of one's work. For large bold drawing the reed-pen has advantages, and a pleasant rich quality ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... Australia is the alpha and omega. Yet there were no poor! a grand reflection for the serious. Adam Smith, settled the question of "the wealth of nations." The source of pauperism will be settled in Victoria by any quill-driver, who has the pluck to write the history of public-houses in the towns, and sly-grog ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... worthy man; and having a vast deal of learning, he will respect thee for thy acquirements.' The same day I was introduced to Mr. Asgrave, who was a little man with a fine, bald, benevolent head; and after a long conversation which he was pleased to hold with me, I became one of his quill-drivers. I don't know how it was, but by little and little I rose in my master's good graces. I propitiated him, I fancy, by disposing of my L500 according to his advice; he laid it out for me, on what he said was famous security, on a landed estate. Mr. Asgrave ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Alexandria.—Quill driving and dictating. Have made several remonstrances lately at the way McMahon is permitting the Egyptian Press to betray our intentions, numbers, etc. It is almost incredible and Maxwell doesn't see his ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... reach the goal of growing; In the whole only worketh he; Many drops go to make the sea; Much water sets mills going. Then with the wild wolves do not stand, But knit the state's enduring band:" From doctor's chair thus, tranquil, Herr Pufendorf and swan-quill. ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... eager fingers into her new, dark-blue kid gloves. She was dark and trig in a little belted jacket, a gold quill shimmering at a cocky angle on ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... of Africa, and, in size, corresponds with the small deer of Ceylon. I never saw so beautiful a little creature, appearing more like a fable than a reality. Their tiny black horns are but slightly curved inwards, their legs are not thicker than the quill with which I am now writing; and yet all the characters of the antelope are strongly marked. The first I saw had been brought to my uncle; and as I entered his room, I stood quite still at the door, with surprise at this exquisite, tiny creature, who ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... flurried with having just ironed my pinafores and collars, and with having put the last hook on my new Stuart plaid frock, and she looked me over with rather an anxious eye. As for me, I thought my clothes charming, and I loved the scarlet quill in my grey hat, and the set of my new shoes. I hoped, above all, that no one would notice that I was trembling and ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... throughout the house, all, with the exception of Sir Jasper, had retired to rest, and there was no sound, save the ticking of the old-fashioned time-piece, with its monotonous and never varying tick, tick, and the scratching noise made by the quill as it traced its inky characters on the yet incomplete codicil the Baronet was preparing. The candles had burned low in their sockets, and the fire on the hearth had died out unheeded by him who sat writing line after line. Suddenly a spasm seized him. He, with ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... His quill traveled on over paper. Another sheet came into my hand. I read it, then sat pondering. He sighed with pain, pushed all aside and presently bade the secretary forth. When the man was gone he told me of an agony behind his eyes that now stabbed and now laid him in a drowsiness. I did ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... kinds equal to a man's weight—I might perhaps succeed. I caught the birds, and effectually amputated the eagle's right, and the vulture's left wing. These I fastened together, attached them to my shoulders with broad thick straps, and provided grips for my hands near the end of the quill-feathers. Then I made experiments, first jumping up and helping the jump by flapping my hands, or imitating the way a goose raises itself without leaving the ground and combines running with flight. ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... lay the lash on. You smote what you thought British wrong, Well, that won't put us in a passion. "I ken write long-tailed if I please," You said. And truly, polished writer, More like "a gentleman at ease," Never touched quill than this shrewd smiter. Your "moral breath of temperament" Found scope in scholarly urbanity; And wheresoever LOWELL went Sounded the voice of Sense and Sanity. We loved you, and we loved your wit. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... copying, and put his demonstrator on a chair on a table (where he felt, he said, like a Hindoo god), to see all the cheating, and stuck a notice outside the door, "Door closed," for no earthly reason that any human being could discover. And all the morning from ten till one the quill of Wedderburn shrieked defiance at Hill's, and the quills of the others chased their leaders in a tireless pack, and so also it was in the afternoon. Wedderburn was a little quieter than usual, and Hill's face was hot all day, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... have brought you a quire of paper and one of Mr. Gillott's swan-quill pens and a ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the "literary historian," the moralising and quill-driving "historians," as conceived by Daunou and his school, that we have had in view; we are here only concerned with those scholars and historians who intend to deal with documents in order to facilitate or actually perform the scientific work of history. These ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... old-fashioned writing, as if it were done with a quill pen. I think we had better put this ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... his friend's humour, rummaged about until he found the stump of a quill, a penny inkbottle, and a dirty sheet of paper. These he placed on a rickety table, and Aspel wrote a scrawly note, in which he gave himself very bad names, and begged Mr Blurt to come and see him, as he had got into a scrape, and could by no means see ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... Garnache had given him. The newcomer seated himself, hitched his sword-belt round so that he could lean both hands upon the hilt, and sat, stiff and immovable, awaiting the Lord Seneschal's pleasure. From his desk across the room the secretary, idly chewing the feathered end of his goose-quill, took silent stock of the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... quite close to him; that monstrous inkstand had diminished to its natural size. Nothing was to be heard beyond the hissing of the rain but the scratching of the Judge-Advocate's quill, as he slowly dictated to himself the words "The—prisoner—pleads—'not guilty.'" But why they had asked him a question which could only admit of one answer and then persuaded him to give the wrong one, was a thing that both puzzled and distressed John Stokes. Why all this solemn ritual, he ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... an ill-looking man for a chief's daughter to marry. You are like a porcupine-quill yourself. Nevertheless, I am not like my sister, and I will marry you as soon as the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... ladies' parlour, and felt rather out of place among so many richly dressed females; for as I was proceeding to write a letter, a porter came in and told me that writing was not allowed in that saloon. "Freedom again," thought I. On looking round I did feel that my antiquated goose-quill and rusty-looking inkstand were rather out of place. The carpet of the room was of richly flowered Victoria pile, rendering the heaviest footstep noiseless; the tables were marble on gilded pedestals, the couches covered with gold brocade. At a piano of rich workmanship ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... another, namely, indigo, which his mother gave him from her laundry. His colors were rude enough, but his pencils were ruder. They were made of the hairs which he had pulled from a cat's back and fastened in the end of a goose-quill. Soon after this, a relative from Philadelphia, chancing to visit the old homestead, was struck with the talent of the little fellow, and upon his return to the city sent him a box of colors, with pencils and canvas and a few prints. He was ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... my vision, filled With rapture o'er a spray of bloom The wind threw in his lonely room; And of the sweet perfume it spilled He drank to drunkenness, and flung His long hair back, and laughed and sung And clapped his hands as children do At fairy tales they listen to, While from his flying quill there dripped Such music on his manuscript That he who listens to the words May close his eyes and dream the birds Are twittering on every hand A language he can understand. He journeyed on through life, unknown, Without one friend to call ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... you for The Una, and for sending me a copy. I am pleased with its appearance and with the heartiness of your correspondents. Would you find room for some of my lucubrations? If so, I will drive my quill a little for you some of these evenings. Perhaps I ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... she went down the street, the golden quill on her green hat bidding jaunty defiance to the wind. As she had said, she felt the call at times, and had to yield to its imperative summons, but to-day it was her soul that craved the solace of the open spaces ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... generally all the good looks. There was nothing else remarkable about him but his quickness; he was perpetually on the alert; by constant activity, the rust was never allowed to collect on his faculties; his sharpness was distressing,—he appeared subject to a tense strain. Now his quill scratched over the paper unconcernedly, while he could join as easily in his master's conversation; nothing seemed to preoccupy him, or he held a mind open at every point. It is pitiful to remember him that morning, sitting quiet, unconscious, and free, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... too, that it should perish through a goose (oie), and as the word "Huss" means a goose in Bohemian patois, it was said afterward that the writings of Huss, or more truly, perhaps, the work of the goose-quill, had fulfilled the prophecy in undermining and finally subverting the order. There were also disputes respecting the taxes, which the people declared to be oppressive, and finally, in 1454, a formidable rebellion took place against ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... that low did lie Rose at a well-dissembled fly There stood my Friend, with patient skill, Attending of his trembling quill. ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... shoved money to the cashier and did not wait for his change. He rushed out on the street and stretched up his six stalwart feet and craned his neck and hunted for the little green toque with the white quill. ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... suddenly be seized with an unearthly fright, terribly awe stricken, apprehending some great evil. He feels very peculiar sensation from head to foot—the hair of his head standing and feeling stiff like a porcupine quill. He feels almost benumbed with fright, and yet he does not know what it is; and looking in every direction to see something, but nothing to be seen which might cause sensation of terror. Collecting himself, he would then say, "Pshaw! its nothing here to be afraid ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... quaint perch lair. As cunning stole the boy to angle there, Muffling least tread, with no noise balancing through The hangdog alder-boughs his bright bamboo. Down plumbed the shuttled ledger, and the quill On the quicksilver water lay ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... now he lost sight of them, and was obliged to follow by ear—no difficult matter, for on the line of their course every wood-pigeon rose from its perch with a continued clash, dashing its wings against the branches with wellnigh force enough to break every quill. By taking the track of this noise he soon ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... which you perceive where the sea is a hundred fathoms deep. With the light upon her eye there was a glint of emerald, that witching glare which made Becky Sharpe irresistible. Now imagine an eyebrow, dark as the raven's quill, overarching such an eye, and contrasting itself with the burning gold of the hair, and a skin of Parian white and purity. Then contemplate a softness beside which the velvet upon the petal of a pansy would seem rigid; and this eye large and timorous, and fringed with ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... they are poore, and so am I, Except I bee reliev'd in Chancery; I scorne to begg, my pen nere us'd the trade, This book to please my friends is only made, Which is performed by my aged quill, For to extend my country my good will. Let not my country think I took this paynes In expectation ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... least that I have hit none of our own men," he answered with a touch of humor. "I confess I am more handy with a quill than a musket. I have friends in London, sir, who will not believe me when I relate my adventures in this barbarous country. But, alas! I may not live to see ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... slow and tedious, owing to his weakness, the rough country, and the deepening snow. Towards noon he came upon the newly made track of a porcupine, followed it a short distance into a clump of trees, where he soon saw the round quill-covered animal in the snow and shot it. Immediately he built a fire, and singed off quills and hair. Then, as he related to me afterwards, he considered, talking aloud to himself, what was best to ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... a good retriever and had brought the duck in with scarcely a quill ruffled; so I had the satisfaction of breaking his bands and letting him go free with a splendid rush. But the wind was too much for him; he dropped back into the water and went skittering down the harbor like a lady with too much skirt and too big a ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... issue to a considerable quantity of mucus. Patient faint; pain slight; pulse 102, and irregular; some hiccup. A silk ligature was placed round the small puncture in the stomach, and the displaced viscera returned, after enlarging the external wound. This last was closed by the quill suture. Warm fomentations and abstinence from food and drink enjoined. 2nd day, some re-action; had been sick in the night from some drink given; is free from pain; pulse 120; pain on pressure; an enema ordered. Evening, a dose of castor oil, and twenty leeches ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... went to wash at the pump, being a lover of soap and water, at all risk, except of my dinner. And John Fry, who cared very little to wash, save Sabbath days in his own soap, and who had kept me from the pump by threatening loss of the dish, out he came in a satisfied manner, with a piece of quill in his hand, to lean against a door-post, and listen to the horses feeding, and have his ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... The quill-driver withdrew. The poor vicar, frightened at the persistence with which Mademoiselle Gamard pursued him, returned to the dining-room with his face so convulsed that everybody cried out when they saw him: "What is the ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... him more than to be talking with a ship carpenter as they sat side by side on a block of oak, or with some shopkeeper in a sheltered fence corner. Most of his writing was done in a little room in his Purchase Street house where night after night his busy mind and quill were kept at work on his trenchant letters for the "Gazette," which were signed with significant nom de ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... book-keeper, and accused the world of no particular ingratitude that it could not read my name with my articles, and that it gave itself no concern to discover me. Yet there was a private pleasure in the congeniality of my labor, and in the consciousness that I could float upon my quill even in this vast London sea. Once or twice my articles went across the Channel and returned in foreign dress. I wonder if I shall ever again feel the thrill of that first recognition of my offspring coming to my knee with ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... wrote always with a quill pen and blue ink, and never, I think, used a lead pencil. His handwriting was considered extremely difficult to read by many people, but I never found it so. In his manuscripts there were so many erasures, and such frequent interlineations that a special ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... purpose. The plant to which I at present refer is one of the cucurbitaceae, which bears a small, scarlet-colored, eatable cucumber. Another plant, named Leroshua, is a blessing to the inhabitants of the Desert. We see a small plant with linear leaves, and a stalk not thicker than a crow's quill; on digging down a foot or eighteen inches beneath, we come to a tuber, often as large as the head of a young child; when the rind is removed, we find it to be a mass of cellular tissue, filled with fluid much like that in a young turnip. Owing to the depth ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... pushes about with him wherever he goes, and in which, as in a Claude-Lorraine mirror, he contemplates everything that he can both on earth and above. He is constantly employed in fishing in it with a quill for ideas; and as often as he catches one, even if it is half drowned, my ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... rich grayish brown, with plum-colored tints showing through the brown on crest, throat, breast, wings, and tail. A velvety-black line on forehead runs through the eye and back of crest. Chin black; crest conspicuous; breast lighter than the back, and shading into yellow underneath. Wings have quill-shafts of secondaries elongated, and with brilliant vermilion tips like drops of sealing-wax, rarely seen on tail quills, which have yellow bands across the end. Female — With duller plumage, smaller crest, and narrower tail-band. Range — North America, from ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... complicity of the Governor, who, on his side, denied that he was responsible for what had happened. 'I asked him why I should plot, and go around a mountain, when a mere order, written with five strokes of the quill, would have accomplished the same thing. He did not answer, but he insulted me, and said he would report my treachery, as he called it, to Shanghai and England. Let him do so; he cannot bring the ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... round to the new house, for I knew more about the plantin' of it than he did, 'specially my posy-bed, and I had a good time gettin' new flowers out of the woods. And the woods was real splendid,—great tall tulip-trees, as high as a steeple and round as a quill, without any sort o' branches ever so fur up, and the whole top full of the yeller tulips and the queer snipped-lookin' shiny leaves, till they looked like great bow-pots on sticks; then there's lots of other great trees, only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... wings, and in height upwards of three feet. They were brought from Chili, where they are sometimes met with at an elevation of 15,000 feet above the level of the sea. During the removal of the birds from the vessel, the male dropped one of his largest wing feathers, the quill of which measures an inch ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... the truth; his satisfaction was manifest, for I never have seen him rub the tip of his nose with the feathers of his quill pen so often as he did that afternoon, which was with him the sign of exuberant joy, all his gestures having subdued themselves long since to the limits ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end. There was another old woman watching by the bed; the parish apothecary's apprentice was standing by the fire, making a toothpick out of a quill. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... While he listened, and even while he talked, his pencil or pen continued moving over the paper. He seemed to bring every morning a mass of new impressions caught during his walk to the exposition, which he made haste to trans- fer to paper. Sometimes he used a pencil, sometimes, a quill pen, and not infrequently he would plunge the feather end of the quill into his inkstand and rapidly put into his work broader and blacker strokes. As soon as he had finished a drawing he generally tore it into bits and threw them upon the ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... are stowed away in it, for your trouble: but don't forget to secure the casks till we can stow them away below. We can't break bulk now; but the sooner they are down the better; or we shall have some quill-driving rascal on board, with his flotsam and jetsam, for the Lord knows who;" and Thompson, to use his own expression, went down again "to lay his soul ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in his office, and Jadwin was admitted at once. He sat down in a chair by the broker's desk, and for the moment the two talked of trivialities. Gretry was a large, placid, smooth-faced man, stolid as an ox; inevitably dressed in blue serge, a quill tooth-pick behind his ear, a Grand Army button in his lapel. He and Jadwin were intimates. The two had come to Chicago almost simultaneously, and had risen together to become the wealthy men they were at the moment. They ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... false flowers of rhetoric thou wouldst cull, Trust nature, do not labour to be dull; But write thy best, and top; and, in each line, Sir Formal's[157] oratory will be thine: Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy northern dedications fill. 170 Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name. Let Father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise. Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part: What share have we in nature, or in art? ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... shade of pathos; there were meanings composite and contrasted—reproach melting into remorse. At the moment probably, he would have been glad to see something emotional in me. I could not show it. In another minute, however, I should have betrayed confusion, had I not bethought myself to take some quill-pens from my desk, and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... opinion of * *'s poem will travel through one or other of the quintuple correspondents, till it reaches the ear, and the liver of the author.[75] Your adventure, however, is truly laughable—but how could you be such a potatoe? You 'a brother' (of the quill) too, 'near the throne,' to confide to a man's own publisher (who has 'bought,' or rather sold, 'golden opinions' about him) such a damnatory parenthesis! 'Between you and me,' quotha—it reminds me of a passage in the Heir at Law—'Tete-a-tete with ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... in the willow-shade before the door of our hut, cross-legged, too, writing in my journal of what had occurred since last I set down the details of the day. This finished, I pouched quill, ink-horn, and journal, and sat a-thinking for a while of that strange maid, and what mischance might come of her woodland roving all alone—with Indian Butler out, and all that vile and painted, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... {kleios}, glory, or from {kleio}, to celebrate. She is generally represented under the form of a young woman crowned with laurel, holding in her right hand a trumpet, and in her left a book: others describe her with a lute in one hand, and in the other a plectrum, or quill. ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... birth, their anxiety was chiefly how to make life pass the pleasantest. They occasionally showed a spasmodic excitement over the progress of a cricket or polo match. Their achievements were largely those of the stay-at-home warriors who fought with the quill what others faced death with the sword for. Their inertia disgusted her. Their self-satisfaction spurred her ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... dirt that covered them, they were of fairer complexion than the generality of Indians. The women have two double lines of black or blue colour upon each cheek, from the ear to the nose; and the gristle of the nose is perforated, so as to admit a goose-quill, or a small piece of wood to be passed through it. The clothing of these Indians is made of the dressed skins of the rein or moose-deer. Some of them, says Mr. Mackenzie, were decorated with a neat embroidery ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... ruefully, having hitherto affected to despise all the race of her Majesty's quill drivers, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... brought his son with him. He was about Ongyatasse's age, as handsome as a young fir. Probably he had a name in his own tongue, but we called him White Quiver. Few of us had won ours yet, and his was man's size, of white deerskin and colored quill-work. ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... lying before me, and can discern that there are three gradations of sizes, and that the least has black legs, and the other two flesh-coloured ones. The yellowest bird is considerably the largest, and has its quill-feathers and secondary feathers tipped with white, which the others have not. This last haunts only the tops of trees in high beechen woods, and makes a sibilous grasshopper-like noise, now and then, at short intervals, shivering a little with its wings when it sings; and is, I make no doubt now, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... sat an old quill-pen, with which the maid generally wrote. There was nothing remarkable about the pen, excepting that it had been dipped too deeply in the ink, but it was ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... if genuine, will kill the largest wolf in Canada. I have used this poison myself, when baiting for foxes. The properest method in the winter-season, is to take a piece of hog's-lard, about the size of a walnut, make a hole in the centre, and insert it carefully with a quill or the point of a small knife, taking care not to spill any on the outside, then to fill up the puncture ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... life. Men, animals, and plants accommodate themselves singularly to the scarcity of water. Grass is abundant, growing in tufts; bulbous plants abound, among which are the 'leroshua', which sends up a slender stalk not larger than a crow quill, with a tuber, a foot or more below the surface, as large as a child's head, consisting of a mass of cellular tissue filled with a cool and refreshing fluid; and the 'mokuri', which deposits under ground, within a circle of a yard from its stem, a mass of tubers ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... stand close, my Lord Protector will come this way by and by, and then wee may deliuer our Supplications in the Quill ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... they differ very widely from most of the other Aborigines of North America. I allude to their kind treatment of the women. The men do the laborious work, whilst their wives employ themselves in ornamenting their dresses with quill-work, and in other occupations suited to their sex. Mr. Wentzel has often known the young married men to bring specimens of their wives' needle-work to the forts, and exhibit them with much pride. Kind treatment ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... in the inkstand by my side, and we passed our leisure hours very pleasantly in communicating to each other our past adventures. His knowledge of life was limited, having resided in that inkstand, and performed all the writing of the family, ever since he was a quill. But his experience was wise and virtuous; and he could bear witness to many an industrious effort at improvement, in which he had been the willing instrument; and to many a hard struggle for honesty and independence, which figures of his writing had recorded. I liked to watch the good ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... in America, from the quill and beadwork of the American Indians and the samplers of Colonial days, to the achievement of the present. Thirty-two pages of illustrations—some in full color—correlate perfectly with the text and furnish examples for the student or general reader. ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... green-white flowers, command admiration at a glance, but the "tail," or spur, offers a problem of which the thoughtful never tire. It is commonly ten inches long, sometimes fourteen inches, and at home, I have been told, even longer; about the thickness of a goose-quill, hollow, of course, the last inch and a half filled with nectar. Studying this appendage by the light of the principles he had laid down, Darwin ventured on a prophecy which roused special mirth among the ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... Papers are freely allowed To fling right and left their absurd imputations, To find a new name for the quill-driving crowd Will surely be one of our first obligations. The Penny-a-Liner for long has been known As a genial gusher, a fine phrase-refiner; But now that he false and malignant has grown, We must call ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... betray you and our friends there should you be arrested. I will give you a list of the gentlemen on whom you have to call, which you had best learn by heart and destroy before you cross the frontier. You shall have one paper only, and that written so small that it can be carried in a quill. This you can show to one after the other. If you find you are in danger of arrest you can destroy or swallow it. I will give them to you at the prince's levee this afternoon, and will send to your tent a purse of gold ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... a clump," I said, "I was the first coin paid on account of the last pair of boots, sandals, or whatnot of the man who laid the first stone of the house where lived the prettiest aunt of the man who reared the goose which laid the egg from which came the goose which provided the last quill pen used by the third man Shakespeare met on the second ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... man shifted the quill toothpick he was chewing to the other side of his mouth. "It ain't likely that anybody from the East will come with the corpse, I s'pose," ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... you've got to be in the office by ten o'clock. Suppose you arrive with ten minutes to spare. You go into the outer office (there's only one entrance—the big one in Threadneedle Street) and find on the right-hand side of the circular counter a ledger. The ledger is open: there is blotting-paper and a quill pen beside it. Everyone's name is written in alphabetical order on the one side of the ledger and on the other side there is a blank page ruled down the middle with a red line. Having made your appearance at ten to ten, you put your initials in a line with your name on the page opposite and ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... in length, rounded at the ends, and used by the Kyans and Dyaks of Borneo. Before coitus it is inserted into a transverse orifice in the penis, made by a painful and somewhat dangerous operation and kept open by a quill. Two or more of these instruments are occasionally worn. Sometimes little brushes are attached to each end of the instrument. Another instrument, used by the Dyaks, but said to have been borrowed from the Malays, is the palang ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... at his Country's call To leave his wife, his home, his all. And I, as I thought of what he had done, And the arm-chair band (of which I am one), Elderly scribblers, who can't even drill, And are only good at driving a quill— Humbled and shamed to my inmost core I wished I could drop clean through the floor. For the tables were turned; I stood at zero, And the office boy ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... with us, and accused us of crimes. We said this was a lie; for our great father had deceived us, and forced us into a war. They were angry at what we said; but we smoked the pipe of peace again, and I first touched the goose quill; but I did not know that, in doing so, I gave away my village. Had I known it, I would never ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... Looking through the west window, he saw that Alexander had taken his geometry out through the great rent in the wall. Book and student perched beneath the pine-tree, in a crook made by rock and brown root, overhanging the autumn world. Strickland at his own desk dipped quill into ink-well and continued a letter to a friend in England. The minutes went by. From the courtyard came a subdued, cheerful household clack and murmur, voices of men and maids, with once Mrs. Jardine's genial, vigorous tones, and once the laird's deep bell note, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... be used to make trimming for a hat by cutting it from the quill with a very sharp knife or razor blade, retaining a small portion of the quill which will be sufficient to hold the feathers together. This should be sewed onto a fine wire, and it may then be wound into a rosette. A small ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... plagued the secluded Valley of Llanwddyn long before it was converted into a vast reservoir to supply Liverpool with water was that of Cynon. Of this Spirit Mr. Evans writes thus:—"Yspryd Cynon was a mischievous goblin, which was put down by Dic Spot and put in a quill, and placed under a large stone in the river below Cynon Isaf. The stone is called 'Careg yr Yspryd,' the Ghost Stone. This one received the following instructions, that he was to remain under the stone until ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... submit to the second. Nevertheless France does neither the one nor the other; she continues to recognize Eugenius IV, and derides the pope of Ripaille and of Basel, as she will declare in a new assembly of Bourges in 1440. Above certain laws which men write on sheets of paper, with a goose-quill and ink, they bear in themselves another law, written by the hand of God, and which is good sense. Happy the nations which never depart from this living and general law, or which, at least, know enough to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... His sons applied to the parson, who went accordingly to the foot of the stairs, and heard the noise of the weaver's shuttle in the room above. "Knowles!" he said, "come down; this is no place for thee." "I will," said the weaver, "as soon as I have worked out my quill," (the "quill" is the shuttle full of wool). "Nay," said the vicar, "thou hast been long enough at thy work; come down at once!"—So when the spirit came down, the vicar took a handful of earth from the churchyard, and threw it in its ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... a brick-red, about the thickness of a large quill, and five or six inches long, half protrudes its flat head from one of those enormous, perfumed calyces, in which it lies closely ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... night when Esther came in from canvassing, there lay upon her desk the neglected manuscript of her book, found in a bottom drawer. Before it stood a chair; beside it a drop-light. A quill pen, brand new, bright green and very gay, perched atop a fresh bottle of ink. Near-by appeared a small flat book showing an account between Esther Claff and Ruth Vars and an uptown bank. Inside, between roseate leaves of thin blotting paper, appeared a deposit ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... sufferer. Cold and hunger were its principal disorders, which were soon relieved by the assiduity of my humane companions. We chafed it by the fire, whilst another prepared bread and milk, that it might suck through a quill. Caroline could not sleep, lest the lamb should suffer for want of food, but rose several times in the night to give it nourishment. Such kind treatment soon restored it to health. It is decorated with a blue ribbon about its neck, and is ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... it was Aladdin's Cave undergoing a wondrous 'sea change.' A poetess, who writes for the papers under the name of Melissa Mayflower, had fastened herself upon our party in some way; and I suppose she felt bound to sustain the reputation of the quill. She said the Nereids must have built that marine palace, and decorated it for a visit from ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... was a young Examiner, scarce thirty were his years, His name our University loves, honours, and reveres: He pondered o'er some papers, and a tear stood in his eye; He split his quill upon the desk, and raised a bitter cry— 'O why has Fortune struck me down with this unearthly blow? "Why doom'd me to examine in my lov'd one's Little-go? "O Love and Duty, sisters twain, in diverse ways ye pull; "I dare not 'pass,' I scarce can 'pluck:' my cup of woe is ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... worked hard to attain this modest end and was quite satisfied. She found at the shops where the summer sales were being held a couple of cotton frocks to which her height and her small, long waist gave an air of actual elegance. A sailor hat, with a smart ribbon and well-set quill, a few new trifles for her neck, a bow, a silk handkerchief daringly knotted, and some fresh gloves, made her feel that she ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Coons to tell them again I had no paper nor nothing to write with. Coons told them. Then the Indian that claimed me went to his trunk and brought me a letter that had one-half sheet of it clean paper. I told Coons to tell them I wanted a pen. The same Indian went and pulled a quill out of a turkey wing and gave it to me. I told Coons I wanted a knife to make the pen. The same Indian got his scalping knife; he gave it two or three little whets and gave it to me. I then told Coons I wanted some ink. Coons says, "Ink—ink; what is ...
— Narrative of the Captivity of William Biggs among the Kickapoo Indians in Illinois in 1788 • William Biggs
... were camped with the horses, twelve hundred or more, in a grove of lordly cottonwood—a wild and picturesque sight. Tawny squaws surrounded us in crowds, begging. A match, a cartridge, anything but a quill toothpick, was received with enthusiasm. I rode ahead to the ford of the Beauvais Creek, and met the squaws driving in the cayooses. Altogether, it was much like a loosely-organized circus. Our own camp being set, we took our baths tranquilly, watched by the squaws seated ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... was transmitted to it from the glowing Still into that description of spirits known as poteen. At the bottom of this cooler, the Worm terminated in a small cock or spigot, from which the spirits projected in a slender stream, about the thickness of a quill, into a vessel placed for its reception. Such was the position of the Still, Head, and Worm, when in full operation. Fixed about the cave, upon rude stone stillions, were the usual vessels requisite ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... through the nose cartilage of her child with a porcupine quill and then takes care that the wound heals quickly, without closing. Afterwards she passes through a ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... flowers expand in the evening, and are sweet-scented. They are produced along the margins of the broad, flat, deeply-notched branches, the serratures being rounded instead of angled, as in some of the kinds. The tube of the flower is long and slender, no thicker than a goose quill, and covered with reddish scales; the petals are spreading, and form a cup 6 in. across; they are narrow, pointed, and pure white, the outer whorl, as well as the sepals, being tinged on the under side with a tawny ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... strangely dressed, in tweeds and knicker-bockers and wore a soft round hat with a quill in it—the oddest of hats—and had a knapsack on his back. The colours of the coming day were caricatured in his ruddy face and red-gold hair, his bright green stockings and bright red tie. He was Germanic, flagrant, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... sprightliness of imagination vanished at sight of an ink-bottle. With a brush his feelings were fluid, and in a company grace dwelt upon his lips; but when asked to write it out he gripped the pen as though it were a crowbar instead of a crow's-quill. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... quite out of pens, and not able to persuade the Tripolines to send me up a few quills, I cut out several ostrich quills, and had the pleasure, for the first time in my life, of writing with an ostrich pen. I cut several, and amused and satirized myself by writing in my journal with one quill, "James Richardson has much to learn;" with another quill, "Richardson, James, must take care of his health," &c., "Yâkob Richardson was an egregious ass to come into The Desert," &c., &c. These quills are ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... without hurry, indeed, in a peaceable rambling world, and one can imagine Westcote, with his pointed beard and his tall hat of the fashion of James I., taking a little walk in the afternoon sun after having spent the morning with his quill-pen and his calf-bound, close-printed classics—Suetonius, and Gesnerus, and Diodorus Siculus. His book is interspersed with little rhymes, couplets or longer verses, in the style of the "Arabian Nights" stories, and which George Meredith in the "Shaving of Shagpat" has used with such quaint ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... found, a specimen of that somewhat rare and very wonderful bell-bird (Casmarhynchos carunculata), called campanero by the Spaniards. From the upper part of the bill grows a fleshy tubercle about the thickness of a quill, sparingly covered with minute feathers. It was now hanging down on one side, quite lax. It was evident, therefore, that the bird, when alive, elevated it when excited by singing or some other cause; indeed afterwards, on examining it, we found it connected with the interior of the throat, which ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... biscuits and singing joyously, "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary." Outside, another whistled softly to himself while he arranged his fishing tackle. From his book he had selected three flies and was attaching them to the leader. Nearest the rod he put a royal coachman, next to it a blue quill, and at the ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... a white unused quill, and a vellum scroll on which the names of all the members of the Society were written in ominous red. He handed these ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... visits I receive are preceded by a volume of some sort or other, as a token of my new acquaintance being a regularly initiated member of the fraternity of the quill. In two or three instances, I have been surprised at subsequently discovering that the regular profession of the writer is arms, or some other pursuit, in which one would scarcely anticipate so strong a devotion to letters. In short, such is the actual state ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of your prospectus, there was on board an unusual and unprecedented demand for ink. The green cloth of our tables was suddenly covered with a deluge of quill-pens, to the great injury of one of our servants, who, in trying to remove them, got one ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... straitened circumstances. Her walk and conversation were no doubt edifying, but the curriculum of her scholastic institute possibly left something to be desired in the departments of higher education. She had one available qualification for her position, however,—being an expert in making and mending quill pens. She spent much of her time during school hours in shaping these writing instruments, and I imagine she eked out her slender income by supplying ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... turkey who never expected, when he entered into life, to appear at breakfast on the table of our governor's quill-drivers!" ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue |
