"Spade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mind easy,' Ratsey said; 'I have dug too often in this graveyard for any to wonder if they see me with a spade.' ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... his experience. More probably, however, the wind and clouds, the weather, the soil, crops and taxes, his family and food and how to provide for them, are the main thoughts that occupy his mind. Before he will strike mattock or spade in the soil, lay axe to a tree, collect or burn underbrush, he will select a stone, a slab of rock or a stick of wood, set it upon hill side or mud field-boundary, and to this he will bow, prostrate himself or pray. To him, this stone or stick is ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... to do; the thought of action restored him. He ran with all his might back to the houses, and, finding a pick and spade, came again. This time, more confident of himself, he had more ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... martens and zerboas, and marmots and hedgehogs and badgers, all good to eat and attainable to those who could dig as could these brawny youths. The game once driven to its hole, the clamshell and the sharpened fire-hardened spade-stick were brought into use and the fate of the animal sought was rarely long in doubt. It is true that the scene lacked one element very noticeable when boys dig out any animal to-day. There was ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... dear father, That lies with his paw on the floor, Let us heat the spade in the embers And drive him away from ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... gardener to some great folks beyant, laid up with the chills an' not able to do a hand's turn for himself, barrin' eatin' an' drinkin' fair, when the victuals is ready. He can play a good knife an' fork, still, thanks be, an' it's hopin' he'll soon be playin' his shovel an' spade just as lively, but that's no more here nor yet there. There's miles betwixt this an' yon, an'——Hello! ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... me in mind that I wanted many things, notwithstanding all that I had amassed together; and of these, this of ink was one, as also spade, pickaxe, and shovel, to dig or remove the earth; needles, pins, and thread. As for linen, I soon learnt to want that ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Vulture's profligate son couldn't succeed in ruinin' one of my daughters; and because her brother 'Tom tould him that if ever he catched him comin' about the place again, or annoyin' his sisther, he'd split him with a spade. Afther that, they were both very friendly—father and son—and when I brought my half-year's rent—'never mind now,' said they, 'bring it home, Andy; maybe you may want it for something else that 'ud be ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... before he had deposited all the ingots within the precincts of the amphitheater. Then from the hollow of an ancient, lightning-blasted tree he produced the very spade with which he had uncovered the chest of Professor Archimedes Q. Porter which he had once, apelike, buried in this selfsame spot. With this he dug a long trench, into which he laid the fortune that his blacks had carried from the forgotten treasure vaults ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... knew you would stop on the way. I thought I would meet you at the deepo to surprise you. But I had to bank my house; I wuzn't goin' to leave it to no underlin' and have my stuff freeze. But when I hern that Josiah wuz comin' I jest dropped my spade—I had jest got done—ketched up my book and threw my things into my grip, my trunk wuz all packed, and here I am, safe and sound, though the cars broke down once and we wuz belated. We have just traipsed along a day or two behind you all the way from Chicago, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... the knapsacks were on, Ready took the axe and gun, and asked William if he thought he could carry a small spade on his shoulder, which they had brought on shore along with the shovels. William replied that he could; and the dogs, who appeared to know they were going, were all ready standing by them. Then, just as the sun rose, they turned into the cocoa-nut grove, ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... When we arrived at his big house, which seemed to me at that time to be a mighty great mansion, he first made his way into a very big garden at the back where there were a lot of trees, and opening a gardening shed, he got a spade and dug a grave for Sam deep down under the trees, and it is there with his name, which was afterwards carved on a piece of ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... was late getting to work. Digging alone so hard yesterday had taken off some of my appetite, and I didn't dream of what I was going to find so I didn't hurry much. But I found the ground turned up easier and I had hardly dug twenty minutes before my spade struck something that gave out a metallic ring. I scraped away the dirt until I could see a metal object like the lid of a box about fourteen by eighteen inches. The ground all around it was hard and I could not get it loose. I tried to get my fingers under it but couldn't do it. The dinner ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... poor man was, he used to work in the fields. Often he would come home very tired and weak, with his hoe or spade on ...
— McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... said, "that we are getting too squeamish nowadays as to speech. Women are so frightened to call a spade a spade." ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... will a rabble seize 55 In lax luxurious days, like these; THE PEOPLE'S MAJESTY, forsooth, Must fix our rights, define our truth; Weavers{7} become our Lords of Trade, And every clown throw by his spade, 60 T' instruct our ministers of state, And foreign commerce regulate: Ev'n bony Scotland with her dirk, Nay, her starv'd presbyterian kirk{8}, With ignorant effrontery prays 65 Britain to dim the western rays, Which while they on our island fall Give warmth ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell
... I will go and live by the sea. We have plenty to think about. I feel as if I could never stop thinking, as if I had to dig away a mountain of thought with a spade. Alice, we will go round to the ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... he was, and indisputably the second officer of state in the barony (nay, as chief minister of the interior, superior even to Bailie Macwheeble in his own department of the kitchen and cellar)—the major domo laid down his spade, slipped on his coat in haste, and with a wrathful look at Edward's guide, probably excited by his having introduced a stranger while he was engaged in this laborious, and, as he might suppose it, degrading office, requested to know the gentleman's commands. Being informed ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... energy which was characteristic of him. Going to an outhouse, he brought the motor car to the front door, then, picking up Holmes and followed by his trembling guest, he went outside and flung the body into the tonneau behind. He then threw a spade and a pick into the car, and covered everything up with a water-proof spread. Lighting the lamps, he bade his silent guest get up beside him, and so they started on their fateful journey, taking the road past the spot where the sailor had ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... the mill, and, hastening to the cellar, began to probe in the soft, unfrozen earth. Presently his spade struck something, and he dug and dug until he had uncovered the top of a canvas bag,—the sort that sailors call a "round stern-chest." It took all his strength to lug it out, and as he did so a seam burst, letting a shower of gold ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... for it was opened in 1828 by Charles Carroll, the patriot who had staked his broad lands of Carrollton in 1776 against the maintenance of feudalism in this country. "I consider this," said Carroll, after his slender and aristocratic hand had relinquished the spade, "among the most important acts of my life—second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence." Railroads, excepting coal-mine trams, were as yet untried; Stephenson had not yet exhibited the Rocket; for travel and transportation the locomotive was unknown, and the Baltimoreans conceived ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... showed itself as the woman's devotion had shown itself—in the man's rough way. He threw down his spade with an oath. ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... many reverent, and holy, and divine thoughts and memories clustered round that book, that we didn't love to have 'em disturbed. It wuz like havin' somebody take a spade and dig up the voyalets and lilies on the grave of the nearest and dearest, to try to ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... has been carried by the basketful to narrow, lofty ledges of rock, an astounding instance of toil, hopefulness and patience. No matter the barrenness of the spot, no matter its isolation or the difficulty of approach, wherever root or seed will grow, there the French peasant owner plies hoe and spade, and gradually causes the wilderness to blossom ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the proprietor of the large nurseries between Boston and the Colleges, and on the morning of the day on which I found him absent from his lodgings he had gone to Hovey and offered himself as a laborer in his garden. Hovey was astounded at the proposition, but the Count insisted, and finally a spade was given to him, and he set to work "like an Irishman," as he delighted to express it. It was dreadfully wearisome to his unaccustomed muscles, but anything, he said, was better than getting in debt. He could earn a dollar a day, and that would pay for his board and his cigars. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... place they had tried, and all their attempts to penetrate it by means of a cold chisel and pickaxe had proved abortive. The party which had been out with me searching for water had not seen the slightest sign which indicated its presence on the island: we had taken a spade with us, but wherever we dug had come down upon the solid rock. Under these circumstances I reduced the allowance to two ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... spiritual bias but is the recognition of evil in life. It is not very pleasant, nor is it reassuring, but it is part of the artist, rooted deep in his Spanish soul along with the harsh irony and a cruel spirit of mockery. He refuses to follow the ideals of other men, and he paints a spade a spade; at least the orchestration, if brutal, is not lascivious. A cold, impartial eye observes and registers the corruption of cities small and great and the infinitely worse immoralities of the open country. Sometimes Zuloaga's comments are witty, sometimes ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... said. "I'll handle all the details. Winfree, you've got the quality we used to know as Old-Fashioned Intestinal Fortitude, back in the day when a spade was called a spade and no apologies about it. We need more men like you in the Bureau." He snapped a salute. "Carry on, Captain; ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... force of perseverance: it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of the pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... had a difficulty with them because I tried to yoke the off ox on the nigh side; and when I graduated into the greenhouse group I learned all the mysteries of the care of plants, potting, transplanting, making leaf-mould and doing spade and rake work to perfection; and in the laying out of beds and walks did a full share of shovel-work on the sandy and gravelly ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... the tomb, and vanished for a few minutes. When he returned he carried a spade and a lantern, the light of which he directed for a few moments upon the marble, whilst he read the inscription. He hung his lantern on the lowest bough of the yew-tree, and took from his basket flower-roots of several varieties. There were bundles of snow-drop, hyacinth ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... whole of modern civilization in every class or trade is such as Zola would never dream of printing. Nor is the habit of writing thus of these things a new habit. On the contrary, it is the Victorian prudery and silence which is new still, though it is already dying. The tradition of calling a spade a spade starts very early in our literature and comes down very late. But the truth is that the ordinary honest man, whatever vague account he may have given of his feelings, was not either disgusted or even annoyed ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... on a long table lay the body of Henry Armstrong, the head defiled with blood and clay from a blow with a spade. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... I had spade and mattock taken to a hill near half a mile across from the "Blockhead Obelisk," and pitted with several hollows, overgrown with rank Vegetation, which Tradition had always pointed to as the Graves of the Slain. One of these I had opened; and there, sure enough, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... could do that, and the town carts could carry it away and burn it. The town would give us the street sweepings all spring and summer and some of the people who have stables would contribute fertilizer. Once that was turned under with the spade and topped off by some commercial fertilizer with a dash of lime to sweeten matters, the children could do ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... in the history of Hebrew literature and culture can only approximately be gauged. One thing is certain: they all and one dealt the death-blow to the old Hebraic culture. When the excavator sinks his spade beneath the ground of a sleepy Palestinian village, he lays bare to view from under the overlaid strata, Roman and Greek and Jewish and Israelitish, the Canaanite foundation with its mighty walls and marvellous tunnels, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... the most interesting things in the Leeuwarden museum, which is opposite the Chancellerie, are the Hindeloopen rooms which I have described in the last chapter; but to the antiquary it offers great entertainment. Among ancient relics which the spade has revealed are some very early Frisian tobacco pipes. Among the pictures, for the most part very poor, is a dashing Carolus Duran and a very beautiful ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... carry on proper measures with success; and that he knew but one man MEANING, AS YOU WILL EASILY SUPPOSE, MR. PITT who could give them strength and solidity; that, under this person, he should be willing to serve in any capacity, not only as a General Officer, but as a pioneer; and would take up a spade and a mattock." When he quitted the seals, they were offered first to Lord Egmont, then to Lord Hardwicke; who both declined them, probably for the same reasons that made the Duke of Grafton resign them; but after ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... de spade what Massa Will sis pon my buying for him in de town, and de debbil's own lot of money I ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... interfered with because such little things have been neglected. What may be done at any time is very often left till the right time is past, and disorder and discomfort are sure to follow. I daresay the early snow fell that year on many a plough left in the furrow, and on many a hoe and spade left in garden or yard. But all was as it should ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Versailles were gay with bloom and heavy with scents as rare as was the morning. King Louis Sixteenth of France looked from a window out over the terraces in their vari-coloured beauty, and saw among the blossoms, a little figure busy with spade and rake, and although the King's heart was heavy with sorrow because of the death of his elder son, the Dauphin, as the eldest son of the King of France, and heir to the throne, was always called, yet he was filled too with pride as he looked out at the little ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... before we've finished tea, I think, grandfather,' I answered. 'I wonder what sort of a spade he'll have ...
— Saved at Sea - A Lighthouse Story • Mrs. O.F. Walton
... the street towards the hill. Hardly a dozen yards off ran a huge navvy, cursing in fragments and slashing viciously with a spade, and hard behind him came the tram conductor with his fists clenched. Up the street others followed these two, striking and shouting. Down towards the town, men and women were running, and he noticed clearly one man coming ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... indifferent to matters of form. The same Gottfried Keller who calls Gotthelf "without exception the greatest epic genius that has lived in a long time, or perhaps will live for a long time to come," characterizes him thus as to his style: "With his strong, sharp spade he will dig out a large piece of soil, load it on his literary wheelbarrow, and to the accompaniment of strong language upset it before our feet; good garden soil, grass, flowers and weeds, manure and stones, precious gold coins and old shoes, fragments of crockery and bones—they all come ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... spade or the shuttle, that plies Its own honest task in its own honest way, Serves heaven not less than a star in the skies— What more could the Pleiades do ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... suspension of his vertebral communications, "Poor thing! You were the victim of a Catastrophe. You were also the victim of the bottle. The 'Rye' was too heavy for you, and should have been drawn milder." This said, I turned sadly away to find a burial spade, and it then occurred to me that this little incident was kindly meant to confirm my view that cats are susceptible, even to a fatal extent, of spiritual impressions—especially when conveyed by spirits of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... reached Moscow rioting began in the streets. Leaving, he went with his dark-skinned Eastern musicians to the provinces. And the government trembled. Peasants threw aside spade, forgot vodka and rushed to his free concerts, given in canvas-covered booths; and the impetus communicated to this huge, weltering mass of slaving humanity, broke wave-like upon the remotest borders of the empire. The church became alarmed. Anti-Christ had been predicted ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... sentinels to guard the shore, he rode to the summit of the hill, where the men were hard at work, delving in silence with pick and spade. There were not sufficient implements for all, but when one was out of breath, another took his place, and before the first glimmer of dawn appeared, the trench had been made ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... coveted were not, on the whole, unlike those which continue in use at the present day. Where surface gold was brought down by the streams, the ground in their vicinity, and such portions of their beds as could be laid bare, were searched by the spade; any earth or sand that was seen to be auriferous was carefully dug out and washed, till the earthy particles were cleared away, and only the gold remained. Where the metal lay deeper, perpendicular shafts were sunk ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... seem to be of great extent, but to the delight of the adventurers, from the midst of the cocoanut grove that crowned the islet there flowed a tiny stream of clear water. This was indeed a godsend, as they did not know how long they might have to remain there. With a spade, which formed part of the dirigible's outfit—"I suppose they figured on shoveling out the treasure," laughed Harry—a small basin was soon dug out for the water to settle in and make a sort of small well, from which it could be dipped out for ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... day there was hard work for Margery's father! Every bit of that "scrambled" turf had to be broken up still more with a mattock and a spade, and then the pieces which were full of grass-roots had to be taken on a fork and shaken, till the earth fell out; then the grass was thrown to one side. That would not have had to be done if the land had been ploughed in the fall; the grass would have rotted in the ground, and would have ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... spade, which had never been moved from where Jerome had dropped it. And while I went on to tell about the pool of liquids, which for some unknown reason had not seeped into the soil since forming there, the Englishman proceeded to dig vigorously into the ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... found that his own gravel pits were worked out. He went to the banks of a river—the river Somme—near by and found a good gravel bed, which he began to cut down and cart off to sell. He dug away at the hill for months and got far below the top of the ground. Then one day his spade struck something hard; he dug it out and saw that it was ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... various turnpike acts, has widened the upper part and filled up the lower, yet they were all visible in the days of our fathers, and are traceable even in ours. Some of these, no doubt, were formed by the spade, to soften the fatigue of climbing the hill, but many were owing to the pure efforts of time, the horse, and the showers. As inland trade was small, prior to the fifteenth century, the use of the wagon, that great destroyer of the road, was but little known. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... the enthusiastic, youthful planter, however; and, while the older sister was bustling about the hot kitchen, the curly, brown head was bobbing energetically back and forth in the front yard, where she and Cherry were digging a trench as fast as they could turn the sod with an old broken spade and a discarded fire-shovel; while Allee followed in their wake, dropping the seed into the freshly-turned earth ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... clay-floored and damp, comfortless, profitless and sordid. Beyond it there lay amid the trees the wattle-and-daub hut of a laborer, the door open, and the single room exposed to the view. The man ruddy and yellow-haired, stood leaning upon the spade wherewith he had been at work upon the garden patch. From behind him came the ripple of a happy woman's laughter, and two young urchins darted forth from the hut, bare-legged and towsy, while the mother, stepping ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... never will come out of their covers. Like any snake slipping into its bed of dead leaves, you hurry into your clothes. And I love you so! Straight and clean and all of a piece is the body of a man, such an instrument, a spade, like a spear, or an oar, such a joy to me—" So she laid her hands and pressed them down my sides, so that I began to wonder over myself, ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... his garden. Knowing its value, and being particularly fond of it when fried for breakfast, he was anxious to secure its permanence. The spot on which the specimens appeared was marked off and guarded, so that it was never desecrated by the spade, and the soil remained consequently undisturbed. Year after year, so long as he resided on the premises, he counted upon and gathered several specimens of the puff-ball, the mycelium continuing to produce them year after year. All parings, fragments, &c., not utilized of the specimens ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... the modern farmer! In the shade He works his crops by letters-patent now: Steam drives the reaper (which is union-made), As in the spring it pushed the auto-plough; A patent milker manages each cow; Electric currents guide the garden spade, And cattle, poultry, pigs through "process" wade To quick perfection—Science shows them how. But while machinery plants and reaps, he rests Upon his porch, and listens to the quail That pipe far off in yonder hand-made vale, With muscles flabby and with strength gone stale, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... for instance, the plow and the gun are machines, the spade and the blow-pipe are tools. A hammer may be considered as a hard, insensible fist; the bellows as a pair of very strong and durable lungs. Tongs take the place of fingers, just as a spoon does of the empty hand, and the knife the place of the teeth. A great number of machines, on the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... in the building, free of charge. This is the one instance in which we have met with encouragement in our own community. We have sought it in high places, among those we supposed to be friends, and found it not. It appears to be the nature of fine linen to dread the mud splashes of the pioneer's spade and pick-ax, and for silk and broadcloth to shrink from contact with the briers of an uncleared thicket; hence our sole recourse is to appeal to those only who are dressed for the service. We are conscious that we have entered upon no easy task; but, ashamed of having so long left ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... I began digging out the old ditch that surrounds our tent, to make it better able to carry off water in the next storm. Knudsen insisted on doing his share, then Corder took the spade from him for the next side. When Pickle, who was standing ready, said "You don't need to work," Corder asked plaintively, "Do I seem as old as that?" So he was allowed to do his ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... has often been made that the Union troops should have been intrenched at Shiloh. Up to that time the pick and spade had been but little resorted to at the West. I had, however, taken this subject under consideration soon after re-assuming command in the field, and, as already stated, my only military engineer reported unfavorably. Besides this, the troops with me, officers and men, needed discipline and drill ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... went on with their occupations. Maclean sidled to the door across the grating and closed it in the twinkling of an eye. The engineer, who was reading a newspaper, heard the noise and looked up. Sievers struck him with the hammer and flew at one of the cleaners. Maclean rushed at the other with his spade. It was all over in a moment, and without any noise that the thudding of the donkey-engine did not drown. Maclean changed coats and caps with the insensible Russian engineer, while Sievers called the Saigon's men from below. He then strapped ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... glance on the body, Mateo returned to the house for a spade with which to bury his son. He had gone but a few steps when he met Giuseppa, who, alarmed by the shot, was ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... Evans From the ploughtail and the spade; Ten years' service in the Devons Left him smart as they ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rapid movements and consequent difficulty of catching these animals. I have watched a gardener stand for half an hour by one of the little hillocks of loose earth, which, from its movement, showed that the mole was there at work, and remain motionless, spade in hand, and when he saw the earth shake, dash his weapon into the heap. The mere uplifting of his arm was sufficient, and before the spade could reach the ground the mole was gone. He could scarcely reckon on securing his victim ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... system of signs would be needed for every content of one mind to be communicated to another. But here again we must first reduce the exaggerated claims to the simpler reality. When Beulah makes card experiments, the whole words jack, queen, king, spade, club, heart, diamond, come to her mind, but when she makes word experiments, never under any circumstances does a real word come to her consciousness, but only single letters. Why is this? If king and queen can be ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... buried on land. Their one long grave is dug; they stand ranked, by the loose mould-ridge; the younger of them singing the Marseillaise. Jacobin National Guards give fire; but have again to give fire, and again; and to take the bayonet and the spade, for though the doomed all fall, they do not all die;—and it becomes a butchery too horrible for speech. So that the very Nationals, as they fire, turn away their faces. Collot, snatching the musket from one such National, and ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... takes a shiny new spade or a pick and makes ready to explore the mound that looms mysterious through the mangrove bushes. First off, Rupert has to toss out a couple of gas bombs, in case there might be rattlers roamin' around. And, believe me, any snake that could ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... carefully. Not a hair, not a blood mark, not a sign to show that any fox had been in it. If it had been robbed, an expert had done it. There was another chance, however. Using his racquet as a spade, Malcolm was soon at work clearing the snow away right around the roots. The chain was a long one, and driven into one of the leaders was a steel fastener. It was as he expected. Not only had the chain been obviously gnawed, but there was considerable chafing of the bark as well. ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... exception of an aged highway, and a still more aged barrow presently to be referred to—themselves almost crystallized to natural products by long continuance—even the trifling irregularities were not caused by pickaxe, plough, or spade, but remained as the very finger-touches of the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... impracticable; that Oswego should be strengthened, more vessels built, and preparation made to renew the attempt as soon as spring opened.[326] All thoughts of active operations were now suspended, and during what was left of the season the troops exchanged the musket for the spade, saw, and axe. At the end of October, leaving seven hundred men at Oswego, Shirley returned to Albany, and narrowly escaped drowning on the way, while passing a rapid in a whale-boat, to try the fitness of that species of ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... shoulder, then Polly Ann; and lastly I drove the two shaggy ponies, the instruments of husbandry we had been able to gather awry on their packs,—a scythe, a spade, and a hoe. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... service. On the day it had been signed, Walter Colton, alcalde of Monterey, wrote thus of it in his diary: "It is thoroughly democratic; its basis, political and social equality, is the creed of the thousands who run the plow, wield the plane, the hammer, the trowel, the spade." Still it had its faults, the greatest of which was the power given the legislature over public moneys and lands, as well as the chance it ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... saw such luck as yours," Snaffle observed admiringly. "The way you filled that spade flush on that last hand was a miracle. It is just that sort of luck that runs State ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... in clay, washers and getters-up of linen, hoe-makers, spade-makers, rake-makers, woodcarvers, stonecutters, bakers, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. Come to the hard-labor yard. Do you see those fifteen stables? there lurk in vain the rusty cranks; condemned first as liars they fell soon after into disrepute as weapons of ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Hildyard's men supplemented the defences made by Lyttelton, and tightened their hold upon the hill. One futile night attack caused them for an instant to change the spade for the rifle. When in the morning it was found that the Boers had, as they naturally would, brought up their outlying guns, the tired soldiers did not regret their labours of the night. It was again demonstrated how innocuous a thing is a severe ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was looking down upon it, from an eminence, and the park-wall interposed; but a little way down was a stile affording access to the road, and by this we approached the iron gate of the churchyard. I saw the church door open; the sexton was replacing his pick, shovel, and spade, with which he had just been digging a grave in the churchyard, in their little repository under the stone stair of the tower. He was a polite, shrewd little hunchback, who was very happy to show me over the church. Among the monuments was one that interested ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... to beat about the bush, Mr. Land-over? If you have anything definite to tell me about Mr. Percival and Madame Obosky, I grant you permission to say all you have to say in the plainest language. Call a spade a spade. I am quite old enough to hear things called by their ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... and rain after some hours in the bush, change, rub down, and take a chair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet conscience. And the strange thing that I mark is this: If I go out and make sixpence, bossing my labourers and plying the cutlass or the spade, idiot conscience applauds me; if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds, idiot conscience wails over my neglect and the day wasted. For near a fortnight I did not go beyond the verandah; then I found my rush of work run out, and went down for the night to Apia; put in Sunday afternoon with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... come to see me, was tellin' of searchin'-parties ransackin' our woods, prospectin', or somethin'. D'ye ever hear such impudence? Why, if I was constable, I'd arrest every man-jack of 'em that's dared to put pickaxe or spade in our ground! I'd have the law on 'em, neighbor or no neighbor. Well, they won't find a thing. 'Cept maybe a few chestnuts or such. As for gold—Hm-m! But somethin' ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... government; and he will have a difficulty in understanding that the trouble was all about affairs purely literary. "Hernani" was fought because it violated the unities of place and time; because its hero was a Spanish bandit; because in the dialogue a spade was called a spade, and in the verse the lines overlap. The French are often charged with frivolity in matters of conduct, but to the discussion of matters of art they bring a most serious conscience. The scene in "Hernani" shifts from Saragossa to ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... lake, there was a struggle for drinking and a strife for the watering of horses and beasts of burden, so that sometimes men and mules were trampled down and hurt, and some were killed; but it mattered little in so great a host, and a spade's depth of earth was ample burial for a man, and if a priest could be found to bless his body on the spot where he lay it was enough, since he had died on the road to Jerusalem; but the jackals and wild dogs followed the ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... once been a little street with the remains of an old temple, now stood a convent; a grave was dug in the garden, for a young nun had died, and she was to be lowered in the earth at this early hour of the morning. The spade struck against a stone which appeared of a dazzling whiteness—the white marble came forth—it rounded into a shoulder;—they used the spade with care, and a female head became visible—butterfly wings. They raised from the grave, in which the young nun was to be laid on this rosy morning, ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... shoulders the other half, as they sat on the big table. Carnehan continued: The country isnt half worked out because they that governs it wont let you touch it. They spend all their blessed time in governing it, and you cant lift a spade, nor chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that without all the Government sayingLeave it alone and let us govern. Therefore, such as it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... I will make an honest woman of you, when all is done. Nay, none of your airs; no tricks upon travellers! I have you here as safe AS a horse in a pound; there is not a house nor a shed within a mile of us; and, if I miss the opportunity, call me spade. Faith, you are a delicate morsel, and there is no ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... London told in a certain stiffness of the limbs, and each suffered from a slight unaccountable cold. Moreover, Denton became aware of unoccupied time. In one place among the carelessly heaped lumber of the old times he found a rust-eaten spade, and with this he made a fitful attack on the razed and grass-grown garden—though he had nothing to plant or sow. He returned to Elizabeth with a sweat-streaming face, after half ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... it will be like hunting for a needle in a haystack, but if I don't find him I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried to, and that I haven't spent any of his money. I'll keep it locked in my trunk until my arm gets so that I can handle a spade, and then I'll hide it in one of the flower beds. Now, how is everything about home? Has Kelsey shown his ugly face here since I went away, or have you heard anything from those 'secret enemies' that Wat Gifford spoke of? How ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... him, then launched a long yellow ray directly at the crack in the nursery shutter. The ray was sharp: it smote full on Archie's eyelids, as he lay asleep, surrounded by "Robinson Crusoe," two red apples, a piece of gingerbread, and a spade, all of which he had taken to bed with him. When he felt the prick of the sun-ray he opened his eyes wide. "Why, morning's come!" he said, and without more ado raised ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... around, and behind me found a heavy spade the gardener had at one time or another used for digging post holes. It was a strong and sharp implement, and I took it up with a good ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... thee of our love, Still be thou deemed by housewife fat A comely, careful, mousing cat, Whose dish is, for the public good, Replenished oft with savory food, Nor, when thy span of life is past, Be thou to pond or dung-hill cast, But, gently borne on goodman's spade, Beneath the decent sod be laid; And children show with glistening eyes The place where ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... a rule," Continued Jane, "get on better with me than do women. Being large and solid, and usually calling a spade 'a spade;' and not 'a garden implement,' women consider me strong-minded, and are inclined to be afraid of me. The boys know they can trust me; they make a confidante of me, looking upon me as a sort of convenient elder sister who knows less about them than an elder sister would know, and is probably ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... pass here and there through the interstices of the leaves, and cast a softened radiance on the ground underneath. A spring was seen bubbling up in the midst, and refreshing the flowers and plants with its cool waters; while a labourer with a spade was at work opening a fresh channel for the stream. At the extremity of the meadow, where it bordered on the sea, the maidens stood grouped together, in attitudes expressive of mingled joy and terror; their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... kindles a fire perhaps by rubbing two dry sticks together till they ignite with the friction; and so he keeps himself alive for a few days; but how little progress does he make! But let him by any means have a little to begin with in the shape of implements and materials; give him an axe or a spade, a jack-knife, or only a fragment of an iron hoop, give him a gill of seed wheat, or a single potato, or no more than a grain of maize, for planting; and how soon will his condition be changed! He has begun to be, even in this small way, a capitalist; and his labor, drawing something from ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... bear away the ram. He was short-shouldered, broad, a thicke gnarr*, *stump of wood There was no door, that he n'old* heave off bar, *could not Or break it at a running with his head. His beard as any sow or fox was red, And thereto broad, as though it were a spade. Upon the cop* right of his nose he had *head A wart, and thereon stood a tuft of hairs Red as the bristles of a sowe's ears. His nose-thirles* blacke were and wide. *nostrils A sword and buckler bare he by his side. His mouth as wide was ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... that. Well, one of the little sisters was playing in the garden a few afternoons ago, making mud-pies or something of that sort, and she suddenly scraped up a sovereign. Presently she found two or three more, and our curiosity becoming aroused, a turn or two with the spade revealed quite a bed of gold; and the end of it was, that on further excavating, the whole garden proved to be one mass of sovereigns. Sixty thousand pounds we counted ... and then, what do you think?—it ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... wherefore I sent the maid to him in the afternoon. Meanwhile we ourselves went up the Streckelberg, where I cut a young fir-tree with my pocket knife, which I had saved from the enemy, and shaped it like a spade, so that I might be better able to dig deep therewith. First, however, we looked about us well on the mountain, and seeing nobody, my daughter walked on to the place, which she straightway found again. Great God! what a mass of amber, was there! The vein was hard upon twenty feet ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... commodious, with wide verandahs; all day it stands open, back and front, and the trade blows copiously over its bare floors. On a week-day the garden offers a scene of most untropical animation, half a dozen convicts toiling there cheerfully with spade and barrow, and touching hats and smiling to the visitor like old attached family servants. On Sunday these are gone, and nothing to be seen but dogs of all ranks and sizes peacefully slumbering in the shady grounds; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this fact in external nature, another fact must take place in my mind, a process must be performed upon my ideas; but so it must in every thing else that I do. I can not dig the ground unless I have the idea of the ground, and of a spade, and of all the other things I am operating upon, and unless I put those ideas together.(30) But it would be a very ridiculous description of digging the ground to say that it is putting one idea into another. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... man of Upsall hearing this resumed his spade, returned to the bush, dug deeper, and found another pot filled with gold, far more valuable than the first. Encouraged by this discovery, he dug deeper still, and ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... but in a dead man's skin, When he is gone and cold. 15. How 'fraid are some of dead men's beds, And others of their bones; They neither care to see their heads, Nor yet to hear their groans. 16. Now all these things are but the shade And badges of his coat;[3] The glass that runs, the scythe and spade, Though weapons more remote: 17. Yet such as make poor mortals shrink And fear, when they are told, These things are signs that they must drink With death; O then how cold. 18. It strikes them to the heart! how do They ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Charley after the horse, whilst I walked about two miles further up the creek to find a better supply of water. Not succeeding, however, I returned and encamped at the small pool, which we enlarged with the spade, and obtained a sufficient supply of very good water. Charley returned with the horse, but my saddlebags, my journals and a calabash were lost. I was in great anxiety, and blamed myself severely for having committed such an act of imprudence. Charley went, however, a ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... morning came he said to me, "There are in this room a spade, a sieve, and a leather bag; bring them out." I said to myself, God knows what labour he will make me undergo because he has made me eat of his bread; having no help for it, I took up those articles and brought them to him. He then ordered me ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... done this yet. He looked about him. The party, excepting himself and Mr. Du Brant, were on the front lawn; he would join them and satirize the gloomy Austrian. If Olive could be made to laugh at him it would be like preparing a garden-bed with spade and rake ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... accomplished. The peasant suffers to-day not only in having to pay rent to the landlord; he is oppressed on all hands by existing conditions. He is exploited by the tradesman, who makes him pay half a crown for a spade which, measured by the labour spent on it, is not worth more than sixpence. He is taxed by the State, which cannot do without its formidable hierarchy of officials, and finds it necessary to maintain an expensive army, because the traders of all nations are perpetually fighting ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... my enemies." "In smoothing the rough hillocks I smooth my temper. In a short time I can hear the bobolinks sing and see the blessed deluge of light and color that rolls around me." Somewhere he has said that the writer should not dig, and yet again and again we find him resorting to hoe or spade to help him sleep, as well as to smooth his temper: "Yesterday afternoon, I stirred the earth about my shrubs and trees and quarrelled with the pipergrass, and now I have slept, and no longer am morose nor feel twitchings ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs |
