"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the first clinical teachers of our time, always insisted on his students' beginning at once to visit the hospital. At the bedside the student must learn to treat disease, and just as certainly as we spin out and multiply our academic prelections we shall work in more and more stuffing, more and more rubbish, more and more irrelevant, useless detail which the student will get rid of just as soon as he leaves ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Why, would that haue mended my haire? To. Past question, for thou seest it will not coole my nature An. But it becoms me wel enough, dost not? To. Excellent, it hangs like flax on a distaffe: & I hope to see a huswife take thee between her legs, & spin it off ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... an early morning spin on the machine, who saw Phil Springer wearing the big catching mitt and coaching Rodney Grant to ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... that you're befogged, my little woman, Chasing this ignis fatuus of the day! Leave it, and settle down as woman should. What has been always, must be to the end. Always has woman been subordinate In mind, in body, and in power, to man. Let rhetoricians rave, and theorists Spin their fine webs,—bow you to holy Nature, And plant your feet ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... myth" of the Peruvians was that at Lake Titicaca two supernatural beings appeared, both children of the Sun. One was Manco Capac, the first Inca, who taught the people agriculture; the other was his wife, who taught the women to spin and weave. From them were lineally derived all the Incas. As representing the Sun, the Inca was high priest and head of the hierarchy, and therefore presided at the great religious festivals. He was the source from which everything flowed—all dignity, all power, all ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... on some instrument, although this last is not quite a proper accomplishment for young women of good family. Hardly any one dreams of giving a woman any systematic intellectual training.[] Much more important it is that she should know how to weave, spin, embroider, dominate the cook, and superintend the details of a dinner party. She will have hardly time to learn these matters thoroughly before she is "given a husband," and her childhood days are forever over (see ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... excitement of work, of mingling with crowds, of going when and where one pleases. A woman is hemmed in by a thousand petty must-nots. She can't go out after dark; she can't play whist or billiards, or sit at a table in the open and drink and smoke and spin yarns. Woman's lot is wondering and waiting at home. When I marry I suppose that I shall learn the truth ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... Boullard, the tee-totum. I call him the tee-totum because, in fact, he was seized with the droll but not altogether irrational crotchet, that he had been converted into a tee-totum. You would have roared with laughter to see him spin. He would turn round upon one heel by the hour, in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... badinage, she was a solitary soul. The men feared no less than they admired her. They were shy of that wild courage, fearful to put so dark a mystery to the solution. The women hated her, backbit and would not make friends, because of the fatal instantaneous power she wielded to spin men's blood and pitch their souls derelict on that impassioned current. Who shall put his finger on the source of this power? There were girls upon girls with eyes as black, cheeks as like hers as fruit ripened on the same bough, hair as thick and lustrous—yet at the sound of Caddie ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... madam," said Mary, "now that you have got two great girls added to your establishment, I hope you are going to make them useful in some way—we can sew, knit, and spin." ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... hard these three sisters worked when you remember that the thread of life of every mortal had to pass through their fateful fingers. Hercules would have liked them to tell him how long they had yet to spin for him, but they had no time to answer questions and so the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... Ben-Lomond blaw, And bar the doors wi' driving snaw, And hing us owre the ingle, I set me down to pass the time, And spin a verse or twa o' rhyme, In hamely westlin jingle. While frosty winds blaw in the drift, Ben to the chimla lug, I grudge a wee the great folks' gift, That live sae bien an' snug: I tent less and want less Their roomy fire-side; But hanker and canker ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven; shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... he said was no objectionable as to the matter; but he drawled in his manner to such a pitch, that I thought he would have broken out into an even-down song, as I sometimes think of yourself when you spin out the last word in reading out the line in a warm summer afternoon. In the hymn by himself, he did better; he was, however, sometimes like to lose the tune, but the people gave him great encouragement when he got back ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... course, and then that scoundrel of a Noman, or Odysseus, whichever it is, gave me something to drink, with a drug in it; it tasted and smelt very good, but it was villanously heady stuff; it made everything spin round; even the cave seemed to be turning upside down, and I simply didn't know where I was; and finally I fell off to sleep. And then he sharpened that stake, and made it hot in the fire, and blinded me in my sleep; and blind I have been ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... mother was a Stark Several times over, and by marrying father No more than brought us back into the name." "One ought not to be thrown into confusion By a plain statement of relationship, But I own what you say makes my head spin. You take my card—you seem so good at such things— And see if you can reckon our cousinship. Why not take seats here on the cellar wall And dangle feet among the raspberry vines?" "Under the shelter of the family tree." "Just so—that ought to ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... moth-green, and those on the farther side, of the colour of pale violets, and all pitched in a vast circle whose centre was the moon. I handed the mackintosh to the Count and insisted upon his donning of it. "The dew hangs in the air," said I, "and unless the world spin on too quick, we shall pass some hours in watching." "Ay," said he in a muse, "but it seems to me the moon-army keeps infamous bad watch. I see not one sentinel. Those wings travel sure as a homing bird; and to be driven back upon their centre would be defeat for the—lunatics. Give me but ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... and from here I determined never to issue till the Last Banjo should indeed sound. Here I sidled vaguely about for a long time, hoping that I looked like a man preparing for some vast culminating feat, a side-step or a buzz or a double-Jazz-spin ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... with losing nothing by the war, without being at the expense of gaining any advantage from the enemy; to suffer his character to be very severely handled, provided he could amass much wealth, and to spin out the minority to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... They sailed for Alexandria to enforce their orders upon Philometor, and sent Euergetes home to Cyrene. Philometor received the Roman ambassadors with all due honours; he sometimes gave them fair promises, and sometimes put them off till another day; and tried to spin out the time without saying either yes or no to the message from the senate. Euergetes sent to Alexandria to ask if they had gained their point; but though they threatened to return to Rome if they were not at once obeyed, Philometor, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... more than forty times, and if my watch wasn't almost out I could spin you a yarn as long as our main-top bowline about the "reason," as ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... ready victim in the reach Of any brother savage, club in hand; 830 Hence saw the use of going out of sight In wood or cave to prosecute his loves: I read this in a French book t' other day. Does law so analyzed coerce you much? Oh, men spin clouds of fuzz where matters end, But you who reach where the first thread begins, You'll soon cut that!—which means you can, but won't, Through certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out, You dare not set aside, ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... old Crowfoot. Have you never heard of it? No? Well, of course, we don't talk about these things. I was there though, and for cold iron nerve I never saw anything like it. It was a bad half-breed," continued Sergeant Ferry, who, when he found a congenial and safe companion, loved to spin a yarn—"a bad half-breed who had been arrested away down the line, jumped off the train and got away to the Blackfeet. The Commissioner happened to be in Calgary and asked the Superintendent himself to see about the capture of this desperado. So ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... Coiloo's hand was at Sax's neck. He unfastened the string of the luringa and stood up, still hidden from sight. Slowly he whirled the thin slab of wood round his head, hitting it on the ground once or twice to make it spin. The thing gave out a droning sound. The crowd of yelling fiends around the corpse became suddenly quiet. The droning increased to a loud humming. Every eye ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... eyes that transfixed me? Must I then be the husband of a she-goat? No, no, my heart shall not break for such a goat-face!" So saying, as soon as they reached his palace, he put Renzolla into a kitchen, along with a chambermaid; and gave to each of them ten bundles of flax to spin, commanding them to have the thread ready at ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... of increasing strain slipped by, and another commenced. Then Fortune, with a contemptuous good-humoured spin of her wheel, did for Charles Turold what he could hardly have hoped to achieve in a ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... the house become like a bazaar. Sometimes there would be a mix-up of articles, but the loving messages pinned on to each would clear up the confusion. Mary dearly loved to linger over each gift and spin a little history into it, and she would pray with a full heart, "Lord Jesus thou knowest the giver and the love and the prayers and the self-denial. Bless and accept and use all for Thy glory and for the good ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... Bushman; she was square and muscular, with arms like a navvy's; she had often worked shifts, below and on top, with her husband, when he'd be putting down a prospecting shaft without a mate, as he often had to do—because of her mainly. Old diggers said that it was lovely to see how she'd spin up a heavy green-hide bucket full of clay and 'tailings', and land and empty it with a twist of her wrist. Most men were afraid of her, and few diggers' wives were strong-minded enough to seek a second row with Mother Middleton. Her voice could be heard right across Golden ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... spin what yarn he pleases, I care not. All I ask is to put eyes on the lad again. It seems, when I think of it in cold blood, that it can scarce be true, Tayoga. You're sure you made no ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he exclaimed in accents of satisfaction, as he exhibited the balls to Dick. "These are the cocoons of a certain caterpillar, the name of which I forget, but they spin a kind of silk which is admirably adapted for the making of bowstrings, for it is incredibly strong, does not fray, and is not ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... turned a deaf ear. Sampson Brass, who was, by this time, anything but sober, being compelled to take further draughts of the same strong bowl, found that, instead of at all contributing to his recovery, they had the novel effect of making the counting-house spin round and round with extreme velocity, and causing the floor and ceiling to heave in a very distressing manner. After a brief stupor, he awoke to a consciousness of being partly under the table and partly under the grate. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Peaks, as he seated himself on the main-hatch, and twined his long legs around those of the prisoner, so that he was held as fast as though he had been in the folds of an anaconda. "Hold still, now, and I'll spin you a sea-yarn. Once on a time there was a little boy that wanted ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... life, God wot, No villain need be, passions spin the plot; We are betrayed by what ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... I think that his books emanated from a high artistic ideal. I do not believe that he was really much interested in his craft. Rather he visualised a story very vividly, and then it seemed to him the finest fun in the world to spin it all as rapidly as he could out of his brain, to make it all alert with glancing life. It was all a personal confession; his books bristle with his own dreams, his own dilemmas, his own social relations; and when he had once firmly realised the Catholic ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of voice he said this in and the look seemed to frighten the poor girl so that she started an old-style polka there and then, which made him bang his heels on the floor and spin round as if he'd been at a dance-house. As soon as he'd done two or three turns he walks over to the sofa and sits down close to Miss Falkland, and put his arm ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... Corvatsch was still six thousand feet above her head. All at once, Helen felt subdued. The fancy seized her that the carriage was rumbling over the roof of the world. In a word, she was yielding to the exhilaration of high altitudes, and her brain was ready to spin wild fantasies. ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... escape-entertainment. They'll have the dream quality of 'You Win a Million' and the lottery-shows. They'll be things to dream about but never to think of doing anything about. We're going to make the series disappointingly short, in order to make it more convincingly factual. We won't spin it out for its entertainment-value until it practically ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... chairs in front of the Kearney House. On the right we have Bill Riley, a Wells Fargo detective from Omaha, on the left Tom Seemly from the Pinkerton Agency in San Francisco. They know something but not everything. Suppose I should spin 'em all my li'l tale of ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... future will be, when scientific education shall have been largely substituted for the classical; and even the novelists will be expected to know something about the world in which they live and the sublime and inexorable laws which govern it. At present the majority of them spin irresponsible yarns, and play Providence ad libitum to their characters. Man's vital coherence with his environment is but loosely indicated. Chance reigns supreme. They have observed carefully enough the external phenomena of life—and chiefly for their picturesque or dramatic interest—but of ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... attracted the lords of the saloon, who often leaned to hear him over the rails of the hurricane-deck. He was somewhat pleased, but not at all abashed, by this attention; and one night, in the midst of his famous performance of "Billy Keogh," I saw him spin half round in a pirouette and throw an audacious wink to an old ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... every few weeks, gave his wife a beating with his horsewhip. He said it was necessary, in order to keep her in subjection, and because she scolded so much. Now this wife, surrounded by six or seven little children, whom she must wash, dress, feed, and attend to day and night, was obliged to spin and weave cloth for all the garments of the family. She had to milk the cows, make butter and cheese, do all the cooking, washing, making, and mending for the family, and, with the pains of maternity forced upon her every eighteen months, was whipped by her pious husband, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the justice to say that it was I, and not he, who closed the dialogue. At this juncture, I became the subject of a remarkable optical delusion; the legs of my stool appeared to me to double up; the car to spin round and round with great violence; and a mist to arise between myself and His Majesty. In addition to these sensations, I felt extremely unwell. I refer these unpleasant effects, either to the paste with which the posters were affixed to the van: which may have contained some small ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... are a caste of cotton-spinners, the name being derived from katna, to cut or spin. But hand-spinning is now practically an extinct industry and the Katias have taken to weaving or ordinary manual labour for a subsistence. The Kanjars and Berias are the gipsy castes of India. They are accustomed to wander about carrying their grass-matting huts ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... may be the opinion of fair ladies who dwell in ceiled houses in our older Eastern States and cities, who like lilies, neither toil nor spin, whose fair hands would gather close their silken apparel at the thought of touching the homelier garments of many a heroine of Kansas—whatever they may say in reference to this question, we, the women of the Spartan State, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the tree bows, The wind sweeps through the brown leaves. The brown leaves crackle and rattle and dance, They rustle and murmur and pull at the bough, They shiver, they quiver till they pull themselves loose And are free. Up, up they fly! Little brown specks in the sky. They twist and they spin, They whirl and they twirl, They teeter, they turn somersaults in the air. Then for a moment the wind holds its breath. Down, down, down float the leaves, Still turning and twisting, Still twirling and whirling, The brown leaves float to the earth. Puff! goes the wind, Up they fly again With a ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... rugs. There seemed a hint of spring in the air; already hazel catkins hung here and there in the hedgerows, thrushes and robins were singing cheerily, and wayside cottages were covered with the blossom of the yellow jessamine. It was a joy to spin along the good smooth highroad in the luxurious car. Everard was a quick driver, and kept a pace which sometimes exceeded the speed limit. Fortunately his brothers and sisters were not nervous, or they might have held their ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... deal of danger; for not only was there a likelihood of falls leading to broken legs, but broken necks also were an easy possibility by the chance of a slip upon the mossy edge of one or another of the many ledges, followed by a spin through the air ending suddenly upon the jagged rocks below. Indeed, so ticklish did I find my way that I began to think that the Indians had spoken no more than the simple truth in warning me against such dangers, and that I had better turn again while light remained to bring me ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... evening. Noemi lighted her lamp, brought out her wheel, and began to spin. Little Dodi sat by her and played at water-mills, holding a ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... most experienced seamen on board. These are the fellows that sing you "The Bay of Biscay Oh!" and "Here a sheer hulk lies poor Torn Bowling!" "Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer!" who, when ashore, at an eating-house, call for a bowl of tar and a biscuit. These are the fellows who spin interminable yarns about Decatur, Hull, and Bainbridge; and carry about their persons bits of "Old Ironsides," as Catholics do the wood of the true cross. These are the fellows that some officers never ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... a dishonourable peace; that they would take care not to expose themselves to the hazards of a battle against too formidable an enemy; and that, in short, they were resolved on making every sacrifice, in order to spin out the war, and ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... of Manufacture.—Before 1760 the manufacture of cotton goods was carried on in the homes of the people. A spinner would procure a supply of raw cotton from the dealer and carry it home, where, with the help of his family, he would spin it into threads or yarn and return it to the dealer. The spinning was all done by hand or foot-power on a wheel that required one person to run it, and that would make only one thread at a time. The weaving was also done at home. Because of the use ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... takes the bluster of the storm for a friendly greeting, as if it should say, "How fare ye, brother?" He is a retired sea-captain, wrapped in some nameless garment of the pea-jacket order, and is now laying his course towards the Marine Insurance Office, there to spin yarns of gale and shipwreck, with a crew of old seadogs like himself. The blast will put in its word among their hoarse voices, and be understood by all of them. Next I meet an unhappy slipshod gentleman, with a ...
— Beneath An Umbrella (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... reasonable doubt. In the monads, the versatility, rapidity, and power of movement are always correlated with the number of these. The one before us could sweep across the field with majestic slowness, or dart with lightning swiftness and a swallow's grace. It could gyrate in a spiral, or spin on its axis in a rectilinear path like a rifled bullet. It could dart up or down, and begin, arrest, or change its motion with a grace and power which at once astonish and entrance. Fixing on one of these monads then, we ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... satisfying the ever-increasing demand for cotton weft. Hitherto single threads only had been dealt with on the spinning machines, but the same year witnessed the introduction of an invention which in a few years completely revolutionized the spinning industry, and which enabled one worker to spin hundreds ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... so-termed "famine district," and the famine of one year is said to have destroyed over four millions of people; pestilence is always threatening these natives, and besides, the demands for tribute of an enervated priesthood (who "toil not," alas! "neither do they spin") have to be met. So is it any wonder that poverty prevails and that sadness ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... had lived, and that he died thinking of Lincoln's kind face and thanking him for the chance he gave him to fall like a soldier in battle. If the story is not true—and there is no reason whatever to doubt it—still it is a remarkable man of whom people spin ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... to a guideline leading to the south polar lock and kicked off, satisfied that the lab was ready for the job of turning on the spin with which he would begin his three months ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... a Public School boy's honour is very elastic. Masters are regarded as common enemies; and it is never necessary to tell them the truth. Expediency is the golden rule in all relations with the common room. And after a very few weeks even Congreve would have had to own that the timid new boy could spin quite as broad a yarn as he. The parents do not realise this. It is just as well. It is a stage in the development of youth. Everyone must pass through it. Yet sometimes it leads to quite a ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... please do not trouble and we must just hope that Tuesday morning will be early enough to do all. Of course I fear the exam. will spin me; indeed after this bodily and spiritual crisis I should not dream of coming up at all; only that I require it as a pretext for a moment's escape, which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... domesticating the wild grasses and meadow-roots, fathering them to become the progenitors of rice and millet and wheat and barley and all manner of succulent edibles, learning to scratch the soil, to sow, to reap, to store, beating out the fibres of plants to spin into thread and to weave into cloth, devising systems of irrigation, working in metals, making markets and trade-routes, building boats, and founding navigation—ay, and organizing village life, welding ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... household chiefly on meat and milk, and does not want rich furniture, or jewels, or books—if a wine and corn grower maintains himself and his men chiefly on grapes and bread;—if the wives and daughters of families weave and spin the clothing of the household, and the nation, as a whole, remains content with the produce of its own soil and the work of its own hands, it has little occasion for circulating media. It pledges and promises little and ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... invent are endless. You would find a good sale for insertion lace of the Torchon patterns. Make your own pillow, and buy some cheap bobbins to begin learning with, and do not try fine work at first. Learn to spin wool and thread; a spinster can earn money in ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... offered an offering of gold unto the Lord. And every man with whom was found blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen and goats' hair and red skins of rams and badgers' skins brought them. And all the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue and of purple and of scarlet and of fine linen. And the rulers brought onyx-stones, and stones to be set, and spice, and oil for the light. The children of Israel ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... reasons for desiring you to do this,—too many to be told just now,—trust me, and be sure you get everything as good as can be: and if, in the villainous state of modern trade, you cannot get it good at any price, buy its raw material, and set some of the poor women about you to spin and weave, till you have got stuff that can be trusted: and then, every day, make some little piece of useful clothing, sewn with your own fingers as strongly as it can be stitched; and embroider it or otherwise beautify it moderately ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... of the three Fates, the one who cut asunder the thread of life; one of her sisters, Clotho, appointed to spin the thread, and the other, Lachesis, to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... room; and bending over the flower, and inhaling the delicious fragrance, the master softly said—'My children, the blessed Word of God says—Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Carl has ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... their wool grow for our use, silk-worms, in emulation with each other, spin rich stuffs and spend themselves to bestow them upon us. They make of their cod a kind of tomb, and shutting up themselves in their own work, they are new-born under another figure, in order to ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... in French by 'In possession and out of possession.' Now, whatever right anybody may have to any property, if he be out of possession he is in a hobble; while he who happens to be in possession, let him be the biggest usurper in the world, may laugh at the other fellow, and spin the case out indefinitely. Now, here am I, for instance. Just fancy, the inheritance, the rich property, was almost in my hands; I hasten to the spot in order to enter into my rights, and I find that some one has been before me, and ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... final victorious occupation of St. Stephen's. But stay! The horrific pioneers of womanhood who gad hither and thither and, confounding wisdom with the device on her shield, shriek for the unbecoming, are doomed. Though they spin their bicycle-treadles so amazingly fast, they are too late. Though they scream victory, none follow them. Artifice, ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... the treaty of Canandaigua, we were promised that different kinds of mechanics, blacksmiths, and carpenters, should be sent among us; and farmers with their families, that our women might learn to spin. We agreed to receive them. We even applied for these benefits. We were told that our children were too young to be taught. Neither farmers or mechanics ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... long and low, With its windows all a-row, Like the port-holes of a hulk, Human spiders spin and spin, Backward down their threads so thin Dropping, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Russell inquired if she possessed any relics of Prince Charles from the time he used to spin with the lasses:— ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... King Cotton. Thousands upon thousands of people scan the newspapers each day to see what price its staple is bringing. From its bounty a vast army of toilers, who plant its seed, who pick its bolls, who gin its staple, who spin and weave its lint, who grind its seed, who refine its oil, draw daily bread. Does not its proper production deserve the best thought ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... to spin; but she was trembling from head to foot, and every now and then she glanced at the ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... which is a chief quality of the French mind and which is not so common among us English as our kindest critics would have us believe. He would take a handful of golden sentences—things wisely thought and finely said by persons having authority—and spin them into an exquisite prelection; so that his work with all the finish of art retains a something of the freshness of those elemental truths on which it was his humour to dilate. He was, that is to say, an artist in ethics as in speech, in culture as ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... shape. There was the hammer-head made specially for him by the blacksmith down in the village, without a handle, for people were tired of putting new handles to it, he broke them so quickly. There was a horse-shoe, and the iron catch of a gate, and besides these a boxwood top, which he could not spin, but which he had payed away half the savings in his money-box for, because he had seen it split the other boys' ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... woman of our casal but held a candle in her hand as we came in at the gate of the city; for the silkworms have given us silk and enough to spin this year; and if they had not, we would not grudge it to her. For she hath a smile like an angel. May our Holy Mother bless her ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... easier than I. I had picked out a rangey lank bronco; he would quit the earth and climb the sky like a flying machine; and drop down and strike the rocks with his legs stiff as a post. He would then spin like a top several hundred times play razor back and sun-fish, His head and tail would touch one instant between his legs; and the next instant over his back. I held my breath while he exercised all his tricks then he plunged off while I pounded him with my broad brimmed ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... sew and to spin." Then the invincible soldier, victor of Patay, conqueror of the lion Talbot, deliverer of Orleans, restorer of a king's crown, commander-in-chief of a nation's armies, straightened herself proudly up, gave her head a little toss, and said with naive complacency, "And when it ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... I received from my dear lady an invitation to visit Melford and paint the portrait of her mother, who regarded my portrait of Joanna as a work of genius. If you are a young artist it makes your head spin very pleasantly to hear yourself alluded to as a genius. Later in life you do not quite like it, for you have bitter knowledge of your limitations and are mortally afraid your kind flatterers will find you out. But at twenty you really do not ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... three-fourths—will be comedy; but by the former plan the whole of it (except the first 3 chapters) would have been tragedy and unendurable, almost. I think I can carry the reader a long way before he suspects that I am laying a tragedy-trap. In the present form I could spin 16 books out of it with comfort and joy; but I shall deny myself and restrict it to one. (If you should see a little short story in a magazine in the autumn called "My Platonic Sweetheart" written 3 weeks ago) that is not this one. It may have been ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... all sorts of games with marbles, how to make and spin more kinds of tops than most boys ever heard of, how to make the latest things in plain and fancy kites, where to dig bait and how to fish, all about boats and sailing, and a host of other things ... an unmixed delight to ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... a very light one, and for a time the cutter moved along but slowly, but as it got beyond the shelter of the land it felt the wind, and began to spin fast through the water. Stephen's spirits, which had been greatly depressed for the last few days, rose as the little craft heeled to the breeze. Nearly six months had been spent on the island, but at ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... a cobweb shirt more thin Than ever spider since could spin, Bleach'd in the whiteness of the snow, When that the northern winds ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... war, and are alarmed at anything which they fancy may indicate its recurrence. Talking further with him, he said, "Here we have no signori; we need not take off our hats to any one except the priest. We grow all we eat, we spin and weave all we wear; if all the world except our own valley were blotted out, it would make no difference, so long as we remain as we are and unmolested." He was a wild, weird, St. John the Baptist looking person, with shaggy ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... sheer despair. I had no plan, no hope. The best I could imagine was to spin the business out some minutes longer, then capitulate. At least, I would not capitulate one moment ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hands on the plantation. In the evenings, after it was too dark for work in the field, the men were frequently employed in burning brush and in other labors until late at night. The women after toiling in the field by day, were compelled to card, spin, and weave cotton for their clothing, in the evening. Even on Sundays there was little or no respite from toil. Those who had not been able to work out all their tasks during the week were allowed by the overseer to finish ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... times at the equator. It appears that the total production of cotton yarn each day in all the mills together would be on the average about one hundred and fifty-five million miles. In fact, if they would only spin about one-fifth more, we could assert that Great Britain produced enough cotton yarn every day to stretch from the earth to the sun and back again! It is not hard to find from these figures how long it would take for all the mills in Lancashire to produce a piece of ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... Coronation Anthems; that I dined early, also in Woodbridge; and walked up here with a tremendous East wind blowing sleet in my face from over the German Sea, that I found your letter when I entered my room; and reading it through, determined to spin you off a sheet incontinently, and lo! here it is! Now or never! I shall now have my tea in, and read over your letter again while at it. You are quite right in saying that Gravesend excursions with you do me ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... had vaunted my faithfulness and love. But here was France in prime of summer, giving me of her best. My heart warmed to her loveliness, and I sniffed the perfume of her breath, mysteriously characteristic as the chosen perfume of some loved woman's laces. It was glorious to spin on, on, between the rows of sentinel poplars, bound for the horizon, yet never reaching it, and regarding crowded haunts of men more as interruptions than ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... still for a veil had descended over his eyes. The whole arena began to spin and to dance before him, the marble columns were twisted awry, thousands upon thousands of distorted faces grinned hideously upon him. Over the trees and the grass and the stream there was a film of red, the colour of blood, ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... most of all was a gale of wind. As soon as there was wind enough, off she would fly to the Naerke plain for a good dance. On days when a whirlwind swept the plain, Ysaetter-Kaisa had fun! She would stand right in the wind and spin round, her long hair flying up among the clouds and the long trail of her robe sweeping the ground, like a dust cloud, while the whole plain lay spread out under ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... greater part of their information from retired old South-Sea rovers, who have domesticated themselves among the barbarous tribes of the Pacific. Jack, who has long been accustomed to the long-bow, and to spin tough yarns on the ship's forecastle, invariably officiates as showman of the island on which he has settled, and having mastered a few dozen words of the language, is supposed to know all about the people who speak it. A natural desire to make himself of consequence in the eyes of the strangers, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... n't no tears to shed over that. I went there the first thing after dinner, 'n' he give me a solid chair 'n' whirled aroun' in one 't twisted, 'n' I did n't fancy such manners under such circumstances a tall. I'd say suthin' real serious 'n' he'd brace himself ag'in his desk 'n' take a spin 's if I did n't count for sixpence. I could n't seem to bring him around to the seriousness of the thing nohow. 'N' I come right out square 'n' open in the very beginnin' too, for Lord knows I 'm dead sick o' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... its industries. Of all the Lebanon towns, this is, indeed, the busiest; its looms, its potteries, and its bell foundries, are never idle. And the people cultivate little of the silk worm; they are mostly artisans. American cotton they spin, and dye, and weave into substantial cloth; Belgian iron they melt and cast into bells; and from their native soil they dig the clay which they mould into earthenware. The tintinnabulations of the loom ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... as Mr. Hennessey talked. "After the sugar has been crystallized in the pans it passes into a mixer, where it is stirred and kept from caking until it is put into the centrifugal machines, which actually spin off the crystals. These machines are lined with gauze, and as they whirl at tremendous velocity they force out through this gauze the liquid part of the sugar and leave the sugar crystals inside the machine. ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... delay the witch ordered the girl to spin the thread, and the boy, her brother, to carry water in a sieve to fill a big tub. The poor orphan girl wept at her spinning-wheel and wiped away her bitter tears. At once all around her appeared ...
— Folk Tales from the Russian • Various
... must be data at command to supply the considerations required in dealing with the specific difficulty which has presented itself. Teachers following a "developing" method sometimes tell children to think things out for themselves as if they could spin them out of their own heads. The material of thinking is not thoughts, but actions, facts, events, and the relations of things. In other words, to think effectively one must have had, or now have, experiences which will furnish him resources for coping with the difficulty at hand. A difficulty ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... and Miss Fortune, after setting up the wheel, put one of them into her hand and instructed her how to draw out and twist the thread of yarn, she saw all that was coming. She saw it with dismay. So much yarn as Miss Fortune might think it well she should spin, so much time must be taken daily from her beloved reading and writing, drawing, and studying; her very heart sunk with her. She made no remonstrance, unless her disconsolate face might be thought one; she stood half a day at the big ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... kept in a running position upon one foot, with the other far behind me, in Atalanta's race; sometimes suspended by cords from the ceiling, with arms and legs in horribly uncomfortable positions, till everything seems to spin before me." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... it might be well, if you can spare the time, to take papa for a spin in the motor. He did not ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... decently, and unlike the others who keep on buzz-buzz-buzz, like mosquitoes! You're not aware, sister-in-law, that I actually dread uttering a word to any of the girls outside the few servant-girls and matrons in my own immediate service; for they invariably spin out, what could be condensed in a single phrase, into a long interminable yarn, and they munch and chew their words; and sticking to a peculiar drawl, they groan and moan; so much so, that they exasperate me till I fly into a regular rage. Yet how are they ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Frank said, at the conclusion of one of French's stories of the grandeur of the coming empire, "and I'd like to hear you spin yarns all night, but, if you don't mind, I'll go ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... he missed his grip and his footing. For a moment he hung, while his heart stood still. Then he fell with sickening thud and crash from beam to beam. The startled sexton looked up and cried out; and the traitor's body toppled in its last wild spin, and fell at his feet. He lifted it up. The face was beaten almost out of recognition, and the neck ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... men with advantage, and that which is done with ease by a spider can scarcely offer insuperable difficulty to the chief of the vertebrates. Of course, each man's production will be more or less guided and limited by his capacity.—Thus, fat men will spin forth cathedrals, opera-houses and railway stations. Thin men will devote themselves to obelisks, church spires, factory chimneys, and artistic bric-a-brac. Short men will willingly produce artisans' dwellings, ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... charmed. "Heaven knows I've wanted a chance at you, but what should you say if, having then at last just taken you in in your so apparent perfection, I should feel it the better part of valour simply to mount my 'bike' again and spin away?" ...
— The Outcry • Henry James |
