"Threads" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me while consecrating something to my good. Mr. Keepum has made my father's release the condition of my ruin. But he is but flesh and blood, and I—no, I am not yet a slave! The virtue of the poor, truly, doth hang by tender threads; but I am resolved to die struggling to preserve it." And a light, as of some future joy, rises up in her fancy, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... is copied from a French work entitled Archives sur Anatomie:—"A small spider had spread its net between two neighbouring trees, at the height of about nine feet. The three principal points, to which the supporting threads were attached, formed here as they usually do, an equilateral triangle. One thread was attached above to each of the trees, and the web hung from the middle of it. To procure a third point of attachment, the spider had suspended a small stone to one end of a thread; and the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... she holds her place, Her bodice bright is set with Genoa lace; O'er her rich robe, through every satin fold, Wanders an arabesque in threads of gold. From its green urn the rose unfolding grand, Weighs down the exquisite smallness of her hand. And when the child bends to the red leafs tip, Her laughing nostril, and her carmine lip, The royal flower purpureal, kissing there, Hides more than half that young face bright and ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... reconciliation were on that day reciprocally decorated with the orders of the respective courts, while the imperial guards of both emperors received food and drink for a great festivity. Next day Napoleon paid his farewell visit. At his morning toilet he had his valet loosen the threads which fastened the cross of the Legion of Honor to his coat, and as the Czar advanced to meet him he asked in audible tones permission to decorate the first grenadier of Russia. A veteran named Lazaref was summoned from the ranks, and with a wrench ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Buvat heaved a mournful sigh. Mirza alone stretched out her little head for a caress. Unluckily for the coaxing little creature, Bathilde began to recover her memory; the veil which was drawn before the late events rose little by little, and soon she began to connect the broken threads which might guide her in the past. She recalled the return of Buvat, what he had told her of the conspiracy, the danger which would result to D'Harmental from the revelation he had made. Then she remembered her hope of being in ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... that," returned the dragon. "I have remained a prisoner only because I wished to be one," and with this he stepped forward and burst the stout chains as easily as if they had been threads. ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... your beautiful gifts—your pleasure in literature and music—nay, in short, what is the most lovely part of life, in order to bury yourself in concealment and oblivion, and there, like the silkworm, to spin your own sepulchre of the threads which another will wind off? You bow your own will continually before that of another; your innocent pleasures you sacrifice daily either to him or to others: are you so very ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... They consist of a series of naked granite rocks or mountains, some of them rising to upwards of three or four thousand feet, ranging in every direction, with many isolated peaks; and of picturesque valleys winding along between steep precipices—threads of green, in which the tholukh and all species of mimosa and acacia, with the souag and other trees, flourish in immense growth, sometimes adorned by garlands and festoons of luxuriant parasitical plants. Wild animals of various kinds range ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... poem is a feature which puts it with a few others apart from the bulk of Chesterton's poems. Even as bellicosity and orthodoxy are two of the brightest threads which run through the whole texture of his work, so Poems of Pugnacity (as Ella Wheeler Wilcox would say) and religious verses constitute the largest part of the poetic works of G.K.C. His first book of verses—after Greybeards at Play—The ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... Dahomey's state umbrella, stood the regimental Colours. Dan lifted them tenderly and unrolled in the light of the candles the record of the Mavericks—tattered, worn, and hacked. The white satin was darkened everywhere with big brown stains, the gold threads on the crowned harp were frayed and discoloured, and the Red Bull, the totem of the Mavericks, was coffee-hued. The stiff, embroidered folds, whose price is human life, rustled down slowly. The Mavericks keep their colours long and guard ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... awkwardness (so he anathematized it) that made a torture of a delicious privilege. Evidently it was a much harder thing to lasso one of these little pearl atrocities with its alleged "loop" than to rope a vicious steer. And there were those tangling threads of gold. If ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... believe, in my conscience, spins threads for tragedies, on purpose for thee to weave with.—Thy Watford uncle, poor Belton, the fair inimitable, [exalted creature! and is she to be found in such a list!] the accursed woman, and Tomlinson, seemed to have been all doomed to give thee a theme for the dismal and the ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... a very peculiar practice common among some South American tribes: A kind of a tube is fastened onto the prepuce by means of threads of the tacoynhaa, the latter being the bark of a certain kind of a tree. Cabras brought one of the natives, so muzzled, to Lisbon, on the return from his first voyage. Some tribes were observed to wear an apparatus like the old-fashioned candle-extinguisher, the virile member having ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... her father-in-law, Laertes, promising that, as soon as the garment was finished, she would wed one of the suitors. Then all day long she wove that choice web; and every night she undid the work of the day, unravelling the threads which she had woven. So for three years she beguiled the suitors, but at last she was betrayed by her handmaids, and the fraud was discovered. The princes upbraided her loudly for her deceit, and became more importunate than ever. The substance ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... potentate in the city, who controlled immense organizations, and held the threads of multifarious interests, he was very human at bottom, and Smith liked him all the better for the glow of self-satisfaction that shone upon his face at this ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... Sau de la Pucelle, which falls from a height of some two hundred and fifty feet, resembling the Staubbach—besides rivulets without number, running down the mountain-sides like silver threads; until we arrive at La Grave, a village about five thousand feet above the sea-level, directly opposite the grand glaciers of Tabuchet, Pacave, and Vallon, which almost overhang the Romanche, descending from the steep ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... touched the male Indian, who was standing near him, lightly on the shoulder, and pointed out a thin line of vapor which was stealing slowly out of the wilderness of leaves, at a distance of about a mile, and was diffusing itself in almost imperceptible threads of humidity in the quivering atmosphere. The Tuscarora was one of those noble-looking warriors oftener met with among the aborigines of this continent a century since than to-day; and, while he had mingled ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... there was, who dwelt In an old gray collage all alone— She turned her wheel the live long day— There was music, I ween, in its solemn drone. As she twisted the flax, the threads of thought Kept twisting too, dark, mystic threads— And the tales she told were legends old, Quaint fancies, woven of lights ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... occupy a distinct position, are the embroidered covers in gold, silver, and variegated threads, executed both abroad and in England, and of which many examples are ascribed to the Nuns of Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire; and velvet, silk, and metal bindings, which exist in sufficient abundance, and usually occur with marks of original ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... gold thread, the boy began his journey home. He passed along path-ways on which the brown leaves of last year's growth were thickly strewn, and from among which flowers of every colour were springing. He crossed little brooks that ran like silver threads, and tinkled like silver bells. He passed under trees with great trunks, and huge branches that swept down to the ground, and waved far up in the blue sky. The birds hopped about him, and looked down upon him from among the green leaves, and they sang him songs, and some of them seemed to ...
— The Gold Thread - A Story for the Young • Norman MacLeod
... many long dumb voices, Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves, Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs, Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion, And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-stuff, And of the rights of them the others are down upon, Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised, Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... girl had spoken Costigan had leaped to the levers, and not an instant too soon; for the tip of that horrible tentacle flashed into the rapidly narrowing crack just before the door clanged shut. As the powerful toggles forced the heavy screw threads into engagement and drove the massive disk home into its bottle-tight, insulated seat, that grisly tip fell severed to the floor of the compartment and lay there, twitching and writhing with a loathsome and unearthly vigor. ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... eyes were bright and fearless and honest. The faint color came and went under the clear skin as freely as the heart could send it, and though her hair was brown and soft, there were ruddy tints among the coils, that flashed out unexpectedly here and there like threads of red gold twined in a mass ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... and I know they will not turn back because the way leads temporarily through the blackened hills. The urge of God within them will assure their continuing the pursuit. They will face the facts however unpleasant and endure the cross for the joy set before them. So I am bold to name the threads out of which this inner ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... with the strange heaviness well known to those who find it hard to resume broken threads after long parting. There was much affection, but not full certainty what to talk about, and the presence of the boys would have hindered confidence, even had they not incessantly occupied their mother. Conrade, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this time on, the shelves are freighted with volume after volume of German political jargon, forming a bewildering diagonal of forces crossing and recrossing in thousands the tangled threads. Bismarck's presence runs throughout, but it is a long and complex story, hard to comprehend and difficult to compress ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... without pleasure or anticipation. The sense of his loss—the hopeless yearning for Madge—was but little dulled. He felt that he could never take up the threads of his old life again; he wished to avoid all who knew him. He had no plans for the future. His studio was let, and the new tenant had engaged Alphonse—Nevill had arranged this for him. He had received several letters from Jimmie, and had answered them; ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... Measure cry out as they pass before us; and as the poetry of this play is full of the peculiarities of Shakespeare's poetry, so in its ethics it is an epitome of Shakespeare's moral judgments. They are the moral judgments of [184] an observer, of one who sits as a spectator, and knows how the threads in the design before him hold together under the surface: they are the judgments of the humourist also, who follows with a half-amused but always pitiful sympathy, the various ways of human disposition, and sees less distance than ordinary ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... quarters, and even from the emperor himself, who appointed a commission to investigate the plot that had led to the attempted assassination. As a matter of fact there was no plot whatever, but the police officials and the detectives set to work with the utmost zeal to discover all the threads of the non-existing conspiracy. They did everything to deserve the fees they were paid; they got up in the small hours of the morning, searched one house after another, took copies of papers and of books they found, read diaries, personal letters, ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... yet. I cursed the tyranny of the countess; but I still trembled when I heard her name mentioned. I thought of escaping from her; but a single glance moved me to the bottom of my heart. I was bound to her by the thousand tender threads of habit and of complicity,—those threads which seem to be more delicate than gossamer, but which are harder to break than a ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... their taxes in gold melted from the treasure trove turned up by the plough, or dug from the precincts of some forgotten sanctuary, buried beneath the rank vegetation of the teaming soil. The discarded Hindu gods still haunt the forest depths, and the superstitious native, as he threads the dark recesses of the solemn woods, gazes with apprehensive eyes on the trident of Siva, or the elephant's trunk of Ganesh emerging from the trailing wreaths and matted tapestry of liana and creeper, veiling the blackened stone of each ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... ecclesiastical affairs can interest children and young people. Still, with all my inattention and repugnance, so much of that reading remained in my mind that I was able, in after times, to take up many threads of the narrative. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... pebbles, her head pointing downstream, and the swift fretting current had carried away her hood and pulled out her long abundant silver-white hair, and the current played with her hair, now pulling it straight out, then spreading it wide over the surface, mixing its silvery threads with the hair-like green blades of the floating water-grass. And the dead face was like marble; but the wide-open eyes that had never wholly lost their brilliance and the beautiful lungwort blue colour were like living eyes—living and gazing through the crystal-clear running water ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... my words!" rejoined Ella, eagerly, as she fancied she saw something of relentment in his stern features. "Look yonder! Behold that poor old man!—whose head is already sprinkled with the silvery threads of over fifty winters—beside whom stands the companion of his sorrows—both of whose lives have been spent in quiet, honest pursuits—whose doors have ever stood open—whose board has ever been free to the needy wayfarer. You yourself have been ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... which were so large and strong that it was not easy at first to distinguish the offspring from the parent stem. The fibres were of all sizes and in all states of advancement, from the pillars we have just mentioned to small cords which hung down and were about to take root, and thin brown threads still far from the ground, which swayed about with every motion of wind. In short, it seemed to us that, if there were only space afforded to it, this single tree would at length cover ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... after country quiet and beauty might easily be as much attracted to-day by the undulating acres of Brook Farm as were those who sought it sixty years ago as a refuge from social discouragement. The brook still babbles cheerily as it threads its way through the meadows, and there are still pleasant pastures and shady groves on the large estate. The only one of the community buildings which is still standing, however, is that now known as the Martin Luther Orphan Home. ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... when groups of workers and gossipers mingled are seen laughing, chatting and singing to the accompaniment of the drum. Some of these women are really handsome, and are freely decorated, even in public, with the singular enamels which are their peculiar manufacture, and with threads of gold in their graceful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... warp and woof of every book an author weaves much that even the subtlest readers cannot suspect, far less discern. To them it is but a cross and pile of threads interlaced to form a pattern which may please or displease their taste. But to the writer every filament has its own association: How each bit of silk or wool, flax or tow, was laboriously gathered, or was blown ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... young woman, be her station high or low, would take no pleasure in such a literary occupation, but in the days of Nance Oldfield to con the pages of Beaumont and Fletcher was considered a privilege rather than a duty. Then, again, the little seamstress had a soul above threads and thimbles; her heart was with the players, and we can imagine her running off some idle afternoon to peep slyly into Drury Lane Theatre, or perhaps walk over into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the noble Betterton ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... all up only to snap at it and swallow it down all bewildered a quarter of an hour after. This was a cobweb fog spun, as it might be, by some malignant central spider hidden darkly in his lair. The vapouring-like filmy threads twisted and twined their way all over London, and for four days and nights the town was a city of ghosts. Buildings loomed dimly behind their masks of silver tissue, streets seemed unsubstantial, pavements had no foundation, streams of water appeared to hang glittering ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... Sirup and cabin and expenses were donated by the Georgia Sirup Growers' Association, and cost approximately $1,700. There was also a complete display of sea-island cotton in bales and types, together with threads and the various cloths manufactured from same, the cost of installation ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... him, and see his threads: look if he be Friend to himself, that would be friend to thee: For that is first required, a man be his own; But he that's too much that is friend ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... rapidly as became his dignity, in pursuit of the young woman, was aware that he hardly felt at liberty to accost her with anything more than the greeting of the day. He eyed disapprovingly the parcel which he carried. It was a very dingy white, and greyish threads dangled from it. Von Rosen thought it a most unpleasant thing, and reflected with mild scorn and bewilderment concerning the manner of mind which could find amusement over such employment, for he divined that it was a specimen of feminine ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... brought back to her mind the thrill of their brief but stimulating conversation. A flash of genuine earnestness transformed her face, just as a gleam of wintry sunshine, which had found its way in through the open window, seemed to discover threads of gold in her tightly braided and luxuriant brown hair. Her eyes filled with ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... still a very fine-looking woman. The few silver threads which now mingled in her hair were skilfully concealed by Lamperi's art, and few ladies in Ghent were more ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a massive but shapely throat, as white as milk; glossy brown hair, the loose threads of which glittered like gold, and a blue eye, which, being contrasted with dark eyebrows and lashes, took the luminous effect peculiar to that ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... daylight, but quite safe from frost. In the first instance a number of sprouts appear, and a large proportion are rubbed off. The object of the cultivator is to secure two or three stout, short shoots of a green or purple colour; the long white threads that are often produced in the store being regarded as useless. When large sets are employed, they are allowed to make three or four stout shoots, and at the time of planting—not before—these sets are cut so as to leave to each large piece only one or two good sprouts or sprits. As ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... golden and silver handles is obvious, and the story is of some interest for the distant resemblance which it bears to the choice of the caskets in The Merchant of Venice. Condemned, as they considered, to drive the plough, the Agharias took off their sacred threads, which they could no longer wear, and gave them to the youngest member of the caste, saying that he should keep them and be their Bhat, and they would support him with contributions of a tenth of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... comet's tail, far up in the sky; only the cloud is white, and the hair dark as night. And they say it will go on growing till the Last Day, when the horse will falter and her hair will gather in; and the horse will fall, and the hair will twist, and twine, and wreathe itself like a mist of threads about him, and blind him to everything but her. Then the body will rise up within it, face to face with him, animated by a fiend, who, twining her arms around him, will drag him down to ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... cord about two feet long, composed of different colored threads tightly twisted together, from which a quantity of smaller threads were suspended in the manner of a fringe. The threads were of different colors and were tied into knots. The word quipu, indeed, signifies a knot. The colors denoted sensible objects; as, for instance, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... leaves him his legs for the taking of further steps. Dudley, standing on the platform of Nesta's train, one half minute too late, according to his desire before he put himself in motion, was as wildly torn as the vapour shredded streaming to fingers and threads off the upright columnar shot of the shriek from the boiler. He wished every mad antagonism to his wishes: that he might see her, be blind to her; embrace, discard; heal his wound, and tear it wider. He thanked her for the grossness of an offence precluding excuses. He was aware of a glimmer of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... about him. Purple crags lay in shadow; glistening threads of water fell among the rocks; and long slopes lay steeped in softest color under the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... vertical point of reference obtained in the following manner:—Tie two pieces of thread, crossing each other at two feet above the ground, put the vessel of mercury underneath it, and look down upon the mercury. When the eye is so placed, that the crossed threads exactly cover their reflexion, the line of sight is truly vertical; and, if the distant object be brought down to them by the sextant, the angle read off will be 90 degrees altitude. Captain George's arrangement of glass floating on mercury (made by Cary, Fleet Street, London), ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... repaired; but defects that may follow from this can easily be remedied by study. It simply depends upon yourself, Monsignor, as to in how long you can be at your post again here. As soon as you have learned the threads of business, you will be able to apply yourself as before. I shall look for a report in a fortnight's time at the latest. Good day, ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... least of the influence of his own life. Life is not mere length of time but the daily web of character we unconsciously weave. Our thoughts, imaginations, purposes, motives, love, will, are the under threads: our words, tone of voice, looks, acts, habits are the upper threads: and the passing moment is the shuttle swiftly, ceaselessly, relentlessly, weaving those threads into a web, and that web is life. It is woven, ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... streams to swell the Orinoco, terminates in the beautiful mountains of Caracas; the central range culminates in the volcanic Tolima,[59] but is soon lost in the Caribbean Sea; the western chain turns to the left, humbling itself as it threads the narrow isthmus, and expands into the level table-land of Mexico. You may cross Mexico from ocean to ocean in a carriage, but no wheeled vehicle ever crossed ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... a bone. There are long tendons in the backs of big animals. Burr cut these out sometimes and hung them in the sun to dry. When they were dry, she broke the thin outside skin and tore the tendon apart with her fingers. It came to pieces in many little threads. Burr took some of the little threads and twisted them together and made a good strong thread ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... short before reaching it. The furrows of these environing attempts show themselves distinctly, bending to the incline as they trench upon it; mounting in steeper curves, till the steepness baffles them, and their parallel threads show like the striae of waves pausing on the curl. The peculiar place of which these are some of the features is 'Mai-Dun,' 'The Castle of the Great Hill,' said to be the Dunium of Ptolemy, the ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... grown gray. That is, there were more or less becoming threads of silver in her maiden tresses, and the dignity of middle age had added inches to her waist and a few interesting lines to her forehead. There was no new Sir Galahad on the horizon even of her day-dreams, and her mother was in failing health. Mrs. Willis continued now to fail for five years—years ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... "Beatrice was of a make rather large than small. Her complexion was fair. She had two dimples in her cheeks, which added to the beauty of her countenance, especially when she smiled, and gave it a grace that enchanted all who saw her. Her hair was like threads of gold; and because it was very long, she used to fasten it up; but when she let it flow freely, the wavy splendor of it was astonishing. She had pleasing blue eyes, of a sprightliness mixed with ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... and began to dance with more animation. They were all dressed in calico or muslin skirts, with loose white cotton waists, finished around the neck with a kind of lace they make themselves by drawing out the threads from cotton or cambric so as to form an open pattern, sewing those which remain over and over to secure them. Much of this lace is quite elaborate, and very fine. Many of them had their hair dressed either ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... virtue, and virtue superior to the accumulation of wealth. His mind, O Bharata, is always inclined to happiness and joy, and to such courses of action as are virtuous and conducive to the higher ends of life. Even like a doll pulled this way and that by threads, man (in this world) moveth, swayed by a force not his own. Beholding the sufferings of Yudhishthira, I regard the force of destiny to be superior to the effect of human exertion. Beholding again thy unworthy deeds, which, besides, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... except on the heights, and in places where it had drifted. The streams had broken their long pause of silence, and now leaped and rushed along, till every rock overhanging both sides of the fiord was musical with falling waters, and glittering with silver threads,—for the cataracts looked no more than this in so vast a scene. Every mill was going, after the long idleness of winter; and about the bridges which spanned the falls were little groups of the peasants ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... they at length found what they believed might serve. It was the inner bark of a certain tree, and consisted of long white threads or filaments which, after being steeped in water for some time, could be separated from each other, and which proved to be so exceedingly tough that we were able to make excellent fishing lines of them, and so secure a most welcome addition to our daily diet. The threads ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... There was something in her look and manner which arrested the attention of Minnie. She was a tall, slender woman about thirty five years old, with a pale, care-worn face—a face which told that sorrow had pressed her more than years. A few threads of silver mingled with the wealth of her raven hair, and her face, though wearing a sad and weary expression, still ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... passive obedience, and non-resistance. The republican spirit had slumbered on the white cliffs of Albion, and in his sleep, like the man-mountain in Lilliput, had been pinned down to the earth by the threads of a spider's web for cords. On the first reaeppearance of Filmer's book, he awoke, and, like the strong man in Israel, at the cost of his own life, shook down the temple of Dagon, and buried himself and the Philistines ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... exactly ill, but so much out of sorts that her father, King Zuliman, was both annoyed and perturbed. The princess was as beautiful as a princess of those days should be; her long tresses were like threads of gold, her blue eyes rivaled the color of the sky on the balmiest summer day; and her smile was as ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... alluded to by Herodotus (500 B.C.). There are evidences that at an earlier date the Egyptians and Hindus attempted to replace lost teeth by attaching wood or ivory substitutes to adjacent sound teeth by means of threads or wires, but the gold fillings reputed to have been found in the teeth of Egyptian mummies have upon investigation been shown to be superficial applications of gold leaf for ornamental purposes. The impetus given to medical study in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... all its members are bound to one another by a thousand threads; and these threads are all the more numerous in proportion to a people's grade of culture. If disturbances set in, they are forthwith felt by all. Disturbances in production affect distribution and consumption; and vice versa. The feature of capitalist production ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... meant when he told Nan he must get hold of her. What place could be so fortunate as this, full of the broken threads of her personality? They only needed knitting up by his passionate challenge, to be Anne. He called upon her, he caught the fluttering fringes of her presence in his trembling hands. But he could not knit them up. They broke, they floated away. It seemed, from the dead unresponsiveness ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... in through the opening in the wall. And now he halted once more. He was straining his eyes down a long, narrow passage, whose blackness was accentuated rather than relieved by curious wavering, gossamer threads of yellow light that showed here and there from under makeshift thresholds, from doors slightly ajar. Faint noises came to him, a muffled, intermittent clink of coin, a low, continuous, droning hum of voices; the sickly sweet smell of opium pricked ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... splendid specimen of manhood, although his shoulders were slightly stooped, and silver threads gleamed here and there in the black hair and beard, making him look older than his years. He had a face of remarkable beauty also,—with fine, clear-cut features,—though browned with exposure, and bearing the lines that only the fingers of ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... life,—in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:—through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the old woman of the opium den, Durdles, the tombstone maker, and The Deputy, the ragged stone-thrower, Dick Datchery unraveled the threads which finally, made into a net, caught Jasper, the murderer, in its meshes. Little by little, word by word, he was made at last ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... follow a diplomatic career. He says that he has the eye of a statesman and that his gestures, though few, are full of meaning. Poor, dear little ambassador, with only three hairs on your head! But what dear hairs they are, those threads of gold curling at the back of his neck, just above the rosy fold where the skin is so fine and so fresh that kisses nestle ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... from hubby's investigating eye. I won't tell the result of the experience, for it is too well known. It is a certain episode through which half the women of forty years have passed—sooner or later. When comes the desire to transform those little threads of silver into deeper shades remember the charming lines ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... all. The Duc de Bouillon still keeps up his head proudly on account of his Sedan, but I shall make him yield. Their blindness is truly marvellous! They think themselves all free to conspire, not perceiving that they are merely fluttering at the ends of the threads that I hold in my hand, and which I lengthen now and then to give them air and space. Did the Huguenots cry out as one man at the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... decay; What iron's about it is eaten with rust, And upon and around it are cobwebs and dust; The dear, loving hands that on it have spun, With labor and toil forever are done, And long is the time since I saw them unreel The threads, snowy white, from ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... their custom, and from robbing the public as usual." (Was ever any thing so bold?) She goes on to prove, that the women only are capable of retrieving affairs by this burlesque argument; that admitting things to be in such a state of perplexity and confusion, the sex, accustomed to untangling their threads, were the only persons to set them right again, as being best qualified with the necessary address, patience, and moderation. The Athenian politics are thus made inferior to those of the women, who are only represented in a ridiculous ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... a surface almost metallic in its lustre. I thought of that immediately: her skin drank in and exhaled light. I could not hit upon the stuff of which her shift was made. It looked like coarse silk, had a web, had fibres or threads. It may have been flax, but that it was much too sinuous. It seemed to stick to the body where it touched, even to seek the flesh where it did not touch, that it might cling like gossamer with invisible ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... vanish, and the bright stars again shine clearly upon the glad earth. The rain-drops sink into the ground, and gather in subterranean reservoirs, and run in subterranean channels, and bubble up in springs and fountains; and from the mountain-sides and heads of valleys the silver threads of water begin their long journey to the ocean. Uniting, they widen into brooks and rivulets, then into streams and rivers; and, at last, a Nile, a Ganges, a Danube, an Amazon, or a Mississippi rolls between its banks, mighty, majestic, and resistless, creating vast alluvial valleys to be the granaries ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade,—all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design. But, after all, what great doctrine is there which is easy to expound? The ancient sages never put their teachings in systematic form. They spoke in paradoxes, for they ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... chimney, neighbors looked out from their windows, and wondered if the good blacksmith would, after so many years of honest toil, be stripped of his property and be reduced to dependence in his old age. The sympathy of the villagers was wholly with him; but the lawyer held so many threads of interest in his hands, that few dared to give ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... national life, building up Christian character as the best legacy for present and future generations. Some of the colleges are yet weak and struggling, but they glory in their aspirations and prospects of future grandeur. The great fabric of our national life is radiant with the golden threads of good influences emanating from these centers of superior intelligence and instruction, where time is given for careful thought and reflection on the ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... resolution, and exhaustless invention—without the highest admiration which can attend on a master of warfare. But it is equally impossible to suppress astonishment and indignation in following, or rather attempting to follow, the threads of obstinacy, duplicity, pride, and perfidy, which, during the same period, complicated, without strengthening, the tissue of his negotiations. It is only when we fix our eyes on the battles and marches of this wonderful campaign, that we can hesitate to ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... wouldst thou invert the course of the planets, and make them retrograde? Wouldst thou disorder all the celestial spheres, blame the intelligences, blunt the spindles, joint the wherves, slander the spinning quills, reproach the bobbins, revile the clew-bottoms, and finally ravel and untwist all the threads of both the warp and the waft of the weird Sister-Parcae? What a pox to thy bones dost thou mean, stony cod? Thou wouldst if thou couldst, a great deal worse than the giants of old intended to have done. Come hither, billicullion. Whether wouldst ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... REMEMBER the stiff little parlour where I used to wait for Lena: the hard horsehair furniture, bought at some auction sale, the long mirror, the fashion-plates on the wall. If I sat down even for a moment, I was sure to find threads and bits of coloured silk clinging to my clothes after I went away. Lena's success puzzled me. She was so easygoing; had none of the push and self-assertiveness that get people ahead in business. She had come to Lincoln, a country ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... fascinating," declared Ruth, "and I'd like to learn, but I know I should tie all those threads in a tight ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... the forehead of a virtuous love to plant a blister there!' What chance is there of the success of real passion? What certainty of its continuance? Seeing all this as I do, and unravelling the web of human life into its various threads of meanness, spite, cowardice, want of feeling, and want of understanding, of indifference towards others and ignorance of ourselves—seeing custom prevail over all excellence, itself giving way to infamy—mistaken as I have ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... blended; while the mental world through which the hero moves, is in its way, as restless and as crowded as the material. It may save time and trouble to readers of the poem to know something of its historical foundation and poetic motive, before making any great effort to disentangle its various threads; but it will always be best to read it once without this key: since the story, involved as it is, has a sustained dramatic interest which is destroyed by ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... side of the far Pyrenees. Sometimes he knew that it drew him and mostly he knew it not; yet always that curved balcony brought him nearer, ever since he turned from the field of the false Don Alvidar: the balcony held him with invisible threads, such as those with which Earth draws in the birds at evening. And there was ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... power to stir the stagnant souls of thousands and guide them with a word. She looked in feature as in form a queen; fitted to be beloved, formed to be obeyed. Her heavy robe of dark brocade, wrought with thick threads of gold, seemed well suited to her majestic form; its long, loose folds detracting naught from the graceful ease of her carriage. Her thick, glossy hair, vying in its rich blackness with the raven's wing, was laid in smooth bands upon her stately ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... cannot describe that hall. The place was enormous, larger than any building you have ever seen—and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, stems and threads of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains, streamed like an Aurora across the roof and interlaced, like—like conjuring tricks. All about the great circle for the dancers there were beautiful figures, strange dragons, and intricate and wonderful grotesques ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... was bare and the shiftless one saw far. It was a splendid rolling country, covered with forests of oak and elm, beech, hickory and maple. Here and there faint threads of silver showed where rivers or brooks flowed, and he drew a long deep breath. The measure of line and verse he knew not, but deep in his being Nature had kindled the true fire of poetry, and now his pleasure was so keen and sharp that a throb of emotion stirred ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... uso, di bianco, e con chiome sparse giu per le spalle, conteste con fila d'oro." "Dressed according to ancient usage in white, and with her hair thrown down upon her shoulders, interwoven with threads of gold." This was when she was first brought out of her chamber to be seen by the guests invited to the espousals. "And when the form of the espousal has been gone through, she is led, to the sound of pipes and trumpets, and other ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... would be difficult to make one of these little vessels water-tight. But that is not the only thing for which the epinette is valued in canoe-building; far from it. This tree produces another indispensable material; its long fibrous roots when split, form the twine-like threads by which the pieces of bark are sewed to each other and fastened to the timbers. These threads are as strong as the best cords of hemp, and are known among the Indians ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... was manned entirely, save for the captain, executive officer, navigator, paymaster, and the marine guard, by members of the New York State Naval Militia. For four months she remained in commission, weaving the threads of a glorious record which will ever redound to the credit and honor of the Volunteer Naval Reserve. Truth is ever stranger than fiction, and the simple story of the boys of the gallant "Yankee," as set forth in the diary of Number Five ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... that evening nor for many evenings, but Carnac and Junia met the next day in her own house. He came on her as she was arranging the table for midday dinner. She had taken up again the threads of housekeeping, cheering her father, helping the old French- woman cook—a huge creature who moved like a small mountain, and was a tyrant in her way to the old cheerful avocat, whose life had been a struggle for existence, yet whose one daughter had married a rich lumberman, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and, sinking upon his knees, began leisurely to sever the threads that held the roses to the leather. As he worked, he looked neither at the roses nor at my lord's angry face, but beneath his own bent arm toward the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... these terrible beasts forbade any excursion. Strict watch was kept over the neighborhood of Victoria Bay. The lighthouse was dismantled; it was of no real use, and might attract the attention of the animals; the lantern and the electric threads were carried to the house; then they took turns in watching the ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... the Night. Philip's Decision. Brother and Sister. The Storm Gathering. Cross instead of Crown. Marcella's Legacy. Life Among the Dead. Crown instead of Cross. The Price of Blood. Freedom in Chains. "Until the Morning." Gathered Threads. &c. &c. ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... are cherries ripe for my Corydon; Eat them for my sake. Cor. Here 's my oaten pipe, my lovely one, Sport for thee to make. Phyl. Here are threads, my true love, fine as silk, To knit thee, to knit thee, A pair of stockings white as milk. Cor. Here are reeds, my true love, fine and neat, To make thee, to make thee, A bonnet to ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... and, to Varrick's consternation, a week passed without his hearing one word from little Jessie Bain, and he never knew until then, how deep a hold the girl had on the threads that were ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... pockets, pipe in mouth, and blue bonnet cast carelessly on the head: it was almost a single family, bound together by a network of intermarriages, so intricate as to render it impossible for any one who did not belong to the community to follow the threads or read the design ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... make true whatever I will?" Does not the world do so? Anybody can do it by reasoning. Take an utter falsity and bid a clever man confirm it, and he will. Tell him, for instance, to show that man is a beast, or that the soul is like a small spider in its web and governs the body as that does by threads, or tell him that religion is nothing but a restraining bond, and he will prove any one of these propositions until it appears to be truth. What is more easily done? For he does not know what appearance is or what falsity is which in blind ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... minutes, but at the meeting with an old woman who in the late dusk passed him unheeded on the road, he stopped again, and after standing awhile looking down upon the dust, trying to gather up the tangled threads of his thoughts, he once more ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... the mistress of this fairy resting-place, as she sits in the softened light of this golden winter evening, with the trickling golden currents and the quivering firelight playing on her dress, and the last rays of the sunshine melting into golden threads in her hair? How can I picture the look of girlish innocence on her face, the artless grace of her manner, her delicate feminine ways, and the dainty arrangement of her toilet? How can I tell of the irresistible charm that pervades every article about her, from the little French boot resting ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... took off his hat, so as to let the moist spring breeze play round his temples and in the thin locks where the silvery threads had lately grown more perceptible, and gazed upon the dewy grass, the tiny woodbine leaf, the silver "pussycats" on the withy, and the tasselled catkin of the hazel, with the eyes of a man to whom such sights were a refreshment—a sort of holiday—after ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this series full-faced figures (granite-gray) similar in character to those made use of in former experiments, were employed. The objects were suspended by black silk threads, but while one of them remained stationary during the exposure the other was lowered through a distance of six and one half centimeters and was then drawn up again. The object moved was first that on the right hand, then that on the left. As the two objects ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... his quest, and Blaine settled down to an hour's deep reflection. He held the threads of the major conspiracy in his hands, but as yet he could not connect them, at least in any tangible way to present at a court of so-called justice, where everyone, from the judge to the policeman at the door could, and inevitably would, be bought over, in advance, to the side of the criminals. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... some loose threads of the daughter's hair through her slender fingers, but said little more, and presently fell into a deep slumber. Florida gently lifted her head away, and remained kneeling before the sofa, looking into the sleeping face ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... the soul of the child in its morning freshness, free from pressure or conscience of earthly care, rose like an illuminated mist to heaven, the words the white-haired woman repeated were twined with threads of worldly prudence,—thoughts of how many oranges she had sold, with a rough guess at the probable amount for the day,—and her fingers wandered from her beads a moment to see if the last coin had been swept from the stand into her capacious pocket, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... found too illegible to allow of its being copied; and over the tomb was spread a pall of silk, striped in red, green, and white, but much faded. Against a pillar, which supports the roof, were hung rows of coloured rags and threads of yarn, with snail-shells and sea-shells strung among them by way of further ornament. A wooden bowl, at one end of the tomb, was probably intended to receive alms for the support of the devotee who claims the place, and who practises the ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... if needed in the regiment of their Canton,—a thousand children met this young King at a turn of his road; and with shrill unison of wail, sang out: "Oh, deliver us from slavery,"—from the red threads, your Majesty. Why should poor we be liable to suffer hardship for our Country or otherwise, your Majesty! Can no one else be got to do it? sang out the thousand children. And his Majesty assented on ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... side of a mountain and flings a shadow on the other. The length of this shadow is easily found by means of a telescope, whose object glass is provided with a micrometer. This consists simply of two parallel spider threads, one of which is stationary and the other movable. The Moon's real diameter being known and occupying a certain space on the object glass, the exact space occupied by the shadow can be easily ascertained by means of the movable thread. This space, ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... fact that in all branches of life, in government as well as in philosophy, in science as in social reform, in religion and in international politics, men are now striving with determination to bind the threads together. ...
— Progress and History • Various
... glorious with its wealth of pearls. Amid that sea like pale clouds spread The white Mount Rishabh(678) rears his head. About the mountain's glorious waist Woods redolent of bloom are braced. A lake where lotuses unfold Their silver buds with threads of gold, Sudarsan ever bright and fair Where white swans sport, lies gleaming there, The wandering Kinnar's(679) dear resort, Where heavenly nymphs and Yakshas(680) sport. On! leave the Milky Sea behind: ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... evil of her neighbors, maintaining, indeed, that to be spoken of at all was proof sufficient of undesirable conduct; but she would never investigate a charge, preferring rather to accept it in its vile integrity than to soil her hands by attempting to unweave its dirty threads; hence she would be pitiless, repellent, but she would never make herself the focus of gossip. She was a human being if you will, a Christian in creed and name assuredly; but beyond and above all things she was a well-mannered, well-conducted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... needle, threaded it, knotting the thread over her fingers. Then she smoothed the baby garment across her knees, and bending, bit off the thread and drew the smaller needle from where it rested in the hem. When she had brushed away the stray threads and bits of lace, she laid it again over her knees caressingly. Then she slipped the threaded needle from her corsage and passed it through a button, but as the button spun down the thread, her hand faltered, the thread snapped, and the button ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers |
