"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Avenger chose such a peculiar time to do his deeds—I mean, the time when no one's about the streets. Now, doesn't it stand to reason that the fellow, reading all that, and seeing the sense of it, said to himself, 'I'll go on another tack this time'? Just listen to this!" He pulled a strip of paper, part of a column cut from a newspaper, out of ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... "hard tack" as they were called, are notoriously poor eating, but in the hands of the Confederate soldier were made to do good duty. When on the march and pressed for time, a piece of solid fat pork and a dry cracker ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... Tack or nail, only let's see you get back where we started from." Lincoln was skeptical of sailboats. He had heard about sailing "just where you wanted to go," but he had his ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... GOVERNMENT.—When the Republican party came into power in 1801, it was pledged to make reforms "to put the ship of state," as Jefferson said, "on the Republican tack." About a third of the important Federalist office-holders were accordingly removed from office, the annual speech at the opening of Congress was abolished, and the written message introduced—a custom followed ever since by our Presidents. Internal taxes were repealed, the ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... old friend, may not I smile at some jest between myself and my pipe, but thou must tack more meaning to it than Brewster says hung on Lord Burleigh's nod? And yet in sober sadness, Myles, 't is marvel to me how thou, born to a great name and to such observance as awaits the children of wealthy houses, and ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... pleasant if Imogen Young has any faculty at that sort of thing. I'm sure it's a great deal more promising than the Hut was before Clarence and Geoff and I took hold of it. See, Elsie,—this room is done. I think Miss Young will choose it for her bedroom, as it is rather the largest; so you might tack up the dotted curtains here while I sweep the other rooms. And that convolvulus chintz ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... began his artistic life amongst the Impressionists, he was reckoned a disciple of Pissarro; yet it is plain from his early work that he never swallowed much of the doctrine. Gradually he came to think that the Impressionists were on the wrong tack, that their work was flimsy and their theory misleading, that they failed to "realize." He dreamed of combining their delicate vision, their exquisite sensation, with a more positive and elaborate statement. He wanted to make of Impressionism "quelque chose de solide ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... the tide has made, and we must now make a long stretch-out toward the French coast. We won't tack again till ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the line, and seems to have accepted the judgment as justifying, if not determining, his own course. Briefly, it may be said that the two fleets, having sighted each other on the morning of the 20th of May, were found after a series of manoeuvres both on the port tack, with an easterly wind, heading southerly, the French to leeward, between the English and the harbor. Byng ran down in line ahead off the wind, the French remaining by it, so that when the former made the signal to engage, the fleets were not parallel, but formed an angle ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... was staggered from the forecastle by the buffet of a counter sea, which struck us forward just as the regular swell caught us astern; the boat heeled almost on her beam ends, and he fell over the cabin door into the hold; the man at the helm was preparing for the tack as he saw his messmate's danger, and started forward to save him: he was too late; the poor fellow pitched upon his head and shoulders among the ballast; at the same instant the mainsail caught the wind, the boom swung across, and striking the helmsman on the back of the neck, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... in the music did not escape Hardie. He felt he was on the right tack: he enumerated fluently, and by name, many good men, besides Dean Swift, who had been ploughed, yet had cultivated the field of letters in their turn; and, in short, he was so earnest and plausible, that something like a smile hovered about his hearer's lips, and she glanced ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... white sails taking, if remote enough, a vague blue mantle from the delicate air. Sail-boats glide in the distance,—each a mere white wing of canvas,—or coming nearer, and glancing suddenly into the cove, are put as suddenly on the other tack, and almost in an instant seem far away. There is to-day such a live sparkle on the water, such a luminous freshness on the grass, that it seems, as is so often the case in early June, as if all history were a dream, ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the rule of the gospel," said the minister, taking another tack. "Christ said if any man smite you on the right cheek, turn to ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... fell off, and filled again upon another tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or so, and brought up once more dead in the wind's eye. Again and again was this repeated. To and fro, up and down, north, south, east, and west, the Hispaniola sailed by swoops and dashes, and at each ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a mind like a tack, Bucky. Rifles is the alias of them pianos. They'll make merry music once we get ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... sheet to its first position, thus presenting the original portrait. It may be necessary to fasten it down with a thumb-tack.] ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... I, "the time you put a tack in the seat of Cap'n Charles's stool, in his little shoemaker's shop out behind the house, and he gave you five cents, to return good for evil; so the next day you did it again, in the hope of a quarter, but he decided there were times when the ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... Mother Cop! Her cooking knack Would conquer fifty Catos— The Queen of tarts, and tuck, and tack, ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... cousins of George, were at this Diet of Augsburg; Kur-Brandenburg (Elector Joachim I., Cicero's son, of whom we have spoken, and shall speak again) being often very loud on the conservative side; and eloquent Kur-Mainz going on the conciliatory tack. Kur-Brandenburg, in his zeal, had ridden on to Innspruck, to meet the Kaiser there, and have a preliminary word with him. Both these high Cousins spoke, and bestirred themselves, a good deal, at this Diet. They had met the Kaiser on the plains of the Lech, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... some more of your white Crows, Nat," said the Doctor, as they headed straight out after getting on the right tack. "The island where we are going is one of their famous ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... put the Reindeer about on the other tack, ran up under the lee of a junk, shivered the mainsail into the wind and lost headway, and forged past the stern of the junk so slowly and so near that one of the patrolmen stepped lightly aboard. Then I kept off, filled the mainsail, and bore away for ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... their fairs, markets, &c. as usual, without any regard to the hallowed decade of their legislators. As it is to be presumed that the French do not wish to relinquish all commercial intercourse with other nations, they mean possibly to tack the republican calendar to the rights of man, and send their armies to propagate them together; otherwise the correspondence of a Frenchman will be as difficult to interpret with mercantile exactness as the characters of ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... them. As for Pere Andre and his fulminations against him, what did they want with the Church of Rome!—he, Louis David Riel, was going to start a church of his own! Yes, St. Peter had appeared to him in a vision, and told him that the Popes had been on the wrong tack long enough, and that he—Riel—was to be the new head of all things spiritual and temporal. He promised them a good all-round time when this came about, as it certainly would ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... different tack. There the Rev. James Maury, Jefferson's field school teacher and hard-pressed father of 11 children, sued the vestry of Fredericksville Parish for his salary. The county court upheld his right to sue for claims and called for a jury trial to set the damages. Ironically, ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... he saw ane, shuere eneuch, an' shuere eneuch it was the end of him. We were seeven days oot frae the Clyde—a sair wark we had had—gaun north wi' seeds an' braws an' things for the Macleod. We had got in ower near under the Cutchull'ns, an' had just gane about by Soa, an' were off on a long tack, we thocht would maybe hauld as far's Copnahow. I mind the nicht weel; a mune smoored wi' mist; a fine-gaun breeze upon the water, but no steedy; an'—what nane o' us likit to hear—anither wund gurlin' owerheid, amang thae fearsome, auld stane craigs o' ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... several hours at a time, also, rain falls down in absolute torrents. Even when the weather clears up, and a fresh breeze comes, it is generally from the southward, directly in the outward-bound navigator's teeth. He must have patience, however, and strive to make the most of it by keeping on that tack by which most southing is to be gained. It is now, I believe, generally held to be the best practice to place the ship between 18 deg. and 23 deg. of west longitude on losing the north-east Trade; and likewise to endeavour, if possible, to cross the equator somewhere between these two longitudes. ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... short with a snort, dodged back, and set out at right angles to his former course. From a dead run the pony came to a stand in two fierce plunges, doubled like a shot, and was off on the other tack. An unaccustomed rider would here have lost his seat. The second dash was short. With a final shake of the head, the steers turned to the proper course in the direction of the ranch. The pony dropped unconcernedly to the ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man of war; Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances. Shakespear, with the Englishman of war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... We had to tack toward Muanza for a quarter of a mile with fear in our arms to make them clumsy before I dared believe we were clear of the reefs; but when I put the helm down at last there was neither launch in sight nor any other boat ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... fasten it open again the catch refused to catch, so he was compelled to shut the window and leave the swinging blind at the mercy of the wind. He then improvised a screen from a high-backed chair and an extra blanket, and again betook himself to bed. Stepping on a tack that had been left over when the floor matting was laid provoked certain exclamations calculated to exorcise the demon—or should I say alarm the angel?—of decorative art, and he was soon wrapped in the slumber of the just, undisturbed by ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... than I know; for no ship is always in the same tack. Men change their minds as often as girls; and if you coax the old boy handsomely, when you bid him good-night, my compass to your distaff, he'll let you ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... The schooner was running with the wind on her starboard quarter when we boarded her. We are now close-hauled, and of course we can't make the shore on the other side while we are on this tack." ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... but as he seemed to enjoy the experience, the other three bore their condition as well as they could without grimace or complaint, till the young man, observing their discomfort, gave immediate directions to tack about. On the way back to port they sat ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... the byes mesilf. [Coming down.] If a little milithary sugar-plum like you, Miss Jenny, objects to not goin' wid' 'em, what do you think of an ould piece of hard tack like me? I can't join the regiment till I've taken you and Miss Madeline back to Winchester, by your father's orders. But it isn't the first time I've escorted you, Miss Jenny. Many a time, when you was a baby, on the Plains, I commanded a special guard to accompany ye's from one fort to anither, ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... are on the wrong tack. You see economic science in your day was a science of things; in our day it is a science of human beings. We have nothing at all answering to your rent, interest, profits, or other financial devices, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... "Never walk off with suthin' on your mind. Apt to give ye mental cramps. What was that there tack hammer an ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... by white cotton curtains. On the floor was a home-made carpet; no hand was employed in its manufacture save its owner's, from the time she commenced tearing the rags in strips, to the final blow given to the last tack that confined it to the floor. A very high post bedstead, over which were suspended white cotton curtains, gave an air of grandeur to one side of the room. No one had slept in it for ten years, though it was made with faultless precision. ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... Frenchmen. Being to leeward, and desirous of obtaining the weather-gage, as the safest situation for his own ship, he carried a heavy press of sail, and in the night of the 14th, having stretched on, as he thought, sufficiently for that purpose, put the Loire on the same tack as they were. About two A.M., it being then exceedingly dark, he found himself so near one of the largest ships as to hear the officer of the watch giving his orders. As the noise of putting about would have discovered the Loire's situation, Captain Maitland very prudently abstained from ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... the Mary Rose going free, the Spanish frigate close hauled on the port tack, were now within hailing distance. As they approached each other the buccaneer could see that the other ship was crowded with men. Among her people the flash of sunlight upon iron helms denoted that she carried a company of soldiers. The Spaniards ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... years in retirement had done much to lessen Coach Brown's resolve. It had remained for a small group of loyal Elliott alumni to approach the coach on a new tack. These men believed that John Brown might be landed if the proper appeal were made. They had studied out that the other schools had failed in striving to outbid one another, a point which seemed to prove that money to John Brown was no object. All right then—the way to reach him ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... Elizabeth THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated THRIFTILY, carefully THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon TIGHTLY, promptly TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency TINK, tinkle TIPPET, ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... was loading for the Ionian Islands with gunpowder and munitions for Ali de Tebelen. You know, don't you, that the British sell powder and munitions of war to all the world,—Turks, Greeks, and the devil, too, if the devil has money? From Zante we were to skirt the coasts of Greece and tack about, on and off. Now it happens that my name of Georges is famous in that country. I am, such as you see me, the grandson of the famous Czerni-Georges who made war upon the Porte, and, instead of crushing it, as he meant to do, got crushed himself. His ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... he said, grimly, as he went back to his work. "I didn't put it out just the way I had it in my head, but she 'peared to sense enough of it to call me a Piute for butting in. If that don't work on her I'll tack a warning on the major which nobody will misread fer ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... perplexed look, "my secrecy about the matter has puzzled my father to such an extent that his confidence in me is entirely shaken. I have been all my life accustomed to open all my heart to him, and now, without rhyme or reason, as he thinks, I have suddenly gone right round on the other tack, and at the same time, as he says, I have taken up with doubtful ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... large hall stands a huge cylinder stove, the pipe of which rises nearly to the ceiling, before it disappears in the kitchen chimney. In another corner stands a tall clock which emits a sonorous tick-tack, as its carved hands travel slowly around its enameled face. Here is a secretary, black with age, side by side with a massive iron tripod. Upon the mantel is an immense terra-cotta candlestick which can be transformed into a three-branched candelabrum by turning it upside down. ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... own—an' indeed I was so myself, too. Augh, Mrs. Doran! Be gorra, sir, she put her comedher an me entirely, so she did. Well, be my sowl, I'll be the flower of a husband to her anyhow. I hope your Reverence 'll come to the christ'nin'? But about the clo'es;—bad luck saize the tack I have to put to my back, but what you see an me, if we wor to be ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... for the children to ride horsey on; or you kin take it off and stir the fire with it in a way that would depress the spirits of a man with a real leg. It makes the most efficient potato-masher ever you saw. Work it from the second joint, and let the knee swing loose; you kin tack carpets perfectly splendid with the heel; and when a cat sees it coming at him from the winder, he just adjourns, sine die, and goes down off the fence screaming. Now, you're probably afeared of dogs. When you see one approaching, you always change ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... and an English man of war. Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all sides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... to go farther West. But, laws! he's got money enough, and he began life, Tom, just as you are going to—by taking a grub-stake and starting for the mountains. But come on, boys, and let's get supper. Stanley, just roll out the rest of that bacon and hard-tack, and, Monroe, you go outside and throw in ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... they succeeded in getting to windward of the island, but the signal to the Discovery to tack having been omitted she stood on, and it was some days before she rejoined company. January 1779 was ushered in with heavy rain, but clearing away before noon they were able to approach to about five miles from the shore, where they lay to and traded ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... stovepipe. From Madame Saugrain I got some strips of warm, bright carpet and some clean warm bedding, and I set Yorke to work, under my careful supervision, to make the two beds for mademoiselle and her maid, to tack down the strips of carpet, to put up some white ruffled curtains (also Madame Saugrain's gift) at the square bit of window, and to polish up the brass handles of the portable locker that was to hold mademoiselle's wardrobe. I thought, when all was done,—the ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... exhausting itself and tried one more tack. "Yes, it's simpler than I supposed," I admitted, "but it doesn't seem quite an every-day thing to sell the Balaklava Coronal to anybody under ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... no one to issue fresh rations. Again I had the cows milked, gathered up all the corn-bread that was left, with some hard-tack, and with the aid of the few decrepit nurses before mentioned made a fire, and warmed up the soup and soup-meat which had been prepared for the convalescent table the day before, but was not consumed. ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... was a powerful one, of the semi-rotary type, and they had nearly two miles of smoother water before they stretched out of the bay upon the other tack. When they did so, Carroll, glancing down again through the scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced the water. It was comforting, however, to see that it had not increased, though he did not expect that state of affairs to last. When they drove out into broken ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... 'that's a dear critter; I've brought you home some things you'll like, I know.' Well, she was an awful jealous critter; says she, 'Take 'em to her you spent the evenin' with, I don't want you nor your presents neither.' Arter a good deal of coaxin' I stood on t'other tack, and began to threaten to break the door down; says I, 'You old unhansum lookin' sinner, you vinerger cruet you, open the door this minit or I'll smash it right in.' That grigged her properly, it made her very wrathy ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... signs of starvation and led him to a tree, where he brought him a little water in his own great tin dipper. Then he relieved him of saddle and bridle and left him tied while he hastily stowed a few hard-tack and a flask of whisky in his pocket, and taking a lasso over his arm, started up the ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the aristocracy of birth going to do about it? Struggle desperately? It took that tack at first. Bismarck ranged himself in its support for some time. He was himself an agrarian. But he was not long in installing paper mills on his estates at Varzin. It is said that the Emperor himself possesses porcelain factories. A part ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... want to be left behind," said the mouse. "I wanted to see what Africa was like—I have relatives there. So I hid in the baggage and was brought on to the ship with the hard-tack. When the ship sank I was terribly frightened—because I cannot swim far. I swam as long as I could, but I soon got all exhausted and thought I was going to sink. And then, just at that moment, the old man's hat came floating by; and I got into ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... beyond question, the ordinary collapse of speculation that follows a sudden expansion of paper currency. We shall have that shivering and expectant period when the sails flap and the ship trembles ere it takes the wind on the new tack. But it is no idle boast to say that there never was a country with such resources as ours. In Europe the question about a man always is, What is he? Here it is as invariably, What does he do? And in that little difference lies the security of our national debt ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... had hove alongside, investigated, and removed those of the crew who still lived. Shortly thereafter the coroner came and removed the dead, after which Gibney and McGuffey hosed down the deck, located some hard tack and coffee, supped and turned in in the officers' quarters. In the morning, Scab Johnny arrived in a launch with their other clothes (Mr. Gibney having thoughtfully sent him ten dollars on account of their old board bill, together with a request for the clothes), and ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... to 8 or 10 ft., the smallest being known in London and the home counties as "luke," the largest as "great," and the intermediate sizes as "long small," "threepenny" and "middleboro." White and buff rods are more carefully sorted, the smallest, about 2 ft. or less, being known as "small tack," and rising sizes as "tack," "short small," "small," "long small," "threepenny," "middleboro" and "great." Rods of two to three years' growth, known as "sticks," are used to form the rigid framework of the bottoms and lids of square ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... saw the tiger comin', for he turned as pale as death; but he didn't look at him, and never stirred tack or sheet. He stuck right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he did, for if he hadn't, we'd a broached to in five seconds, and that would a been wuss than the tiger. Well, the cussed beast went close up to him, and actually snuffed at him. You may judge what ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sight of land were to be seen. Soon the charming coast of Long Island came into the view of all and great shouts of joy were wafted across the waters towards it from this swimming city. Carefully did the fleet tack during the night because the water was becoming ever more shallow. On the next morning, the 12th of August, an English squadron of 24 vessels was seen from the ocean and this, after a few hours, united with the fleet, following the mutual greeting by means of a definite number of shots. ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... efforts never slack, And though he twist, and twirl, and tack, Alas! still faithful to his back ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dignity—what is known in England as 'respectability'—struggling with poverty. Perhaps the ancient clock, whose worm-eaten case reaches from the floor to the ceiling, and whose muffled but cheery tick-tack is like the voice of an old friend, impressed me in favour of this poor home ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... cut posts from small wooden sticks. Drive small tacks in each post—one for each wire. Use fine spool wire or wire raveled from fly screen. Twist wires once around each tack, or drive the tacks in firmly so that the wire is held by the head of the tack. This is not an easy fence for ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... door was ajar, and that on an envelope attached with a tack to one of the panels was the name "Elmer M. Moon" He pushed the door a little farther ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... his grandfather. "A man that you've seen all the politicians catering to the last day or so, and small enough to bandy insults with a snippet of a girl! Well, bub, there's a lot of childishness in human nature. It breaks out once in a while. Cuss a tack, and grin and bear an amputation! We'll let the girl alone. I don't seem to get in right when she is mentioned. But I wanted to have you tell me that you don't intend to marry Dennis Kavanagh's daughter. You can't afford ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... sufficient for them to see that she had, as the boy said, lost her foremast. Her sails were in ribbons, and she was labouring heavily in the sea, each wave that struck her breaking over her bows and sweeping along her deck. There was no hope for her. She could neither tack nor wear, and no anchor would hold for a moment on that rocky bottom, in such ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... thinks of home. I am rather inclined to wonder what my family imagine I am actually doing on the Persian front. No doubt some of my dear contemporaries saddle me with noble deeds, but I still seem unable to strike the "noble" tack. Even my work in hospital has been stopped by a telegram from the Red Cross, saying, "Don't let Miss Macnaughtan work yet." A typhus scare, I fancy. Such rot. But I am used now to hearing all the British out here murmur, "What can be the good ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... audacious apron, am a conundrum, a pleasantry, an epigram." This would be very pretty on the stage, but a waiting-maid who calls herself an "epigram" passes our imagination under any other circumstances. In fact, Miss Howard seems to us to be altogether on a false tack in this novel,—to have utterly abandoned realism, and in its place to have imposed upon us scenes, characters, and actuating motives which have figured over and over again in book and play, and to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... that he never worked up a "dead reckoning;" and that the extreme limit of time that he took to work out his observations was ten minutes. In fact, all our operations in seamanship or navigation were run on the same happy-go-lucky principle. If it was required to "tack" ship, there was no formal parade and preparation for the manoeuvre, not even as much as would be made in a Goole billy-boy. Without any previous intimation, the helm would be put down, and round she would come, the yards being ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... what did she hear among the bean-rows in the garden but a noise that went tick-tack, tick-tack, just for all the world as if a brogue-maker was putting on ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... tack towards us, and the line was gathered in and kept tight, and, as he began to go about on another course, his enemies took advantage of his momentary sluggishness to haul with considerable effect on the line. That brought the rascal right under the rocks. We could not see him; ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... the skipper, chocking his axe viciously into a sapling birch and leaving it there, "I'll fill away on another tack." ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... became useless at the outset; whilst several others were kindled a mile and a half to the windward of this, or four miles and a half from the enemy. Of the remainder, many were at once rendered harmless from being brought to on the wrong tack. Six passed a mile to windward of the French fleet, and one ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... Proserpine, for Ithuel was right as to the name of the stranger, had got within a league of the entrance of the bay and had gone about, stretching over to its eastern shore, apparently with the intention to fetch fairly into it on the next tack. The smoke of her gun was sailing off to leeward in a little cloud, and signals were again flying at her main-royal-mast-head. All this was very intelligible to Raoul, it being evident at a glance that the frigate had reached in nearer both to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... more dead than alive. The very second evening we were at sea, it came on to blow, and the night fell very dark, with heavy rain. Towards eight bells in the middle watch, I was standing on a gun well forward on the starboard side, listening to the groaning of the main—tack, as the swelling sail, the foot of which stretched transversely right athwart the ship's deck in a black arch, struggled to tear it up, like some dark impalpable spirit of the air striving to burst the chains that held him, and escape high up into the murky clouds, or a giant labouring ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... must have taken up the most of twenty minutes, yet after getting as far as Mr. Shylock's I remembered that I required what one's hatter (and no one else) calls a "boater," and back I went to order one in addition to the cap. And as the next tack fetches the buoy, so my next perambulation (in which, however, I was thinking seriously of a new bowler) brought me face to face with ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... that have become hard and dirty, can be made nearly as good as new by ripping them, washing the ticking, and picking the hair free from bunches, and keeping it in a dry, airy place, several days. Whenever the ticking gets dry, fill it lightly with the hair, and tack it together. ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... suddenly taken it into her head that she was Cesar Borgia or St. Elizabeth of Hungary. That sort of thing would make one unpleasantly conspicuous even at a private view. However, she merely meant to say that it was Wednesday, which at the moment was incontrovertible. Well, she's on quite a different tack to the Klopstock. She doesn't visit anywhere very extensively, and, of course, she's awfully keen for me to drag in an incident that occurred at one of the Beauwhistle garden-parties, when she says she ...
— Reginald • Saki
... den, holy father," quoth the merry Beggar with a grin. "But look thee, thy gown is too short. Thou hadst best cut a piece off the top and tack it to the bottom, so that it may be long enough. But come, sit beside us here and take a taste of ale, if thy vows ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... is, Freeman had very much the same stuff in his early chapters, only not so much, and I thought not so well placed; and the child remembered some of it. Now the difficulty is to give this general idea of main place, growth, and movement; it is needful to tack it on a yarn. Now Scotch is the only history I know; it is the only history reasonably represented in my library; it is a very good one for my purpose, owing to two civilisations having been face to face throughout—or rather Roman civilisation ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her to take this tack. He scowled and looked disconcerted, shifting uneasily in his big chair, but when Juli did not continue, obviously awaiting his answer, he said, "Juli, he left me no choice. I never knew how his mind worked. That final deal he engineered—have you any idea how much that ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... have failed in. If certain rare and precious virtues can thus be inaugurated, under the influence of a zeal exaggerating its own justification, there will be time later to insist on the complementary truths and to tack in the other direction after having been carried forward a certain distance ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... him was nothing flash nor green— A Seneschal confessed; Most people deemed his reverend mien Some family bequest. And yet but three short, happy years Had seen him on our tack, And made us verge on VERE DE VERES— Oh, bring my ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... on the wrong tack altogether. I'm not a criminal. All your moralizings have no value for me. I don't believe in morality. I'm a disciple ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... then, I think I see; but then I go off on a wrong tack: I get a silly fit, and a hopeless one, and lose my clue. And yet, after all, there is a highway; and wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein,' murmured Louis, as he gazed on ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and putting them in place. Such windows and doors should be properly marked, like the screens that replace them in summer, with numbering tacks so that, each fall, they may be put in proper place without confusion. The system is simplicity itself. A duplicate tack bears the same number on the sill of each window and on the upright of each door. This is a real saver of time, for so small a variation as half an inch in width or height can make the difference between doors and windows that really fit and those that leak air. Such proportions ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... One more tack through alder copse and juniper jungle—hard indeed, and terribly vexatious—and he saw with delight the great open slope, covered with an unbroken surface of glittering snow. The sun (which at midwinter is but ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... them, having a small loose single canoe in her, to put out upon occasion. She sailed so fast that few Dutch ships could have outstripped her. She was steered behind by two oars, one in each canoe, and when they have a mind to tack they use oars forwards. Sending their boat to sound at one of these islands, ground was found a cannon-shot from the shore, in twelve, fourteen, and fifteen fathoms, but shelvy. The savages in the bark ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... had discovered America, but when he was discovering it! You may be quite sure that he reached the culminating point of his happiness three days before he saw the New World with his actual eyes, when his mutinous sailors wanted to tack about, and return to Europe! What did the New World matter after all? Columbus had hardly seen it when he died, and in reality he was entirely ignorant of what he had discovered. The important thing is life—life and nothing else! What is any ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... all. I know the same about myself. I've taken cheap things. Biology got me on the wrong tack at first; with a biological mind I saw everything via the body. Biology's a dragon one has to slay; that's why, in my work, I've taken to psychology instead. Love-making! I told you, right at the first, I always made love to women—. I always have done it, and always should have gone on doing ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... soon showed itself. For three months, during which a day seemed an age, the Abraham Lincoln furrowed all the waters of the Northern Pacific, running at whales, making sharp deviations from her course, veering suddenly from one tack to another, stopping suddenly, putting on steam, and backing ever and anon at the risk of deranging her machinery, and not one point of the Japanese or American coast ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... Barfleur, Sir Samuel Hood's flag-ship, then our ship, then the Monarch and Warrior, the Valiant and Alfred got the wind, and the whole of the van division, of which we formed a part, stretched to the northward on the starboard tack in chase, while the central and rear divisions, under Sir George Rodney, lay still becalmed and unable to join us. Our gallant admiral, however, anxious to bring on an action, continued his course, when we saw the French fleet also forming their line on the starboard tack, in the ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... aside to go along the water-side and show me where the large trout commonly lay, underneath an overhanging bank; and he was much disappointed, for my sake, that there were none visible just then. Then he wandered off on to another tack, and stood a great while out in the middle of a meadow in the hot sunshine, trying to make out that he had known me before, or, if not me, some friend of mine, merely, I believe, out of a desire that we should ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... securing such articles as were liable to float off, and I looked out for some passing boat or vessel to pick us up. We were drifting steadily out to sea, while I was signaling to a boat about three miles off, toward Saucelito, and saw her tack and stand toward us. I was busy watching this sail-boat, when I heard a Yankee's voice, close behind, saying, "This is a nice mess you've got yourselves into," and looking about I saw a man in a small boat, who had seen us upset, and had rowed out ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... o' ca'culate on him takin' the "Junior," an' lettin' me tack a capital "S" an' a little "r" to my name 'fo' I die; which would nachelly call attention to him direc' eve'y time I'd ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... see'd trays sold at mos' every country auction I goes to. I'd jes' as soon sell that one to you, if you like it, but maybe you'd think I was askin' too much if I was to tack on the cost of time I lost that day. I never got a chanst to bid on the oak side-board, 'cause a city man felt so mad at Abe fer buyin' the tray, that he run up the side-board out of spite, when he found we wanted ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... in surprise (having attained the mature age of eight when he said it), "if a grisly bear was to 'tack me, you'd let ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... not half good enough for Linda. But so long as she thinks I am and I try to live up to that, why we've as good a chance to be happy as anybody. We all make breaks, us fellows that go at everything roughshod. Still, when we pull up and take a new tack, you shouldn't hold grudges. If we could go back to that fall and winter, I'd ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Robin Hastie,' said the landlord to the tenant, am more surprised than pleased, to hear sae muckle din in your house, Robie, so near the honourable Sabbath; and I must mind you that it is contravening the terms of your tack, whilk stipulates that you should shut your public on Saturday at nine o'clock, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... was laid on this matter on both sides,'[393] with a similar result. The Commons made other endeavours to carry the Act in a modified form, and with milder penalties; a somewhat unscrupulous minority made an attempt to tack it to a money bill, and so effect their purpose by a manoeuvre. The Sacheverell episode fanned the strange excitement that prevailed. A large body of the country gentry and country clergy imagined that the destinies of the Church hung in the balance. The populace ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... this respectable theory of living. For what can be more untoward than the occurrence, at a critical period, and while the habits are still pliable, of such a sweeping transformation as the return of Charles the Second? Round went the whole fleet of England on the other tack; and while a few tall pintas, Milton or Pen, still sailed a lonely course by the stars and their own private compass, the cock-boat, Pepys, must go about with the majority among "the stupid ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wearisome resting-place—that epitome of the world—that compound of gregarious incompatibilities—that bazaar of character—that proper resort of semi-social egotism and unamalgable individualities—that troublous haven, where the vessel may ride and tack, half-sheltered, but finds no anchorage. Yet even the Lilliputian ligatures of such a sojourn imperceptibly twine round my lethargic habits, and bind me, Gulliver- like, a passive fixture. Once, in particular, I remember to have stuck at the Hotel des Bons Enfants, in Paris—a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... Strasse, and with a little care there is seldom need of delay in crossing. I heard of one poor cab-driver who was fined and cast into prison for injuring a lady who suddenly changed her mind and took a new tack while just in front of his horses. Regard for foot-passengers seems thus to have an existence ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... legend of the sea, So hard-a-port upon your lee! A ship on starboard tack! She's bound upon a private cruise— (This is the kind of spice I use To ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... day the wind came gradually round to the east, and increased to so strong a gale, as obliged us to strike our top-gallant yards, and brought us under the lower sails, and the main top-sail close-reefed. Unfortunately we were upon that tack, which was the most disadvantageous for our leak. But as we had always been able to keep it under with the hand-pumps, it gave us no great uneasiness till the 13th, about six in the afternoon, when we were greatly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... In A bond of A hundred pound for the parish of Ockley to pay one pound for the bewrall of William Drew In case he dy In bed lam and Ly wise to pay the Surgant for Cure of his sore Legs and Lychwise to tack Drew out when cured which sayed Drew was put In by Henry Worsfold and Edward ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... that we first of all reach our conclusions. That is the starting-point. Then, amazed at our own temerity in doing so, we hasten to tack on a few reasons as a kind of apology to ourselves for our own intrepidity, a tardy concession to intellectual decency and good order. But whether we recognize it or not, we do most things because. As Pascal told us long ago, 'the heart has reasons which ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... counted myself, of course; and indeed my father did the same when it came to charging for the crew. Still, twelve was not an out-of-the-way number, since in these chasse-marees one must lower and rehoist the big sails at every fresh tack. As it happened, however, we had a fair wind right across from Roscoff, and made a good landfall of the Dodman at four in the afternoon, just twenty hours after starting. This was a trifle too early for us; so we dowsed sail, to escape notice, and waited for nightfall. As soon as it grew ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... series of Notes and Queries, which, by the way, has never yet been answered. In John Hall's Hor Vaciv (1646) there is this passage, alluding to the table game called tick-tack. The author wrote: "Tick tack sets a man's intentions on their guard. Errors in this and war can be but once amended''; but the printer joined the two words "and war'' into one, and this puzzled the correspondent of the Notes and Queries (v. 272). He asked: "Who can quote another passage from any author ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... way, sez I, 'an', fuddermo', ef you don't bodder longer dem hogs dey ain't gwineter clime outer dat pen an' 'tack you, ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... tulle or crepe lisse frilling are expensive and frail, so it is a good idea to purchase a few yards of really good washing lace, about an inch and a half in depth; quill or plait and cut into suitable lengths to tack around the necks of dresses. This can be easily removed and cleaned when soiled. A piece of soft black Spanish lace, folded loosely around the throat close to the frillings, but below it, looks very ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Others opposed it, because the lords had already resolved by a vote, that they would never pass any bill sent up from the commons, to which a clause foreign to the bill should be tacked; and this clause they affirmed to be a tack, as an incapacity to hold employments was a circumstance altogether distinct from a settlement in money. The queen expressed uncommon eagerness in behalf of this bill; and the court influence was managed so successfully that it passed through both houses, though ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... be to him if you and I developed such ferocious appetites as to lick the platter clean before he showed up. But I reckon there's plenty all around, and we'll try and keep his share warm. Pull up here on this log, Owen, and try that platter. The coffee is ready too, ditto the hard-tack." ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... point where the roof would begin. The outline of all these kites was given, and the sticks stayed in place by a string carried taut from stick to stick, which was notched at the ends to hold it; sometimes the sticks were held with a tack at the point of crossing, and sometimes they were mortised into one another; but this was apt to weaken them. The frame was laid down on a sheet of paper, and the paper was cut an inch or two larger, and then pasted and folded over the string. Most of the boys used a paste made of flour and ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... tack include a lease of the kelp shores?-In point of fact I have no tack, but merely a letter, and just now I am acting upon a verbal agreement from year to year. I can give it up whenever I choose, on giving ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... the pilot could seldom be heard amid the din of the warring elements; while the dismal and almost constant darkness increased the danger of their situation. Sometimes the gale drove them irresistibly to the southwards, while at other times they had to lay to, or to tack to windward, difficultly preserving the course they had already made. During any gloomy intervals of cessation from the tempest, the sailors, exhausted by fatigue, and abandoned to despair, surrounded ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... quite on the wrong tack," continued Stark, brazenly. "Mr. Gibbon was just informing me that the safe had been opened and robbed. It is the first I knew ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... an excellent method of bending small pipes. Fig. 42 will almost describe itself. A is a brass or gun metal ball having a copper or wire rope running through it, and pulled through the flattened part of the pipe as shown. It will be quite as well to tack the bend down to the bench, as at B, when pulling the ball through; well dress the lead from front to back to thicken the back. I have seen some plumbers put an extra thickness of lead on the back before beginning to bend. Notice: ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... our position, and the names of the headlands first seen. We were just north of Cape Povorotnoi, about nine miles south of the entrance of Avacha Bay. The yards were now squared, and we went off on the new tack before a steady breeze from the south-east. In less than an hour we sighted the high isolated rocks known as the "Three Brothers," passed a rocky precipitous island, surrounded by clouds of shrieking gulls and parrot-billed ducks, and by two o'clock ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... some people hold, when in a bitter mood, is that inexorable circumstance only tries to prevent what intelligence attempts. Renounce a desire for a long-contested position, and go on another tack, and after a while the prize is thrown at you, seemingly in disappointment that no ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... speak so to me, and to urge such motives! But you've mistaken your man. I won't be bullied. If what you want is to use this vile knowledge you've so vilely ferreted out, as a lever to compel me to marry my daughter to you against her will—I can only tell you, you sneak, you're on the wrong tack. I will never consent to it. You may do your worst, but you will never bend me. I'm not a man to be bent or bullied—I won't be put down. I'll withstand you and defy you. You may ruin me, if you like, but you'll never break me. I stand here firm. Expose me, and I'll ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... consulted only my own wishes, I should not have allowed this hasty at tack on Dr. Todd to have made its appearance in this Collection; being now fully convinced that the charge brought against that reverend gentleman of intending to pass off as genuine his famous mock Papal Letter was altogether unfounded. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... which I can correctly tack a date is the death of George IV. I was between three and four years old. My recollection of the fact is perfectly distinct - distinct by its association with other facts, then far more weighty to me than the death ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the chief got a wishing carpet? Or can't you ride to Gallipoli? Here are some excellent white-tailed mules, good enough for Pindar, whom Colvocoressis has just brought in from the monastery. 'Transportation for one!' Is there anything to be brought back? Nitre, powder, lead, junk, hard-tack, mules, horses, pigs, polenta, or olla podrida, or other of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... sink to nothing in comparison with it. But, at this instant, a small group of men and women joined them, and, catching sight of the faces of Sarah Ann Nanjulian and Modesty Prowse, her friends, she tried another tack— ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... weeks before and its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes, then he would come to, and by that time she would be away down wind on another tack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment—but only just a moment—then it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with supererogation," ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... going to make a long tack, this time I guess,' continued the earl, as they both stood watching the still lessening ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... north-east, and gave the Spaniards the weather-gage. The English did their beat to get to windward, but the Duke, standing close into the land with the whole Armada, maintained his advantage. The English then went about, making a tack seaward, and were soon afterwards assaulted by the Spaniards. A long and spirited action ensued. Howard in his little Ark-Royal—"the odd ship of the world for all conditions"—was engaged at different times with Bertendona, of the Italian squadron, with Alonzo de Leyva in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... As the lieutenant knew that she was not far off from some small islands and rocks, which lead been seen before it was dark, and which he had intended to have passed that evening, he thought it more prudent to tack, and to spend the night under Mowtohora, where he was certain that there was no danger. It was happy for himself, and for all our voyagers, that he formed this resolution. In the morning they discovered ahead ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... does not!" declared the Widow, but as no one contradicted her, she took a different tack. "Are you coming back?" she asked, smiling brightly. "Are you going to open ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... Regent’s Inlet, and for three days we were struggling with the young ice to little or no purpose, now and then gaining half a mile of ground to windward in a little “hole” of open water, then losing as much by the necessity of bearing up or wearing (for the ice was too strong to allow us to tack), sallying from morning to night with all hands, and with the watch at night, two boats constantly under the bows; and, after all, rather losing ground than otherwise, while the young ice was every ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... govern. Until we had made two-thirds of our distance across the ocean, the winds had stood very much at south-west; and, though we had no heavy weather, our progress was good; but in 20 deg. east from Greenwich, we got north-easters, and our best tack being the larboard, I stood for ten days to the southward and eastward. This brought us into the track of every thing going to, or coming from, the Mediterranean; and, had we stood on far enough, we should have ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... Angel didn't let either of them worry him. He had enough confidence in his own personality and abilities to be able to take his own tack no matter ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... our water from seventeen to ten fathom; and knowing that we were not far from the small islands and rocks which we had seen before dark, and which I intended to have passed before I brought-to for the night, I thought it more prudent to tack, and spend the night under Mowtohora, where I knew there was no danger. It was indeed happy for us that we did so; for in the morning, after we had made sail to the westward, we discovered a-head of us several rocks, some of which were level with the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... the mate, 'bound from Porlock Quay to Bristol with hides and tallow. Stand ready to tack!' he added in a lower voice, 'the ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... vegetables and fruit are bulky and likely to spoil, on the long voyages of sailing vessels before steamships were invented bottles of the juice of limes (a small kind of lemon) were added, instead, to the hard-tack and "salt-horse" of the ship's stores. Because of this custom, the long-voyage merchantmen who carried cargoes round the Horn or the Cape were ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... came over on the other tack, and stood away from the shore a considerable distance. The wind was very light, and the current was against them; so the progress of the boat ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... snorted. "Putting a synthetic tallow-wax molecule together would be like trying to build a spaceship with a jackknife and a tack hammer." He puffed hard on his pipe, and then excused himself and went back ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... Calaseraigne. However, the vessel and the swimmer insensibly neared one another, and in one of its tacks the tartan bore down within a quarter of a mile of him. He rose on the waves, making signs of distress; but no one on board saw him, and the vessel stood on another tack. Dantes would have shouted, but he knew that the wind ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had scarcely altered, and it now shone full on the captain. He turned away, and made a tack or two on the quarter-deck. He was a tall, thin man, with a graceful carriage, and a little stoop in the shoulders. He had a handsome, sad face, growing old. His hair was more than half way to gray, and he seemed somewhere about fifty. He had the sternness of a man used to command, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... one stood round, and the children climbed up on the chairs, or howled to be lifted up to see. There were sugar and salt and tea and crackers, and a can of lard and a milk pail, and a scrubbing brush, and a pair of shoes for the second oldest boy, and a can of oil, and a tack hammer, and a pound of nails. These last were to be driven into the walls of the kitchen and the bedrooms, to hang things on; and there was a family discussion as to the place where each one was to be driven. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... in baskets very cheap, partly because the baskets cost very little for labor. The man who tacks them together uses a magnetized tack hammer. This magnetic tack hammer picks up the tacks of its own accord, and the man drives them in the basket as fast as he can touch the magnet to the heads of the tacks ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... of criticism in your last letter to me, telling me that it will soon disappear. I think, on the contrary, that it is, at most, only at its dawning. They are on a different tack from before, but nothing more. At the time of La Harpe, they were grammarians; at the time of Sainte-Beuve and of Taine, they are historians. When will they be artists, only artists, but really artists? Where do you know a criticism? Who is there who is anxious about ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... free, or before the wind Wind abeam Port tack Wind abeam Starboard tack Pointing into the wind Port tack Pointing into ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... out o' th' way, my Lady Plyant's coming, and I shall never succeed while thou art in sight. Though she begins to tack about; but I made love a great while ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... to right off. He says there 's no tellin' where anythin' 'll end 'n' it 's wise to be prepared for the worst. He said he knowed a man as walked on a tack 'n' jus' called it a tack, 'n' first they had to cut off the tack 'n' then the toe 'n' then the foot, 'n' they kept on slicin' him higher 'n' higher till he died without no will a tall. I said you wasn't no tack but a cow, but he said it was all one, 'n' I guess it is 's far 's the lawyers ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... that's right enough. When we're on the other tack she'll careen over the other side. The stiffer the breeze and the more sail there is, the more she careens. I've been in a smack when we've been nearly lying down in the water, and it's washed right ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... on the dealing tack, commenced in the poverty-stricken strain adapted to the occasion. Having deposited his hat on the floor, taken his left leg up to nurse, and given his hair a backward rub with his right ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... all of whom exerted equally their best endeavors for its success, and have a common right to the merits of its acquisition. So also in the civil revolution of 1801. Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that will require unremitting vigilance. Whether the surrender of our opponents, their reception into our camp, their assumption of our name, and apparent accession to our objects, may strengthen or weaken the genuine ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson |
