"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... HAROLD). Answer them thou! Is this our marriage-banquet? Would the wines Of wedding had been dash'd into the cups Of victory, and our marriage and thy glory Been drunk together! these poor hands but sew, Spin, broider—would that they were man's to have held The ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... many miles o'er clay or cobble, I fear, before I'll have a real rest, The big wheel and the little shift and wobble, I think the low pneumatic Cycle's best. Eh? "Dangerous to Cyclists!" That's a notice, I fancy, that suggests a spin down-hill. How stiff I feel! How very parched my throat is! Hold up! By Jove, but that was ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... his chivalrous sense of what was due to a woman, the count ceased to talk politics, and as we bored him in our turn by commonplace matters, he presently left us to continue our walk, declaring that it made his head spin to go round and round on ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... and go al naked except some thing before their priuie parts, which is like a clout about a quarter of a yard long made of the barke of trees, and yet it is like a cloth: for the barke is of that nature, that it will spin small after the maner of linnen. [Sidenote: The Negroes race their skinnes.] Some of them also weare the like vpon their heades being painted with diuers colours, but the most part of them go bare headed, and their heads are clipped and shorne of diuers sorts, and the most part of them ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... It's no muckle that that comes till. I wadna spin sae weel gin it warna that the Almichty pat some sicht into the pints o' my fingers, 'cause there was nane left i' my een. An' gin ye mak ither thrippence a week oot o' that, ye'll be turnin' the wather that He sent to ca my mill into your ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... fibers of yucca leaves and the fibers of other plants, the hair of different quadrupeds, and the down of birds furnished in prehistoric days the materials of textile fabrics in this country. While some of the Pueblos still weave their native cotton to a slight extent, the Navajos grow no cotton and spin nothing but the wool of the domestic sheep, which animal is, of course, of Spanish introduction, and of which the ...
— Navajo weavers • Washington Matthews
... name of a town. The game is begun by one player taking up the plate, spinning it, calling out a number or town belonging to another, and hurrying back to his place. The one called has to spring up and reach the plate before it falls, and, giving it a fresh spin, call some one else. So it goes on. On paper there seems to be little in it, but in actual play the game is good on account of the difficulty of quite realizing that it is one's own borrowed name ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Amazonian Dames Contrive whereby to glorify their names. A ruff for Boston Neck of mud and turfe, Reaching from side to side, from surf to surf, Their nimble hands spin up like Christmas pyes, Their pastry by degrees on high doth rise ... The wheel at home counts in an holiday, Since while the mistress worketh it may play. A tribe of female hands, but manly hearts, Forsake at home their pastry crust and tarts, To kneed the dirt, the ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... was our old master and he sold my mother over in east Tennessee. Now of cose she wasn't put upon the block and sold. She was the house woman and spin and wove. After they sold her my father run off. Oh sure, they caught him and I know old mistress said, 'Now, Jacob, if you want to go where Lydia is, you can go.' So they sold ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... but hands, evidently cannot say, "I beg your pardon, miss." There were children, who always will go where they ought not to go, running against people, and taking hold of their clothes with sticky, smeared hands, asking commercial gentlemen to spin their tops, and corpulent ladies to play at hide and seek. I saw one stern-visaged gentleman tormented in this way till he looked ready to give the child its "final quietus." [Footnote: American juveniles are, generally speaking, completely destitute of ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... desire you. Fool: she makes you fight because you bring her the ornaments and the treasures of those you have slain, and because she is courted and propitiated with power and gold by the people who fear you. You say that I make a mere convenience of Adam: I who spin and keep the house, and bear and rear children, and am a woman and not a pet animal to please men and prey on them! What are you, you poor slave of a painted face and a bundle of skunk's fur? You were a man-child when I bore ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... stretching out his arm set the whole of them in motion, at the same time repeating "Um mani panee" in a dolorous voice to himself. Coming then to the large wheel with painted characters, he gave it an extra energetic spin, which sufficed to keep it in motion for several minutes, and having thus expended his energies for the time being, he again disappeared as he had come. One of the smaller wheels I found in a state of neglect and dilapidation ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... cried the Tinker. "Sly may he be, but sly am I, too. I would I had him here now, man to man!" And he made his heavy cudgel to spin again. "But what manner ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... mechanic all of a sudden. "That's a hot one, ain't it?" he grins at Sampson. "Sure, old top, we'll give you a spin!" he says, jabbin' the floor board with his feet. "That's if this boiler will roll. Some of you guys will have to give the motor a little spin, if you want to go away from here. She's gone cold on me again! ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... the sawdust. (But it ain't strong.) Once when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get the milkpot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch him by both his shoulders, and spin him out ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... very narrow escapes at first, but I have gradually learned to go about. There is a certain system to it, but it is one which a lost man, if he were in the dark, could not possibly find out. Even now I always spin out a ball of string behind me when I am going far into the catacomb. You can see for yourself that it is difficult, but every one of these passages divides and subdivides a dozen times before you go a hundred yards." ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fear there. Fear and dread. And there was puzzlement too. A puzzlement that made his brain spin. Joan had spoken with terror in her voice. Terror that had said somebody was going to kill. And Joan was not a girl to be easily frightened. And she had mentioned Gaddon's name. Gaddon, the man who had shot ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... Chateau-Renard's two supporters were both polite men of the world. They were as indifferent as Louis was to the choice of weapons, and by a spin of a coin it was decided that pistols were to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... start in the morning," said Alvarez. "It will not take us long to reach New Orleans by the river, and I can spin a tale that will lull the suspicions ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... kitchen to help to do all the work. Her name was Betsey Gould, and she was strong and willing; and Rachel and Dorcas each did her share, and so did even little Mary; but they could not do everything. The dear mother of all had to spin and weave, and bake and brew, and pray every hour in the day for strength and patience to do her whole duty by such ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... GRAPHIC.—"Mr. Bertram Mitford can always be depended upon to spin a rattling story, and in 'Averno' he has made no exception to his ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... so much "despised, and which are, indeed, but too often made the subject of wanton sport by many persons, who amuse their children by passing a pin through the bottom of their abdomen, in order to excite pain and long-suffering in the insect, and thus making them spin, as they ignorantly term it," has the following most humane and benevolent observations:—"Many of these cruel sports might undoubtedly be effectively checked, if the teachers of schools were occasionally to exhibit to their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... of silk. The spinning of Eri silk thread, and weaving it into cloths is, however, a fairly considerable industry amongst the Khyrwang and Nongtung villages of the Jaintia Hills. The Nongtungs and Khyrwangs rear their own Eri worms, and spin the silk from the cocoons. The late Mr. Stack, in his admirable note on silk in Assam, says, "Throughout the whole range of the southern hills, from the Mikir country, Eri thread is in great request for weaving those striped cloths, in which the mountaineers delight," but this ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... young one start up by miracle, and fly heavenward. Far otherwise! In that Fire-whirlwind, Creation and Destruction proceed together; ever as the ashes of the Old are blown about, do organic filaments of the New mysteriously spin themselves: and amid the rushing and the waving of the Whirlwind element come tones of a melodious Death-song, which end not but in tones of a more melodious Birth-song. Nay, look into the Fire-whirlwind with thy own eyes, and thou wilt see." Let us actually look, then: to poor individuals, who cannot ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... flax; it straightened out its fibres and made it as clear and straight as a girl's tresses. Out of the tow we twisted bag strings, flail strings, and other strings. With the worthless portions we made huge bonfires. The flax, Mother would mass upon her distaff and spin into threads. The last I saw of the old crackle, fifty or more years ago, it served as a hen roost under the shed, and the savage old hetchel was doing duty behind the old churner when he sulked and ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... the piety and devoutness which she displayed, and by her firm assurance in the truth of her mission. She told them that it was God's will that she should go to the King, and that no one but her could save the kingdom of France. She said that she herself would rather remain with her poor mother and spin; but the Lord ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to look after my—my Chancery interests before the long vacation," said Richard, forcing a careless laugh. "We are beginning to spin along with that old suit at last, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... possession.' Now, whatever right anybody may have to any property, if he be out of possession he is in a hobble; while he who happens to be in possession, let him be the biggest usurper in the world, may laugh at the other fellow, and spin the case out indefinitely. Now, here am I, for instance. Just fancy, the inheritance, the rich property, was almost in my hands; I hasten to the spot in order to enter into my rights, and I find that some one has been before me, and sits ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... kindly, and loving, what care I if at sixteen years of age she cannot paint the baptism of John upon velvet, does not know a word of that accursed French language, breaks down in the "forward and back" of a cotillon, and cannot with spider fingers spin upon the piano the swiftest Tarantelle of Chopin.— 2558 Metronome? We will find something better and braver than all that, my little Alice! Confound your Italianos!—the birds shall be the music-masters of my tiny dame. Moonrise, and sunset, and the autumnal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... On the other hand we were not ignorant that the labour and manufactures of Ireland, like those of the silkworm, were of little moment to herself, but served only to give luxury to those who neither toil nor spin. We perceived that if we continued our commerce with you, our agreement not to import from Britain must be fruitless. Compelled to behold thousands of our countrymen imprisoned; and men, women, and children in promiscuous and unmerited ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that underprop With daily virtues Heaven's top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning Caryatides. Those He approves that ply the trade, That rock the child, that wed the maid, That with weak virtues, weaker hands, Sow gladness on the peopled lands, And still with laughter, song, and shout Spin the great wheel of ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... Why, the fellers who rite geography never travel; they stay at home and spin their yarns 'bout things they never sees." Then, glancing at his poor butternut coat and pantaloons, he felt my blue woollen suit, and continued, in a slow, husky voice: "Stranger, them clothes cost something; they be store-clothes. That paper dug-out cost money, I tell ye; and it ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... put a foot behind his leg, gave him a sort of twirl, and laid him flat on his back. The fall caused the knife to spin into the air, and the poor Eskimo found himself at ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... talking for somebody else: it's gibberish to me. Don't bother; and help yourself to what you want. Money's what you want—though you won't own it. That's money. When it's gone, I can go back to California and get more. While it lasts, make it spin. What is there to stare at? I told you I'd be brothers with you, because of what you done for me the other night. Well: I'm being brothers with you now. Get your watch out of pawn, and shake a loose leg at the world. Will you take what you want? And when you have, just tie up the rest, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... were sorry to see the dawn of day, though they were no longer obliged to spin and weave, for the old woman was locked up in the kitchen, and could not interfere with them. That day they amused themselves by showing their guest all over the house, and all the treasure-chambers, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... remember scraps of it. It said at the outset that nobody really knew when people began to spin. Most likely they got the idea from pulling out fibers of cotton or wool long as they could make them with their fingers, and then twisting the stuff together into larger and longer threads. As they could do this better if they had the end ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... her bearings and missed the tiny platform in coming down. To save herself from an ignominious tumble almost to the footlights she hopped off the edge of her box, where she had been "teetering" helplessly, and did a brief but exceedingly graceful little "toe spin," hopping back into the box an instant later with all the agility of a scared rabbit. She expected "notice" from the stage manager for ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... is the character shown in plate LXIV, 52. As the right portion is the upper part of the symbol for chikin, "west" (see plate LXIV, 53), its phonetic value may be a derivative of kuch, kuchnahi, kuchah, "to spin, to draw out into threads." Henderson gives chuch as an equivalent. As the subfix in plate LXIV, 48, is the character I have usually interpreted by u, this would give us some of the elements of the name Kukulcan ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... with losing nothing by the war, without being at the expense of gaining any advantage from the enemy; to suffer his character to be very severely handled, provided he could amass much wealth, and to spin out the minority to the greatest ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... customary for peasant girls to keep for themselves all the yarn they spin on St. Andrew's Eve, and the Hausfrau gives them also some flax and a little money. With this they buy coffee and other refreshments for the lads who come to visit the parlours where in the long winter evenings the women sit spinning. These evenings, when many gather ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... party. Assist me, my muse. Come down from heaven, O, Calliope my queen! and aid me to spin with my pen a long discourse. Hark! do you hear? or does some fond delusion mock me? I seem to hear, and to be already wandering through those sacred recesses—the drawing-rooms, namely, at Littlebath—which are pervious only to the streams and breezes ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... out of that egg. You put an egg under a very stupid old hen, and all the hen does is to keep that egg warm, and leave it alone; after twenty days there comes out a chicken. How in the world did that chicken ever frame that body? How did it build the skeleton and string the muscles, and spin the nerves? If every nerve in that body did not make just the right connection, that chicken would be paralyzed. If you could watch the development of that chicken in the egg, your hair would stand on end. Isn't it Nature that makes those chickens? You and I can't make them. Nature puts ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... Wartrace Hall and the thirty-mile spin in a high-powered gentleman's roadster, which was only one of the three high-priced motor-carriages in the Wartrace garage, Evan Blount was not surprised to learn that his father was registered in permanence for one of the private ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... our daughter. The honest countryman, arriving in the city, there met an Englishman and a Belgian. The Belgian said to him, Give me your wine, and I in exchange, will give you fifteen bundles of thread. The Englishman said, Give it to me, and I will give you twenty bundles, for we English can spin cheaper than the Belgians. But a custom-house officer standing by, said to the laborer, My good fellow, make your exchange, if you choose, with the Belgian, but it is my duty to prevent your doing so with the Englishman. ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... a marvellous dragon for Rosemary, and she could never see too many for her pleasure. Above all things, she would have loved a spin on the back of such a dragon, and she liked choosing favourites ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... children will become beautiful by dancing in the flax. But many superstitions have clustered round the latter plant, it having in years gone by been a popular notion that it will only flower at the time of day on which it was originally sown. To spin on Saturday is said in Germany to bring ill fortune, and as a warning the following legend is among the household tales of the peasantry:—"Two old women, good friends, were the most industrious spinners in their village, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... glance of contempt—made safe by the darkness—at this partisan, and with the air of one who knows that he has an interesting yarn to spin, began at the beginning and worked slowly up for his effects. The expediency of brevity and point was then tersely pointed out to him by both listeners, the highly feminine trait of desiring the last page first ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... on darkness and night! She sat down to spin by the cheery fire-light, While before it, so cozy and warm, Slept the kitten,—a snowy white ball of content— And her wheel, with its humming activity, lent To ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... he said; "we may shove off now, Bill. You are to be captain, and take the helm, and I'll pull till we get out far enough to find a breeze. It seems to me, by the colour of the sea, that it's blowing in the offing, and we shall then spin merrily along." ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... justice. "The court is adjourned till after dinner. I hope the distinguished gentleman will be able to spin out his yarn before ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... hill beyond. Most of the houses accommodate several families, but each manages its own affairs. Tea, coffee, sugar, and other "groceries," are served out to all householders once a week. The young girls are taught to sew, knit, and spin, and to do the work of the household. The boys, when they leave school, are taught trades ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... that has any reference to the works of God, by which only his power and wisdom can be known, is related to have been spoken by Jesus Christ, as a remedy against distrustful care. "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin." This, however, is far inferior to the allusions in Job and in the 19th Psalm; but it is similar in idea, and the modesty of the imagery is correspondent to ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... your heavenly Father: Are ye not worth much more? Which of you can By taking thought add to his height one span? And why for raiment are ye taking thought? See how the lilies grow; they labour not, Nor do they spin; yet Solomon, I say, In all his pomp, had no such gay array. If in the field God so doth clothe the grass, Which is to-day, and doth to-morrow pass Into the oven, shall he not therefore O ye of little faith, clothe you much more? Take no thought therefore, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... place which one likes."[154] Whatever the reason, Leasing, in 1760, left Berlin for Breslau, where the post of secretary had been offered him under Frederick's tough old General Tauentzien. "I will spin myself in for a while like an ugly worm, that I may be able to come to light again as a brilliant winged creature," says his diary. Shortly after his leaving Berlin, he was chosen a member of the Academy ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... years old, and could knit, weave, and spin, and it was full time that wooers should come. "But that is the consequence of living in such an out-of-the-way place," said her mother; "who will risk his limbs to climb that neck-breaking rock? and the round-about way over the forest is rather too long for a wooer." Besides handling the loom ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... want a wife, and I'll marry your darter. But look you here," says he, "'leven months out o' the year she shall have all the vittles she likes to eat, and all the gownds she likes to git, and all the cumpny she likes to hev; but the last month o' the year she'll ha' to spin five skeins iv'ry day, an' if she ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... . . This morning we had one of those whizzing green Ballarat flies in the room, with his stunning buzz-saw noise—the swiftest creature in the world except the lightning-flash. It is a stupendous force that is stored up in that little body. If we had it in a ship in the same proportion, we could spin from Liverpool to New York in the space of an hour—the time it takes to eat luncheon. The New Zealand express train is called the Ballarat Fly . . . . Bad teeth in the colonies. A citizen told me they don't have teeth filled, but pull them out and put in false ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... use of this invention, to be able to spin any fibrous material which can be drawn by draught-rolls, of any required degree of softness of twist, such as can be spun by any mule whatever, and to do this with the attention only of children of from twelve to fourteen ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... and rest; but, from the looks of the people who stand on the piazza I am very certain that it is the wrong house and the wrong way. Here is another road. It is very beautiful and macadamized. The horses' hoofs clatter and ring, and they who ride over it spin along the highway, until suddenly they find that the road breaks over an embankment, and they try to halt, and they saw the bit in the mouth of the fiery steed, and cry "Ho! ho!" But it is too late, and—crash!—they go over the embankment. We shall turn, this morning, and ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... woman's clutches so tight before, Bigot," continued Cadet. "If you let La Pompadour suspect one hair of your head in this matter, she will spin a cart-rope out of it that will drag you ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... women lie like the very devil. You just go and talk with her a bit about her first fall. She'll spin you ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... have retired like caterpillars into cocoons of dress, expecting constantly the wondrous hour when they shall emerge from their self-woven prison in the garb of the angelic butterfly, having entered into the chrysalis state as mere human grubs. But though they both toil and spin at their garments, and vie with Solomon in his glory to outshine the lily of the field, the humanity of the grub shows no signs of developing either in character or appearance in the direction of ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... straight for a bagman," Shotover remarked. "Well, he gave us a rattling good spin whose-ever ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... people reached by the early missionaries in England we have this description, in a letter from Orson Hyde to his wife, dated September 14,1837:— "Those who have been baptized are mostly manufacturers and some other mechanics. They know how to do but little else than to spin and weave cloth, and make cambric, mull and lace; and what they would do in Kirtland or the city of Far West, I cannot say. They are extremely poor, most of them not having a change of clothes decent to ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... and spread yourselves out and rest! You hear me! Here—Jim, Tom, Pete, Jake, fly around! Take that team to my place—put the wagon in my lot—put the horses under the shed, and get out hay and oats and fill them up! Ain't any hay and oats? Well get some—have it charged to me—come, spin around, now! Now, Hawkins, the procession's ready; mark time, by the left ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... leaned back to appraise the effect of this startling proposition on me. At any other moment I should inevitably have broken loose again, but the fascination of his personality was upon me and I let him spin his webs. Any man, and there are scores adrift, who falls under the spell of Henry H. Rogers, invariably, as did the suitors of Circe, pays the penalty of his indiscretion. Some he uses and contemptuously casts aside useless; others he works, plays, and pensions; still others serve as jackals ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... brush down with a bang on the bureau, only to be disgusted with this show of temper which the persistent twinkle had not missed. Her next impulse, unanalyzed because it was one of the oldest and simplest of impulses, made her spin round and drop on her knees at her mother's feet, which was just what had happened when she had started to brave out ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... spinning red wool near me, and in the gardens, under the shade of almond-trees, our slaves are singing. Oh, what calm carissime, and what a forgetfulness of former fear and suffering! But it is not the Parcae as thou writest, who spin out our lives so agreeably; it is Christ who is blessing us, our beloved God and Saviour. We know tears and sorrow, for our religion teaches us to weep over the misfortunes of others; but in these tears is a consolation unknown to thee; for whenever ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... first drawing. "This is the barrel of the weapon, Master," he said. "As You commanded, it is rifled so that the missile will spin. Here the missile is inserted at the breech, according to Your direction. Here is the mechanism which turns and aims the weapon, as You commanded. It is shown in greater detail on this second sheet.... And here, ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... by her parents (as she told the judges at her trial) to be industrious, to sew and spin. She did not fear to match herself at spinning and sewing, she said, against any woman in Rouen. When very young, she sometimes went to the fields to watch the cattle. As she grew older, she worked in the house; she did not any longer watch sheep ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... into the low nook under the slanting roof but found nothing more exciting than a spider. "Huh, it's no fun hunting for robbers. Guess I'll spin ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... very elastic. Masters are regarded as common enemies; and it is never necessary to tell them the truth. Expediency is the golden rule in all relations with the common room. And after a very few weeks even Congreve would have had to own that the timid new boy could spin quite as broad a yarn as he. The parents do not realise this. It is just as well. It is a stage in the development of youth. Everyone must pass through it. Yet sometimes it leads to quite ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... garages born,—too many of them, as suffering drivers will testify. Casey Ryan, known wherever men of the open travel and spin their yarns, famous for his recklessly efficient driving of lurching stagecoaches in the old days, and for his soft heart and his happy-go-lucky ways; famous too as the man who invented ungodly predicaments from which he could extricate ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... wi' sic a Cyprian overture as that? What d'ye tak' me for? Mark Antony that lost the world for love (the mair fule he!)? or Don Jovanny that counted his concubines by hundreds, like the blessed Solomon himself? Awa' wi' ye to yer pots and pans; and bid the wandering Venus that sent ye go spin!" ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... it is the root of the bulrush." He who could with perfect ease spin a sentence a whole day long, seemed to be exhausted by the effort of pronouncing ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... Will not in church unto my wife incline, Or be so hardy to her to trespace,* *offend When she comes home she rampeth* in my face, *springs And crieth, 'False coward, wreak* thy wife *avenge By corpus Domini, I will have thy knife, And thou shalt have my distaff, and go spin.' From day till night right thus she will begin. 'Alas!' she saith, 'that ever I was shape* *destined To wed a milksop, or a coward ape, That will be overlad* with every wight! *imposed on Thou darest not stand ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... wish for the end of the wretched remnant of my life; and that wish is a rational one; but then the innate principle of self-preservation, wisely implanted in our natures for obvious purposes, opposes that wish, and makes us endeavor to spin out our thread as long as we can, however decayed and rotten it may be; and, in defiance of common sense, we seek on for that chymic gold, which beggars ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... its own centre, and is sucked down. It would only narrow all the rest of Europe, as it has already narrowed all the rest of Germany. There is a spirit of diseased egoism, which at last makes all things spin upon one pin-point in the brain. It is a spirit expressed more often in the slangs than in the tongues of men. The English call it a fad. I do not know what the Italians call it; the Prussians call ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton
... a little of the time, they could have all they wanted; but as it is a hot country and they are barbarians, they go naked. Nevertheless, all know how to raise cotton and silk, and everywhere they know how to spin and weave for clothing. There is no need for anyone to spend any gold; for they catch the fish which they eat; the wine is made from the palms, which are very abundant; and from these same trees they obtain ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... fifth part of the whole people, some duties reach even them, as those upon malt, leather, and salt, but not much because of their slender consumption, but if the gentry, upon whose woods and gleanings they live, and who employ them in day labour, and if the manufacturers, for whom they card and spin, are overburdened with duties, they cannot afford to give them so much for their labour and handiwork, nor to yield them those other reliefs which are their principal subsistence, for want of which these miserable wretches must ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... floor of the tower tall. And maidens three are living there All in the upper chamber fair, Hung with silver, hung with pall, And stories painted on the wall. And softly goes the whirring loom In my ladies' upper room, For they shall spin both night and day Until the stars do pass away. But every night at evening. The window open wide they fling, And one of them says a word they know And out as three white swans they go, And the murmuring of the woods is drowned ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... was Mr. Kipling's trick. He assumed the realistic manner as Jacob assumed the hairy hands of Esau. He compelled us to believe him by describing with elaborate detail the setting of his story. And, having once got us in the mood of belief, he proceeded to spin a yarn that as often as not was as unlike life as A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. His characters are inventions, not portraits. Even the dialects they speak—dialects which used to be enthusiastically spoken of as masterly ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... driver's seat as the car continued to spin along the road. It seems to me, he thought carefully, that any telepath has to go one of two ways. Either, like Her Majesty or the others we found when we discovered her two years ago, the telepath ends up insane—or perhaps commits suicide, which is simply one ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and smiling). Artful villain! I confess myself outdone—no devil could spin a finer snare! The scholar excels his master. The next question is, to whom must the letter be addressed— with whom to accuse ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... gusty sound, hurled aloft by these thousands of sky-pointing mouths, created an air-pocket in which the bombing plane tilted dangerously. For a moment, Bleak, who was watching the plane, thought it was going to careen into a tail-spin and crash down fatally. Then he saw Quimbleton, still recognizable by an adhering shred of whisker, lean over the ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... from the husk, as might be supposed, but from the rind of the nut; which, after being long soaked in water, is beaten with mallets, and rubbed together into fibers. After this being dried in the sun, you may spin it, just like hemp, or any similar substance. The fiber thus produced makes very strong and durable ropes, extremely well adapted, from their lightness and durability, for the running rigging of a ship; while the same causes, united with ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... But still Mrs. Scudder was around, with an air as provident and forbidding as that of a sitting hen who watches her nest; nor was it till after all things had been cleared away in the house, and Mary had gone up into her little attic to spin, that the long-sought opportunity came of diving to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... fiends approach; the maid did shrink; Swift through the night's foul air they spin; They took her to the green well's brink, And, with a souse, they plump'd ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... dancers spin, A shadow-dance of mystic pain, And other partners enter in And dance within my lonely brain— The swaying woodland shod in green, The ghostly dancers ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... saw everything flat. His favourite colours were red and yellow; black and green he particularly disliked; everything ugly was called green. He could not be persuaded that a ball did not roll because it wished to do so, or that his top did not spin of its own accord. For a long time he saw no reason why animals should not behave like human beings, and was much annoyed because the cat refused to sit up at table and to eat with its paws, blaming its ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... all this turmoil, about which I am to spin my narrative, lay in her education. I hold that a German princess should never be educated save as a German. By this I mean to convey that her education should not go beyond German literature, German history, German ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... to see it go!" he exclaimed eagerly, for Miss Bradley was really a friend to her pupils, and she knew how to make kites and spin tops almost as good as ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... was accepted, and still this piece of good luck did not make my head spin. I had lived among book-makers too much to expect the miracle. I went soberly back to my hack work, and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... and granddaughter were needed for this aged couple. Edith would make a lovely granddaughter and pretend to spin flax. Who would play the grandson and shell the corn? Jimmy thought Nate Pollard was just the one, he was "so good at speaking pieces." They decided to ask Nate at once, ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... grand spin," she said, as she started the car and sent it crackling through the dry leaves ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... dogcart. When asked if he could drive, Ellis ought to have answered: 'That depends—on the horse.' Many men can tool a fifteen-year-old screw down a country lane who would hesitate to get up behind a five-year-old animal (in need of exercise) for a spin down Broad Street, Hanbridge, on Knype Wakes Sunday. Ellis could drive; he could just drive. His father had always steadfastly refused to keep horses, but the fathers of other dogs were more progressive, and Ellis had had opportunities. He knew how to take the reins, and get up, and give the ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... that his web was destroyed on him altogether, an' it was on'y by the greatest good luck he was able to creep out of her way behind the corner of the frame, or she'd have had him killed as well. Well, the poor fellow, there he sat the whole livelong day, niver so much as offerin' to spin another web; an' sure if he had it 'ud have been no use, for there wasn't the sign of a fly at all. When evenin' come the masther of the house had company, an' there was atin' an' drinkin' an' the best of everything but the poor little Spider was lookin' on, very near perishin' wid ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... can think of a lot more," grinned Judith. "But what's the use. She has departed bag and baggage. To quote your own self, 'It is sufficient.' Now go ahead, Jane, and spin ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... and in a spirit of justice they pulled off the horses' tails, for the proprietors of the show, two hard-fisted countrymen of mine, I grieve to say, unceremoniously hustled them off for a new set, almost at the first spin. I was not a little proud of my Tonga friends; the chief, finest of them all, carried a portentous club. As for the theater, through the greed of the proprietors it was becoming unpopular, and the representatives ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... clear with us. For she found the manse rookit and herrit, and there was such a supply of plenishing of all sort wanted, that I thought myself ruined and undone by her care and industry. There was such a buying of wool to make blankets, with a booming of the meikle wheel to spin the same, and such birring of the little wheel for sheets and napery, that the manse was for many a day like an organ kist. Then we had milk cows, and the calves to bring up, and a kirning of butter, and a making of cheese; in short, ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... "I'll spin my yarn as soon as I've rested a hit, lads," he said, as he finished the last morsel of food. "I'm clean spent, now, and want to stretch ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the straw hats for the family. The journeyman shoemaker dropped in and fitted out the family with boots. The great city industries were then unknown. The farmer's wife in those days was perhaps the most expert master of trades ever known. She could spin and weave, make a carpet or a rug, dye yarns and clothes, and make a straw hat or a birch broom. Butter, cheese, and maple sugar were products of her skill, as well as bread, soap, canned fruits, and home-made wine. In those days the farm was a miniature factory or ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James
... it seems that every mote must feel to the full its sentient life, and its swelling towards development or fulfilment. On a day like the latter, everything and everybody bestirs. The dust motes spin in whirling columns, the gnats dance for their lives their dance of death before the wayfarer. The gardeners and the grave-diggers turn up the earth with energy, making the clods fly like water. The rich play, or work that they may play, as do the poor. Everybody is up and wide ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... prison tailor is cutting a suit. I have their records in that silent little steel-clad room. It's a pitiful thing, but it's life. And, believe me, the realities of our every-day life here are more wonderful than the wildest romance the novelist can spin. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... tobacco wheel, which is a very simple machine, they spin the leaves, after they are properly cured, into a twist of any size they think fit; and having folded it into rolls of about twenty pounds weight each, they lay it by for use. In this state it will keep for several years, and be continually improving, as it every hour grows ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... little though one would have thought it, she behaved from the moment she came, like a rat that tries to get out of the way of a cat. And as she had had to stand for ever so long, I pitied her very much; but she took up the thread of the conversation, and went on to spin that long yarn of hers. Yet, instead of mentioning that her mistress treats me with every consideration, she, on the contrary, observed: 'The kindness with which you have all along dealt with our lady miss, has not ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin |
