"Trimming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conviction settled by long residence in the interior. I have come to understand the unspeakable loveliness of a solitary spray of blossoms arranged as only a Japanese expert knows how to arrange it—not by simply poking the spray into a vase, but by perhaps one whole hour's labour of trimming and posing and daintiest manipulation—and therefore I cannot think now of what we Occidentals call a 'bouquet' as anything but a vulgar murdering of flowers, an outrage upon the colour-sense, a brutality, an abomination. Somewhat in the same way, and for similar reasons, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... thirty inches wide, with so and so many threads to the warp—according to the specifications. But what soldier will ever think of counting the threads in his blouse, or know whether it was cut from goods thirty inches wide or twenty-eight? So, you see, with a little trimming here and a little paring there we can make a good hundred thousand florins out of ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... trees that had been grafted had three different kinds of fruit on them, and others had three kinds of apples on them besides the pears. This grafting I did myself, and the trees were considered very fine by Boss. Another part of my work was the trimming of the hedge and the ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... many ways of thinning and pruning and trimming her forests,—lightning-strokes, heavy snow, and storm-winds to shatter and blow down whole trees here and there or break off branches as required. The results of these methods I have observed in ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... employed by a great man, becomes a most dastardly "schema mundi" when taken up by a school of little men. Therefore the only help which we can hope for from the Peelites is that they will serve as ballast and cooling pump to both parties, but their very trimming and moderation make them fearfully likely to obtain power. It depends on the wisdom of the present government, whether they ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... tailor. It must be made of a dull-faced worsted, either black or night blue, on no account of broadcloth. Aside from satin facing and collar, which can have lapels or be cut shawl-shaped, and wide braid on the trousers, it must have no trimming whatever. Avoid satin or velvet cuffs, moire neck ribbons and fancy coat buttons as you would ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... a German now," he muttered to himself. "But he's English, and, although he's a traitor, he'll probably give Frank a trimming." ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... I should like it very much, and accordingly, when the trimming operations were concluded and I had secured a wisp of Mr. Towler's hair for subsequent examination, we ascended to the second floor front and he demonstrated the ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... coats made with innumerable fancy buttons or tabs as decoration. These only add to the weight which no one would want to carry, and also look out of place. So does fur trimming. Ski-ing clothes cannot be too simple. Elaboration is easily obtained by ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... the water, with a dozen of her crew scrubbing her lean sides till the green-coated copper came flashing out in the sunlight like burnished gold. With her slanting masts lashed to the jetty, carpenters were engaged reducing the length of the fore-mast, and trimming out a spar for a new bowsprit. The long gun, with its carriage, lay near, and artisans were at work at a temporary forge, hammering out bolts and straps to replace those which were weakened by long service. On the shore, too, were a score or more of the piratical ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... vain-glory, and how they can delude: Their foolishness, their jangling not mew'd: Their lecherous lust and vileness therefore: Witchcrafts and charms to make men to their lore: Their embalming[36] and their unshamefacedness: Their bawdry, their subtlety, and fresh attiring! What trimming, what painting, to make fairness! Their false intents and flickering smiling: Therefore lo! it is an old saying That women be the devil's nets, and head of sin; And man's misery in Paradise did begin— CAL. But ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... regularity of a third day's rain, when trimming and shuffling are over, and the weather has settled down to do its worst. There were no variations of rhythm, no lyrical ups and downs: the grey lines streaking the panes were as dense and uniform as ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... her, and when she was placed on the garden seat with a cushion at her back, she looked away at the back of the houses in the next street. She was dressed in black, it was true, but even Darnell could see that her gown was old and shabby, that the fur trimming of her cape and the fur boa which was twisted about her neck were dingy and disconsolate, and had all the melancholy air which fur wears when it is seen in a second-hand clothes-shop in a back street. And ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... be prying—only I wish you big boys would hang some for the little girls—it would please them to death. If you don't mind my having a part in this. I'd like to put in a little money, too. Let me put in another quarter and I'll do the trimming and you boys can repay me by hanging a basket to each of the little girls as well as to ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... examined the wooden flooring, and soon discovered a trap, which, when raised by the ring attached, exposed to view a steep and narrow descending staircase, leading apparently to some sally-port beyond the castle ditch. After carefully trimming his lamp, he was about to lead the way into this dark abyss, when a sound, sharp and sudden, as of something falling in the adjacent prison, caught his ear. Retracing his steps, he re-entered the apartment, where, after a brief search, he found beneath one of the embrasures ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... that they had got lanterns in their hands, some of which gave a great deal of light. Those which were carried along the narrow path shot out bright rays on all sides, until towards the end they quite blazed with light. I could see, too, that these travellers had some way of trimming and dressing their lamps; and that much of their light seemed to come from an open book which they carried in their hands, from the leaves of which there flashed out continually streams of light, which made their lamps burn so brightly ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... harmonies of contrast the side-walls, the furniture woodwork, wood trimming, cove, ceiling and the curtains ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford
... no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together, or why intellectual impartiality should be confounded with political trimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered be a cause not partisan. Yet the work of Reconstruction, if admitted to be feasible at all, demands little but common sense and Christian charity. Little ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... or such like place, Where here the curious cutting of a hedge: There, by a pond, the trimming of the sedge: Here the fine setting of well-shading trees: The walks there mounting up by small degrees, The gravel and the green so equal lie, It, with the rest, draws on your ling'ring eye: Here the sweet smells that ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went. Half a dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... Mattie, the cook," she said as she came near him and went to trimming the rose bush again. "She understands. Her little boy is going to bring you something ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... they blush to hear it said, The praetor broke the consul's head! Or consul in his purple gown, Came up and knock'd the praetor down! Come, courtiers: every man his stick! Lord treasurer,[3] for once be quick: And that they may the closer cling, Take your blue ribbon for a string. Come, trimming Harcourt,[4] bring your mace; And squeeze it in, or quit your place: Dispatch, or else that rascal Northey[5] Will undertake to do it for thee: And be assured, the court will find him Prepared to leap o'er sticks, or bind them. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... taut that a sailor's eye would be captivated. She bends her little turbaned head to the blast, and her foot strikes the pavement with a decision that suggests a naturally brave, resolute nature, and gives abundant proof of vigor and health. A trimming of silver fox fur caught and contrasted the snow crystals against the black velvet of her dress, in which the flakes catch and mingle, increasing the sense of lightness and airiness which her movements awaken, and ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... Margaret went, and proceeded to trim it. The virgins that arose must have looked very lovely, trimming their lamps. It is a deed very fair and womanly — the best for a woman — to make the lamp burn. The light shone up in her face, and the hands removing the globe handled it delicately. He saw that the good hands were very beautiful hands; not small, but admirably ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... telegrapher and the cigar-maker and his canaries for companionship. I remember I took a melancholy pleasure in hanging a May-basket for Nina Harling that spring. I bought the flowers from an old German woman who always had more window plants than any one else, and spent an afternoon trimming a little work-basket. When dusk came on, and the new moon hung in the sky, I went quietly to the Harlings' front door with my offering, rang the bell, and then ran away as was the custom. Through the willow hedge ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... allowed her cloak, whose fur trimming was well-worn, to slip from her shoulders, exposing her form to the waist; she trembled slightly in her tight-fitting dress, and golden tints played on her bare neck, which was almost hidden under the waves of ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... dwelling. Here, in a few moments, the litter was deposited; the bearers were then dismissed and the female only was left, with its tenant and the rude attendant, who had not hesitated to give them so frank a reception. The latter busied himself in trimming the lights, and in replenishing a bright wood fire; taking care, at the same time, that no unnecessary vacuum should occur in the discourse, to render the brief interval, necessary for the appearance of his superiors, tedious. During this state of things an inner door was ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... you could have seen her when she was dressed and all ready to go. She had on a long, white satin dress, low neck and short sleeves, with little trimming and no jewelry. And she looked so tall and beautiful, and so something I didn't have a name for, that I was afraid, and my heart beat so thick and fast ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher
... fortunate for him and for the Holy See that the basis of his character was caution combined with tough tenacity of purpose, capacity for dilatory action, diplomatic shiftiness and a political versatility that can best be described by the word trimming. These qualities enabled him to pass with safety through perils that might have ruined a bolder, a hastier, or a franker Pope, and to achieve the object of his heart's desire, where stronger men had failed, in the foundation of a ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... of thick white paper, about the size of commercial note, so that when opened they will be heart-shaped. Dip them in melted butter and set aside. After trimming all the fat from lamb or mutton chops, season them with pepper and salt. Put three table-spoonfuls of butter in the frying pan, and when melted, lay in the chops, and cook slowly for fifteen minutes. Add one teaspoonful of finely-chopped parsley, one teaspoonful ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... exhibit, which included plain sewing, dress-making, hat-trimming, and fancy work of all kinds, was sent by the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn. The useful sewing from that school was above the standard of excellence, and the art work fully equal to that of the New York ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1. No. 23, April 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... have a white double-breasted waistcoat, high chemisette of lace, and collar of English embroidery; cap of silk stuff, forming a calotte, trimmed with lace of Alencon point; and ribbon for the wrist. At the top of the first trimming is fastened a slight silk fringe under several bunches of silk or velvet ribbon. For indoors, and for dress parties, the lace lappets are replaced by ribbon like the bunches. A little ribbon ornament is used round the gloves, fastened by a gold chain; and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... dining-room, leaving the Very Young Man and Aura sitting alone by the fire. For some time they sat silent, listening to the laughter of the others trimming the tree. ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... parlor below kept wishing her visitors would go, for she had never seen the wicks in the camphene lamps of so surprising a length. They flooded the whole room with light, and she recollected Jenny Andrews had asked the privilege of trimming them after they were last used. She dared not rise and pick them down, for such narrow-souled persons as she are always fearful that the truth will be known and their littleness exposed; so she sat in a perfect ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... completing a most graceful and effective rig, and spreading a vast amount of canvas for a vessel of her moderate tonnage. It was quite impossible to take one's eyes off the two vessels. It was a race for life with the slaver, whose people worked with good effect at the sweeps and in trimming their sails to make the most out of the light but favorable wind that was filling them. The larger vessel would have made better headway in a stiff breeze or half a gale of wind, but the present moderate breeze favored the guilty little brigantine, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... "Busy trimming her overskirt with flowers. You know Mrs. Tarrant gives her ball to-night, and Miss Olga says she has saved herself, rested all day, to be fresh for it. Lou-Lou has just come to dress her hair. What a pity you can't go too, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... litters, and others that could scarce set one foot before the other crawled painfully along the road. Many of these were slain by the Turks, but not the less did the rest brave the dangers of the journey. And in the camp there was a great furbishing of arms and armour, and trimming of the plumes of helmets, for it was counted an unseemly thing that any man should enter such a place as the Holy City save ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... quarter-masters and six foremast men capable of working; so that without the assistance of the officers, servants, and boys, it might have proved impossible for us to have reached the island after we had got sight of it; and even with this assistance they were two hours in trimming the sails. To so wretched a condition was a 60-gun ship reduced, which had passed Straits le Maire but three months before, with between four hundred and five hundred men, almost all of them in ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... desirable in any yard. From the pictures, it will be noted that the site is unfortunate being restricted by two garages, an alley, and with numerous overhead utility wires. Some effort was made two years ago to keep the tree out of the wires by cutting back top growth. The trimming stimulated the usual vigorous, annual growth to produce terminals as great as 10 feet in one year. Ordinarily, annual growths of 6 feet of husky wood are not unusual. New wood and buds are hardy in appearance and assume a rich brown color upon maturing. With such growth, cutting ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... with her toilet; she did not wish to startle, but to attract—and the two things were very different. Her dress looked brilliant, being of a silvery texture; the trimming was composed of small fern-leaves; a parure of fine diamonds crowned ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... to my taste. It was a delicate white spring bonnet, with a neat trimming, and pleased ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... evaporation. The steam contains the aroma or fine volatile oil and essentials which pass into the air. In a fairly large family little meat need be purchased for the stock pot if the housewife insists that all portions of bone and trimming be sent with the purchased meat. The French women look with horror on the American women leaving all the scrap and ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... this—all the extra work that occupies me so much, we must do without; you shall be content with clean white linen, and Isabel's frocks and things must go with less trimming—she is pretty enough without them, you know—then I can take in sewing, and earn enough to pay for what the poor little thing will eat. Perhaps she knows how to sew a little; at any rate, she and Isabel will be handy about the house, and give me ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... the supposition that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... seemed to hold the darkness of night above, the head of a column of the foot soldiers making a steady advance, looking as if they were wearing a fresh form of decoration, every man's helmet plume being increased in size by a trimming of the purest, whitest swans-down or filmy, ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... in major markets and the hiking of interest rates by the Central Bank to combat inflationary pressures. New president DA SILVA, who took office 1 January 2003, has given priority to reforming the complex tax code, trimming the overblown civil service pension system, and continuing the fight ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... nothing in earth or heaven to respect my curses or weeping. In the midst of it a man who had been trimming the opposite hedge appeared and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... now, Mrs. Fairfax. I was going to say something about the black trimming you recommended. I really think red would suit me better, but, never mind, I will call again as I saw the Doctor come in. He is ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... had great laced cuffs that turned up as high as the elbow, showing the ruffled wristbands of the shirt beneath; the waistcoat below—in the new fashion—was so hung as to come down to my knees; and both coat and waistcoat had buttons all the way down the front, with silver trimming. My stockings—for the brodequins were out of fashion again now—were of a darker blue, and my shoes of strong leather, with a great rosette upon each, for buckles were not usual at this time. Then my cravat was of Flanders lace; and my Cousin Dorothy ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... some notions like those. She used to say—quality was the thing, and was never satisfied till she got the best lawn, soft as silk, but she never had much trimming on them. Cut plain and full, was almost always her directions. Well, now—yes, I guess you'll have to wait till you go to Paree before you replenish that side of your wardrobe. Is your Mr. Hawtree free ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... length he came to an open glade by a small stream. It impressed him how regularly the trees grew about this glade. They seemed trimmed up just so high, like a hedge. After a moment's thought, he discovered the reason. The trimming was done by the cattle, and the length of their stretched necks determined the height of the trimming. A gardener with clippers could not have made a neater ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... in the wine merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs: slowly, too: trimming his candle ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... of the ash and other trees. The hunters and trappers in America formerly killed vast numbers for their skins, which were in great demand, as they were used in making hats, but as the only use they are now put to is for trimming, and for men's gloves and collars, the demand has ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... the woodcutters was followed immediately by three others, who lost no time in getting down to work. One of them went to help the leader, while the other two devoted themselves to trimming and cutting up the branches of the big birch which they had felled the night before. The Boy wondered where the rest of the pond-people were, and would have liked to consult Jabe about it; but he remembered the keenness of the beaver's ears, and held his tongue securely. ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Totality, the misery of being there no longer! Ah! I would like to set out to-morrow and search all through the world for the most adamantine processes of embalming. They, too, were the little people of History, learning to read, trimming their nails, lighting the dirty lamp every evening, in love, gluttonous, vain, fond of compliments, handshakes, and kisses, living on bell-town gossip, saying, 'What sort of weather shall we have to-morrow? Winter has really come.... We have had ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the order and then hastened into the hall where Mrs. Gaddesden was busy trimming a hat. The Squire's eldest daughter sprang up at sight ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... same day I paid to Salai 3 gold ducats which he said he wanted for a pair of rose-coloured hose with their trimming; and there remain 9 ducats due to him—excepting that he owes me 20 ducats, that is 17 I lent him at Milan, and ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... yielded, produced. 3. Off'spring, descendants, however remote, from, the stock. 4. Pli'a-ble, easily bent. 7. Trans-lu'cent, permitting the passage of light. 8. Prun'-ing, trimming. ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Christmas all are busy trimming up their homes and preparing for the great day. Usually the mother of the household trims the tree, not admitting any other member of the curious and expectant family into the room. Tables are provided for holding the gifts, as every one in the family is ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... and strong. When black thoughts visited her she grew angry and wished she were a man and could fight someone with her fists. She worked in the millinery shop kept by Mrs. Nate McHugh and during the day sat trimming hats by a window at the rear of the store. She was the daughter of Henry Carpenter, bookkeeper in the First National Bank of Winesburg, Ohio, and lived with him in a gloomy old house far out at the end ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... resilient chamois, which can be readily converted to any desired shape, with or without extra stiffening. Its adaptability and the patent sound-proof ear-flaps make it particularly suitable for travellers. Detachable edelweiss and leek trimming. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... though she was strong enough to get through her work without more than occasional suffering: if she could only have left pitying herself and let God love her she would have got on well enough. Hester, who had her own share of the same kind of fault, was rather moodily trimming her mother's bonnet with a new ribbon, glancing up from which she at once perceived that something in particular must have exceeded in wrongness the general wrongness of things in the poor little gnome's world. Her appearance was usually that of one with a headache; her expression ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Brighton, Sussex, milliners.—C. Weatherley and H. O'Neil, Wilkes street, Spitalfields, and Ferdinand street, Camden town, fancy trimming manufacturers.—H.I. Isaacs and D. Israel, Duke street, Aldgate, City, poulterers.—J. Davis and A. Mottram, Warrington, Lancashire, timber merchants,—M. Fortier and Emile and Anna Levilly, Bruton street, Berkeley square, milliners.—T. and G. Stevenson, ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... know about heat, or care, or trouble?" she said scornfully, thinking over all the weight of her eighteen years of life; she hated it, this life of hers, just hated it—the sweeping, dusting, making beds, trimming lamps, working from morning till night; no time for reading, or study, or pleasure. Sadie had said she was cross, and Sadie had told the truth; she was cross most of the time, fretted with her ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... head-dresses as would set them off to the greatest advantage. All this was new vexation to poor Cinderella, for it was she who ironed and plaited her sisters' linen. They talked of nothing but how they should be dressed: "I," said the eldest, "will wear my scarlet velvet with French trimming." "And I," said the youngest, "shall wear the same petticoat I had made for the last ball. But then, to make amends for that, I shall put on my gold muslin train, and wear my diamonds in my hair; with these I must certainly look well." They sent several miles for the best hair dresser ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... preventer-stays, preventer-braces, slings for yards and gaffs, relieving-tackles, and other articles in his division which are directed, are all fitted and ready for use in action. At general quarters his division must be regularly drilled in fishing masts and spars, stoppering and knotting rigging, and trimming sails. ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... if I'd kind of miss all the fuss in the store around Christmas," he said,—"the extra rush and the trimming up ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... the street until her blue dress, with its white trimming became a blur in the shadows. Then he struck out once more for the ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... flute or the lyre," no free imitation by the human voice of bestial or mechanical sounds, no such artists as are "like a mirror turning all about." There were vulgarities of nature, you see, in the youth of ideal Athens even. Time, of course, as such, is itself a kind of artist, trimming pleasantly for us what survives of the rude world of the past. Now Plato's method would promote or anticipate the work of time in that matter of vulgarities of taste. Yes, when you read his precautionary ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... Mr. Meredith," said Sir John to the butler, who was trimming the library lamp while the footman received his instructions. "Do not bring coffee ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... to him. All day he had stayed in bed for the privilege of an extra hour propped up among pillows in the salon. All day he had strung little red berries that looked like cranberries for the tree, or fastened threads to the tiny cakes that were for trimming only, and ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it to be the "blood" of the bombax, which is also used for caulking. They gather it in the forest, especially during the dries, collect it in hollow bamboos, and prepare it by heating in the neptune, or brass pan. The odour is pleasant, but fragments of falling fire endanger the hut, and trimming must be repeated every ten minutes. The sexes are not separated; as throughout intertropical Africa, the men are fond of idling at their clubs; and the women, who must fetch water and cook, clean the hut, and nurse the ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... no more than two quarter-masters and six foremast men capable of working; so that, without the assistance of the officers, servants, and boys, it might have been impossible for us to have reached the island after we got sight of it; and even with their assistance, we were two hours in trimming the sails; to so wretched a condition were we reduced, in a sixty-gun ship, which had passed the Straits of Le Maire only three months before with between four and five hundred men, most of them then ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... pleasant to mention in fastidious society. She could be trusted to the last, not to outrage those friends who quoted her as an exemplar of propriety. She died very unobtrusively of an affection of the heart, one June morning, while trimming her rose trellis, and her lavender-colored print was not even rumpled when she fell, nor were more than the tips of her little ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... were making a gabion. One was putting in the watling, another keeping it firmly down, while I was preparing it. I had had some instruction on a previous day as to how it should be made, but the two others had not. When they had put in the watling to within the proper distance of the top they began trimming off the twigs and butt ends of the withes. I happened to turn toward the gabion and observed what they were doing. In a tone of voice, and with a familiarity that surprised my own self, I exclaimed, "Oh, don't do that. Don't you see if you cut those off before sewing, the whole ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... companions, lest their fears should be too powerful to suffer their remaining with him. The assassins extinguished their own fires, but did not lie down to sleep: Robinson kept his burning brightly, that he might watch their movement. They were earnestly chattering, and were trimming their weapons, while one of their number insisted upon the cruelty of killing the white man! On Robinson's rising, the whole seized their spears—one grasped in their right hand, and a bundle in their left. The dogs of Robinson's party had ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... employer is at the mercy of the workman. Tonsard owned his plot of ground to the generosity of Mademoiselle Laguerre. In his early youth he had worked by the day for the gardener at Les Aigues; and he really had not his equal in trimming the shrubbery-trees, the hedges, the horn-beams, and the horse-chestnuts. His very name shows hereditary talent. In remote country-places privileges exist which are obtained and preserved with as much ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... I hope we'll suit each other well; For now, thy vapors to dispel, I come, a squire of high degree, In scarlet coat, with golden trimming, A cloak in silken lustre swimming, A tall cock's-feather in my hat, A long, sharp sword for show or quarrel,— And I advise thee, brief and flat, To don the self-same gay apparel, That, from this den released, and free, Life be at last ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... mahl-lohn'gah The sleeves are | La manikoj ne estas | lah mahnee'koy neh not wide enough | suficxe largxaj | eh'stahss soofee'cheh | | lahr'jahy Make all these | Faru cxiujn cxi | fah'roo chee'ooyn chee alterations | sxangxojn | shahn'joyn What trimming | Per kio vi gxin | pehr kee'oh vee jeen would you put | garnus? | gahr'nooss? on? | | Pale pink ribbon | Pala rozkolora | pah'lah rohz-ko-loh'rah | rubando | roobahn'doh When can you let | Kiam vi povos doni | kee'ahm vee po'vohss me have it? | gxin al mi? | doh'nee jeen ...
— Esperanto Self-Taught with Phonetic Pronunciation • William W. Mann
... a rest was made, and again where some animal went out of the beaten path. Bits of the Indians' finery, too, were noted every once in a while—a bit of gaudy bead trimming, a discarded ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... was wandering about the house and pounds like an evil spirit seeking rest and finding none. He stood for some time gloomily watching the four gardeners, who were busily at work laying strips of turf, mowing the lawn, rolling the gravel paths and trimming the trees and bushes. The boy Bert, Philpot, Harlow, Easton and Sawkins were loading a hand-cart with ladders and empty paint-pots to return to the yard. Just as they were setting out, Misery stopped them, remarking that the cart was not half loaded—he said it ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... his deep-dyed, russet cheek upon his hand. "Two summers have gone by since my chin has been reaped. I was in Coquimbo then, on the Spanish Main; and when the husband-man was sowing his Autumnal grain on the Vega, I started this blessed beard; and when the vine-dressers were trimming their vines in the vineyards, I first trimmed it to the sound of a flute. Ah! barber, have you no heart? This beard has been caressed by the snow-white hand of the lovely Tomasita of Tombez—the Castilian belle of all lower Peru. Think of that, barber! I have worn it as an ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... to ye!" a woodman said, Who the low hedge was trimming with his shears. "This hour is fine"—the Poet bowed his head. "More fine," he thought, "O friend! to me appears The sunset than to you; finer the spread Of orange lustre through these azure spheres, Where little clouds lie still, like flocks ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... finished trimming the aspen sticks; and by the fading light of day and the red light of the fire they set to work to mend the broken leg. Between them they knew something of surgery: she by recollecting all that she had seen in her father's office, where she had more than once helped Doctor Gaylord with his ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... again with the roar of a cataract. He changed theme with the relish of one who rambles at will, and the emotion of every opinion was written on the big expanse of his features and enforced with gestures. He talked of George Washington, of Andrea del Sarto, of melon-growing, trimming pepper-trees, the Divina Commedia, fighting rose-bugs, of Schopenhauer and of Florence—a great deal about Florence, a city that seemed to hang in his mind as a sort of Renaissance background for everything else, even ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... give way helplessly to temperament, or allow ourselves to drift wherever the mind bears us. Just as the skilled sailor can tack up against the wind, and use ingenuity to compel a contrary breeze to bring him to the haven of his desire, so we must be wise in trimming our sails to the force of circumstance; while there is an eager delight in making adverse conditions help us to realise ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that when we were in cantonments on the Vistula the marshal happened to send Dannel to Warsaw for provisions, and I commissioned him to get the trimming of black astrachan taken from my pelisse, and have it replaced by grey, this having recently been adopted by Prince Berthier's aides-de-camp, who set the fashion in the army. Up to now, I was the only one of Augereau's officers who had grey astrachan. ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... whipper-snapper," roared Jack Curtiss, "if you weren't such a shrimp I'd lick you for that remark, but you're all beneath my notice. All I want to say to you is keep away from my orchard or I'll give you a trimming." ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... cheerful thought more than a physical reality; while Peony expanded in breadth rather than height, and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs as substantial as an elephant, though not quite so big. Then the mother resumed her work. What it was I forget; but she was either trimming a silken bonnet for Violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little Peony's short legs. Again, however, and again, and yet other agains, she could not help turning her head to the window to see how the children got on with ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lovesomeness of her pretty ways! She is budding into a very rose of beauty! I bought her a ring with a shining stone in it, and a gold brooch, and a bonnie piece of white muslin with the lace for the trimming of it; and the joy of the little beauty set me laughing with delight. I would not call the Queen my cousin, ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... wanted her back again. It seemed to Paul his mother looked lonely, in her new black silk blouse with its bit of white trimming. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... burst into loud exclamations of pleasure and admiration. Then, when Wolf hastened out and with hurrying fingers opened the little package he had brought and gave her the costly fur which was to serve as trimming for the velvet jacket, she again laughed gleefully, and, ere Wolf was aware of it, she had thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the one man he wished to kill. He followed that impulse long enough to throw himself sidling along the floor, so as not to betray his real strategic position to those at the door, and he splashed two bullets into the wall, trimming ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... hailed us, but we wasted no breath in attempting to reply, fully aware that nothing we could say would allay the suspicion which had been aroused. Instead therefore of shouting back, and possibly attracting the attention of other craft, we devoted all our energies to trimming our canvas to the best advantage, and packing upon the cutter every ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... arrangement which gossip declared to be carried out to the fullest extent. As for the two women, Mesdames Charlotte de Brebian and Josephine de Bartas, or Lolotte and Fifine, as they were called, both took an equal interest in a scarf, or the trimming of a dress, or the reconciliation of several irreconcilable colors; both were eaten up with a desire to look like Parisiennes, and neglected their homes, where everything went wrong. But if they dressed like ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... indeed, to use a copper fireplace, that had been intended for sledge journeys, for heating, but only with the result that the observatory was like to have gone to pieces. We succeeded little better when we discovered farther on in the winter, while trimming the hold, a forgotten cask of bear's oil. We considered this find a clear indication that instead of a stove fired with wood we should, according to the custom of the Polar races, use oil-lamps to mitigate the severe cold which deprived our stay in Tintinyaranga of part of its pleasure. ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... sorrow-stricken heart is greatly relieved. "Surely, if this tower could be seen by night as well as by day, it would show the entrance to our sheltered bay," she said to herself. She possessed a large bright lamp; filling it with oil and trimming it carefully, she placed it in the window as the shades of evening closed over the then tranquil ocean. Night after night, without fail, she did the same, allowing no one, not even Margery, to share her task. By and ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... whole, but uneducated and boorish, having been brought up in poverty in his early youth. [Wherefore he had been disinclined to go on the campaign, and what Marcus said was incomprehensible to him.] Once some one had interrupted him in the midst of trimming a vine that wound about a tree, and when he did not come down at the first bidding, the person rebuked him, and said: "Come down there, prefect." This he said thinking to humiliate him for his previous haughtiness; yet later Fortune gave him ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... A lamp and trimming and the description of the children and the certain indigestion when the reason is not thrilling. So then the time comes when some one has ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... yet it represented the extreme of the mode in His Majesty's fair island of Jamaica. That it was a trifle too vivid in its colors, and too striking in its contrasts for the best taste at home, possibly might be condoned by the richness of the material used and the prodigality of trimming which decorated it. Silk and satin from the Orient, lace from Flanders, leather from Spain, with jewels from everywhere, marked him as a person entitled to some consideration, at least. Even more compulsory of attention, if not ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... so interesting. His nice clean clothes, new hat, new shoes, trimming on his shirt front, letters and cross-guns on his hat, new knife for all the fellows to borrow, nice comb for general use, nice little glass to shave by, good smoking tobacco, money in his pocket to lend out, oh, what a great convenience he was! ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy |
