"Axe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was stormed by the mob and purged of Brissotins and Girondins. The Comite de Salut Public decreed forced loans and the levee en masse. Foreigners were expelled from the Convention and imprisoned throughout France. Mayor Bailly, Mme. Roland, Manuel, and their friends, passed under the axe. The same fate befell the Girondins, a party of phrase-makers who have enjoyed a posthumous sentimental reputation, but who, when living, had not the energy and active courage to back their fine speeches. The reductio ad horribile of all the fine arguments ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... 712 (Hom. xix. l. 573).—The word pelekeas, for which Cowper gives as a paraphrase "spikes, crested with a ring," elsewhere means axes, and ought so to be translated here. For since Cowper's day an axe-head of the Mycenaean period has been discovered with the blade pierced so as to form a hole through which an arrow could pass. (See Tsountas and Manatt, The Mycenaean Age.) Axes of this type ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... third is the form of that which the agent applies to action (although the agent also acts through its own form); as may be clearly seen in things made by art. For the craftsman is moved to action by the end, which is the thing wrought, for instance a chest or a bed; and applies to action the axe which cuts through its ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... directed against the party now victorious and might well be characterized as treason? All those who had taken part in this secret league, all in fact who might be merely suspected of participation, had no choice left save to begin the war or to bend their neck beneath the axe ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... glad enough was he of it at that moment—the deadly guisarme, that old-fashioned weapon that combined a spear and scythe, and was used with horrible effect in the charges of the day. Then there was the short battle-axe, slung across his saddlebow, which at close quarters would be a formidable weapon, and the poniard in his belt had in its time done ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... rank the summons ran, Bayonets rattle and clank of sabres began. With whetted steel the sturdy axe-men, Capless riflemen, horseless cavalry men. Formed on that plain in battle array, Butler leads to New Market heights ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... battle of Cattraeth to celebrate the memory of his less fortunate countrymen in this noble composition, he also ultimately met with a violent death. The Triads relate that he was killed by the blow of an axe, inflicted upon his head by Eiddin son of Einigan, which event was in consequence branded as one of "the three accursed deeds of the ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... It's an intellectual exercise. He's the right man, Fanny. You see it isn't a party in the active sense at all, except now and then when it's captured by someone with an axe to grind. ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... who had the command of the district in which it grew, was induced, by his esteem for the character of William Penn, and the history connected with it, to order a guard of British soldiers to protect it from the axe." ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... over a thousand Themes that lie, like the Marble in the Quarry, readie for anie Shape that Fancy and Skill may give. Neither Laziness nor Caprice makes me difficult in my Choice; for, the longer I am in selecting my Tree, and laying my Axe to the Root, the sounder it will be and the riper for Use. Nor is an Undertaking that shall be one of high Duty, to be entered upon without Prayer and Discipline:—it woulde be Presumption indeede, to commence an Enterprise which ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... playing. Several horses were grazing on the short grass, and six red and white oxen munched at the hay that had been thrown to them. The smoke of many fires curled upward, and near the blaze hovered ruddy-faced women who stirred the contents of steaming kettles. One man swung an axe with a vigorous sweep, and the clean, sharp strokes rang on the air; another hammered stakes into the ground on which to hang a kettle. Before a large cabin a fur-trader was exhibiting his wares to three Indians. A second redskin was carrying a pack of pelts from a canoe ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... my hurry and excitement I forgot the key to the underground storeroom where I had put the explosive. I knew there was no time to get another, so I took a chance and burst in the door with an axe I found in the ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... chatted formed a violent contrast. If Drew suggested the Viking type, Parmalee would, with equal fitness, have filled the role of a troubadour. The one was powerful and direct, the other suave and subtle. One could conceive of Drew's wielding a broad axe, but would have put in Parmalee's hands a rapier. Each had his own separate and distinct appeal both to men ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... vie. Why was our life given us, if not that we should manfully give it? Descend, O Donothing Pomp; quit thy down-cushions; expose thyself to learn what wretches feel, and how to cure it! The Czar of Russia became a dusty toiling shipwright; worked with his axe in the Docks of Saardam; and his aim was small to thine. Descend thou: undertake this horrid 'living chaos of Ignorance and Hunger' weltering round thy feet; say, "I will heal it, or behold I will die foremost in it." Such is verily the law. Everywhere ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... from San Antonio, we had a confidential talk, and he decided not to send me with the McLeod check to the San Miguel. He had reasons of his own, and I was dispatched to the Frio instead, while to Enrique fell the pleasant task of a similar errand to Santa Maria. In order to grind an axe, Glenn Gallup was sent down to Wilson's with the settlement for the Ramirena cattle, which Uncle Lance made the occasion of a jovial expression of his theory of love-making. "Don't waste any words with old man Nate," said he, as he ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... fer de Lawd in Heaven sake, drap dat 'possum.' He drapped it and we run 'till we got home. Wade still had dat shovel—or was it a axe—. I jest recollects which, anyway, he still had it in his hand; and when I looked at it, it was still shining. I pinted my finger at it, kaise I was dat scared dat no words wouldn't come from my mouth. Wade throwed it in ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... to the forest—the young sparks In silken doublets there are felling trees, Poor, gentle masters, with their soft palms blister'd; And, while they chop and chop, they swear and swear, Drowning with oaths the echo of their axe. ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... he said, "that it is the truth that makes us free. Well, you are going to hear the truth to-night, at last. There is a man listening to me at this moment who knows everything there is to be known. Like me, he has no axe to grind, no special interest to promote, no ambition but the manly wish to loose this town from the bonds with which a dishonest boss has shackled it. He has sacrificed much to the hope that he might help you, and for months he has been fighting ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... saw. Its noise is different from that of the Maldonado kind; it is repeated only twice instead of three or four times, and is more distinct and sonorous; when heard from a distance it so closely resembles the sound made in cutting down a small tree with an axe, that I have sometimes remained ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... lances smote giant hordes; Then gorey devils fought with lust As vulpine cries smote each jinn's ear, Black Dragons swore beneath their breath And murdered all rebellious Lords; Strong hands that knew each axe's trust, Escutcheons that all princes fear, Hurl'd swift destruction and black death. Where Titans storm'd a Monarch's throne, There sleeps a Ruler carved in stone; Where vultures guard a serpent's home, A quartered warrior tells its tale. ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... to buy his wethers," says Sturla; for Sturla had warned him that he was in danger of being raided, and had tried to get Ingjald to part with his sheep. Ingjald told him of the robbery. Sturla said nothing, but went in and took down his axe and shield. Gudny his wife was wakened, and asked what the news was. "Nothing so far; only Einar has driven all Ingjald's beasts." Then Gudny sprang up and shouted to the men: "Up, lads! Sturla is out, and his weapons with him, and Ingjald's ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... of the earliest names applied to it was "the wooded Island," and the export of timber and staves, as well as of the furs of wild animals, continued, until the beginning of the seventeenth century, to be a thriving branch of trade. But in a succession of civil and religious wars, the axe and the torch have done their work of destruction, so that the age of most of the wood now standing does not date above two or ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... It caught a French frigate in the loop, and flung her poor bones on the coral reefs, and the hungry sand absorbed her. It is a peculiarity of those seas. But she was found, and the petard, like a huge axe wielded by a giant's arms, cut into her treasure-house and rescued it. The American's expenses for a journey ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... reimburse himself for all arrears of rent and the charges of the distress. There are a few exceptions; but, generally, all goods found on the premises may be seized. The exceptions are—dogs, rabbits, poultry, fish, tools and implements of a man's trade actually in use, the books of a scholar, the axe of a carpenter, wearing apparel on the person, a horse at the plough, or a horse he may be riding, a watch in the pocket, loose money, deeds, writings, the cattle at a smithy forge, corn sent to a mill for grinding, cattle and goods of a guest at an inn; but, curiously ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... at the moment; every grumbler who imagined that every rise in prices must be entirely due to the malignity of men and not to the scarcity of the article; every politician with a grudge to satisfy or an axe to grind—all these pounced upon Lord DEVONPORT as a victim made ready to their hands, and gave him a time which can only be described as a very bad one. Add to this the mistakes almost necessarily made by an office which ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... parted. As Sep scrambled through the bushes back to the road he kicked against an axe that ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... visitors begin to arrive, Senators and Representatives claiming precedence over all others. A few of the Congressmen escort constituents who merely desire to pay their respects, but the greater portion of them—Republicans as well as Democrats—have some "axe to grind," some favor to ask, or ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... stone and iron of the one, than upon the inflexible nature of the other. The same prisoner, when conducted to the scaffold, foresees his death as certainly from the constancy and fidelity of his guards, as from the operation of the axe or wheel. His mind runs along a certain train of ideas: The refusal of the soldiers to consent to his escape; the action of the executioner; the separation of the head and body; bleeding, convulsive motions, ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... and our Bill, and Bet, and ——? No! I'd sooner take up my axe and chop off my hand! There is not another man in England has such a wife! I have seen bad ones enough; and, for the matter of that, bad husbands too. But that's nothing. If you will do me the favour, I should take it kind of you to let me walk with you, and keep ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the oppressed (the sole rewards, as many authors have bitterly lamented both in prose and verse, of greatness, i. e., priggism), I think it avails little of what nature his death be, whether it be by the axe, the halter, or the sword. Such names will be always sure of living to posterity, and of enjoying that fame which they so gloriously and eagerly coveted; for, according to ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... of Cobourg, now an important port on Lake Ontario, was but a village in embryo,—if it contained even a log-house or a block-house, it was all that it did,—and the wild and picturesque ground upon which the fast increasing village of Port Hope is situated had not yielded one forest tree to the axe of the settler. No gallant vessel spread her sails to waft the abundant produce of grain and Canadian stores along the waters of that noble sheet of water; no steamer had then furrowed its bosom with her iron ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... secondary a nature to excite a powerful sympathy; Hastings, from his triumph at the fall of his friend, forfeits all title to compassion; Buckingham is the satellite of the tyrant, who is afterwards consigned by him to the axe of the executioner. In the background the widowed Queen Margaret appears as the fury of the past, who invokes a curse on the future: every calamity, which her enemies draw down on each other, is a cordial to her revengeful heart. Other female voices join, from ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. .. There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... its tribes and called all the neighbouring people, it spake of nothing but the fight. Each heart burnt for me, men and women crying out; for each heart was troubled for me, and they said, "Is there another strong one who would fight with him? Behold the adversary has a buckler, a battle axe, and an armful of javelins." Then I drew him to the attack; I turned aside his arrows, and they struck the ground in vain. One drew near to the other, and he fell on me, and then I shot him. My arrow fastened in his neck, he cried out, and fell on his face: I drove ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie
... steel points dulled; and twelve sword strokes to be exchanged, with no lists drawn, and on horseback in harness of battle.' The next day the combat to be renewed 'afoot with the lance until the breaking of the lance, and after that with the battle-axe so long as the judges might think fit.' The chroniclers celebrate in superlatives the valour and skill shown by the hero in these gentle and joyous assaults of arms, and the beauty of the Artesian ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... a mile from Sloperton Station the South Clapham and Medway line crossed a bridge over Sloperton-on-Trent. As the shades of evening were closing, a man in a slouched hat might have been seen, carrying a saw and axe under his arm, hanging about the bridge. From time to time he disappeared in the shadow of its abutments, but the sound of a saw and axe still betrayed his vicinity. At exactly nine o'clock he reappeared, and crossing to ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Andrews dryly two days later, "that the actors were Indians from Narragansett. Whether they were or not, to a transient observer they appear'd as such, being cloath'd in Blankets with the heads muffled, and copper color'd countenances, being each arm'd with a hatchet or axe, and pair pistols, nor was their dialect different from what I conceive these geniusses to speak, as their jargon was unintelligible to all but themselves. Not the least insult was offer'd to any person, save one Captain Conner, a letter of horses in this place, ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... idea struck Tom. He could do but little good; he must run for help, and bring men with shovels, a rope, levers, and an axe, for they would perhaps have to cut the unhappy ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... touch this subject my meaning is ignorantly or maliciously misconstrued. Christian Science Mind-healing lifts with a steady arm, and cleaves sin with a broad battle-axe. It gives the lie to sin, in the spirit of Truth; but other theories make sin true. Jesus declared that the devil was "a liar, and the father of it." A lie is negation,—alias nothing, or the opposite ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... and brought an axe. The axe descended, and a splintered slat flew across the platform. "There's a lot of cake," said Abe. The top of the packing-case crashed on the railroad track, and three new men gathered to look on. "It's fresh cake too," remarked the destroyer. The box ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... which resembles that of the Lesghians, one of the present warlike tribes of the Caucasus. On antient medals the Amazons are represented with a short vest reaching to the knee, and one breast bare. Their arms were a crescent shield, the bow and arrow, and the double axe, whence the name Amazonia was used as a distinctive appellation for that weapon (Amazonia ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... laughed Ned. "Give him the axe, Tom. I don't like the looks of those fish, either. I'll ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... 20) George took an axe and cut us a portage route from our camp through a swamp a mile and a half to the foot of a hill. This route we covered three times. It was impossible for one man alone to carry the canoe through the swamp, and in addition to it and the firearms we had at this period ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... in the state of grace or of mortal sin; she sees whether she is to be plunged forever into hell, or if God sends her for a time to purgatory. This sentence, madame, you will learn at the very instant when the executioner's axe strikes you; unless, indeed, the fire of charity has so purified you in this life that you may pass, without any purgatory at all, straight to the home of the blessed who surround the throne of the Lord, there to receive ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... thing to Mary Jane," directed the devious woman. "You needn't be telling you picked it up and that 'tis no more than a come-by-chance, because then she'd set no store upon it. But just say 'tis a gift for her, and she'll be pleased and axe no questions." ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... funeral pile was being prepared, and that her limbs were about to be burnt in the closing flames, then, in truth, he gave utterance to sighs fetched from the bottom of his heart (for it is not allowed the celestial features to be bathed with tears). No otherwise than, as when an axe, poised from the right ear {of the butcher}, dashes to pieces, with a clean stroke, the hollow temples of the sucking calf, while the dam looks on. Yet after Phoebus had poured the unavailing perfumes on her breast, when ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... said to de barrer: "I'll tell you w'at let's do: Let's go an' git dat broad-axe And die in ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... those who colonized New England. They were gentlemen adventurers connected with aristocratic families, were greedy for gold, and had neither the fortitude nor the habits requisite for success. They were not accustomed to labor, at least with the axe and plough. Smith earnestly wrote to the council of the company in England, to send carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, and blacksmiths, instead of "vagabond gentlemen and goldsmiths." But he had to organize a colony ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... was dry as a board, and he gasped painfully for breath, as he stumbled against the camp-door; and the roar of the flood was in his ears. Unable to speak at first, he battered furiously on the door with an axe, and then smashed in ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Constantinople, from Buondelmonte to Pocock, describe it in the same place, and almost in the same manner; the differences between them are occasioned only by the injuries which it has sustained from the Turks. Mahomet the Second broke the under jaw of one of the serpents with a stroke of his battle axe Thevenot, l. i. c. 17. * Note: See note 75, ch. lxviii. for Dr. Clarke's rejection of Thevenot's authority. Von Hammer, however, repeats the story of Thevenot ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... learn'd to tame The soil, by plenty to intemperance fed. Lo! from the echoing axe and thundering flame, Poison and plague and yelling rage are fled. The waters, bursting from their slimy bed, Bring health and melody to every vale: And, from the breezy main, and mountain's head, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... that along, thinking I might get a shot at a rabbit or a prairie hen. But we shall need an axe and ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... pay to go on talking like this, though," observed Jack. "Come, hand me the axe. I'll fell this tree while you strike a light, Peterkin.—Be off with you, Mak.—As for Ralph, we must leave him to his note-book; I see there is no chance of getting him away from his beloved ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... tree may be killed by a small axe," said Lingard, drily. "And, remember, my one-eyed friend, that axes are made by white hands. You will soon find that out, since you have hoisted ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... suffered her arms to sink, and gazed with wondering looks and blanched cheeks upon the man whom she deemed some mighty wizard, strong in sorcery and the black art. These were mystic Rhunes he had recited, and magic characters he had traced in the air. Not for the glancing axe or the well-sharpened knife, if he had brandished these before her eyes, would they have blinked, or would she have winced; but she winced now when he made the sign of the cross upon her brow and bosom, and she stood now ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... suspended upon it and over the fire, and the water in the kettle was just beginning to boil. Other utensils were strewed around. There was a frying-pan, some tin cups, several small packages containing flour, dried meat, and coffee; a coffee-pot of strong tin, a small spade, and a light axe, with ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... arm to his side and stood, a sentinel-like figure, at the edge of his acres, etched in heroic outline against the winter sky. His trousers were thrust into his boots; the collar of the mackinaw coat he wore at his work was turned up about his throat. He leaned upon an axe with which he had been cutting the coarser brush in the fence corners. The wind ruffled his hair as he stood thus, in the fading light. He had been busy all afternoon and quite unmindful of his aunt's party, to which, for reasons sufficient ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... lord;" and then a single voice calling out "God bless you!" the words were taken up and repeated by a vast throng, so that the last sounds he heard on earth were those of prayer. He died with a firmness worthy of his caste. Having laid his head upon the block, the executioner brandished his axe in the air, and then set it quietly down at his feet. Raising his head, Lord Stafford inquired the cause of delay; the executioner replied he awaited a sign. "Take your time," said he who stood at the verge of eternity; "I shall make no sign." He who held the axe in his hand hesitated a second, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... pressed upon his attention the inclemency of the climate, contrasting it with the genial skies and sunny fields of Italy; and the season, which happened to be winter, gave strength to their representations. What! would the emperor be content for ever to hew out the frozen water with an axe before he could assuage his thirst? And, again, the total want of fruit-trees—did that recommend their present station as a fit one for the imperial court? Commodus, ashamed to found his objections to the station upon grounds so unsoldierly as these, affected to be moved ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... cried the earl, with lofty indignation; 'do the sons of darkness, who worship Mahound and Termagaunt, venture where my white lion ramps in his field of red? Out upon them! My axe and shield.' ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... is not surprising that Mesopotamia had its god of storms and thunder. He, Raman, it is, perhaps, who is figured in the bas-relief from Nimroud reproduced below (Figs. 13 and 14),[107] in which a god appears bearing an axe in his right hand, and, in his left, a kind of faggot, whose significance might have escaped us but for the light thrown upon it by classic sculpture. The latter no doubt borrowed a well-known form from the east, and the object in question is nothing less than the thunderbolt ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... in the wood-shed with an axe," said Tibby chattily. "Yessir! Chopped it right in half, and ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... came they left The plough mid-furrow standing still, The half-ground corn grist in the mill, The spade in earth, the axe in cleft. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... might buy a modest outfit of clothing, such as suited his condition. The negro went to a first-class tailor and ordered splendid clothes, which were sent back, of course. The vindictive Ebo was so angry at this, that one summer afternoon, while Mr. Stewart slept, the former fell on him with an axe and knife, mangled his head horribly, cut the cords of his hand, &c., and thought he had killed him. But hearing his victim groan, he was returning, when he met another servant, who said, "Juan, where are you going?" He replied, "Me begin to kill Mars' Stewart—now ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Lawgiver strikes forth forever from the rocks of your native land—waters which a Pagan would have worshiped in their purity, and you only worship with pollution. You cannot lead your children faithfully to those narrow axe-hewn church altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in heaven—the mountains that sustain your island throne,—mountains on which a Pagan would have seen the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... were younger, I stood by you on Flodden Field when Sir Edward, Christopher Harflete's father, was killed at our side, and those red-bearded Scotch bare-breeks pressed us hard, yet I never itched to turn my back, even after that great fellow with an axe got you down, and we thought that all was lost. Then shall I do so now?—though it is true that I fear yon goblin more than all the Highlanders beyond the Tweed. Ride on; man can die but once, and for my part I care not when it comes, who have ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... out of sight hideous broken lava, on which one cannot venture six feet from the track without the risk of breaking one's limbs. All these tropical forests are absolutely impenetrable, except to axe and billhook, and after a trail has been laboriously opened, it needs to be cut once or twice a year, so rapid is the growth of vegetation. This one, through the Puna woods, only admits of one person at a time. It was really rapturously lovely. Through the trees ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... mere wantonness, their new-born babes. A girl with child was found hanged by her own act in a dark cellar. Ah! [67] if Denys also had not felt himself mad! But when the guilt of a murder, committed with a great vine-axe far out among the vineyards, was attributed vaguely to him, he could but wonder whether it had been indeed thus, and the shadow of a fancied crime abode with him. People turned against their favourite, whose former charms must now be counted only as the fascinations ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... not: here he wails the Frenchman's gold. 'Him of Duera,' thou canst say, 'I mark'd, Where the starv'd sinners pine.' If thou be ask'd What other shade was with them, at thy side Is Beccaria, whose red gorge distain'd The biting axe of Florence. Farther on, If I misdeem not, Soldanieri bides, With Ganellon, and Tribaldello, him Who op'd Faenza when the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Livingstone was not exempted from the casualties of mechanics. Once he found himself dangling from a beam by his weak arm. Another time he had a fall from the roof. A third time he cut himself severely with an axe. Working on the roof in the sun, his lips got all scabbed and broken. If he mentions such things to Dr. Bennett or other friend, it is either in the way of illustrating some medical point or to explain how he had never ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Spanish writers. "There came from Britain," says Peter Martyr, "a cavalier, young, wealthy, and high-born. He was allied to the blood royal of England. He was attended by a beautiful train of household troops three hundred in number, armed after the fashion of their land with long-bow and battle-axe." This nobleman particularly distinguished himself by his gallantry in the second siege of Loja, in 1486. Having asked leave to fight after the manner of his country, says the Andalusian chronicler, he dismounted from his good ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... great dread at sight of the god Serapis; for even those that did not believe in the old gods feared them, and none dared raise a hand against the sacred image. But suddenly a soldier who was bolder than the rest flung his battle-axe at the figure—and when it broke in pieces, there rushed out nothing worse than ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... received his charge, and, having spent a pistol or two on each other, I dismounted him in the closing, but being armed cap-a-pie I could do no execution on him with my sword: at which instant one Mr. Matthews, a gentleman pensioner, rides in, and with a pole-axe decides ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... managing what was called the House of Commons and the army by his creatures, annihilating the aristocratic branch of the legislature, and cajoling his brother-general, while he prepared the scaffold and sharpened the axe for the Monarch whom it was the settled purpose of Fairfax to preserve; yet his government had the feature which constantly characterizes newly-assumed power. He durst not disoblige the supporters of his greatness; and the services of his myrmidons were purchased by a sort of ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... abroad, that the story went, and by some simple souls was believed, that "the blameless Prince" had been arrested for high treason, and lodged in the Tower! Some had it that he had gone in through the old Traitors' Grate, and that they were furbishing up the old axe and block for his handsome head! Then the rumor ran that the Queen had also been arrested, and was to be consigned to the grim old fortress, or that she insisted on going with her husband and sharing his dungeon. ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... You know every whaler carries an axe to cut the line if necessary, and I was able to split their skulls as they crawled in before they could get fairly on to their feet and use their paws. I was getting very weak with scurvy towards the end; but as soon as the snow melted plants began to shoot, and I was able ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... the shore with difficulty, looked back with a cry of despair. But the next moment from among them leaped a figure, alert, buoyant, invincible, and, axe in hand, once more essayed the passage. Springing from timber to timber, he at last reached the point of obstruction. A few strokes of the axe were sufficient to clear it; but at the first stroke it was apparent that the striker was also losing his hold upon the shore, and that he must inevitably ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... can't stand here chattering. Carpenter! an axe! and help me to cast these spars loose. Get out of my way, there! lumbering the scuppers up like so many moulting fowls! Here, all old friends, lend a hand! Pelican's men, stand by your captain! Did we sail round ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... other noises you will hear in the most quiet country spot; the lowing of the cattle, the song of the birds, the squeak of the field-mouse, the croak of the frog, mingling with the sound of the woodman's axe in the distance, or the dash of some river torrent. And beside these quiet sounds, there are still other occasional voices of nature which speak to us from time to time. The howling of the tempestuous wind, the roar of the sea-waves in a storm, the crash of thunder, ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... made his appearance with a leather apron and a broad-axe. He signified that all was ready. A lucifer was rubbed upon a stone, the train ignited, bang went the mine, and over went we all three, prostrated by a shower of turf and mud. The mine had exploded backward, and had annihilated the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... Match of the Two Buddhas," "The Man Who Bought a Dream," "The Golden Axe," and others are a fascinating combination of the strange and the familiar. A different land, a different people, a different kind of magic all come to life in these colorful, imaginative tales. And yet running through them are such universal folk themes as the inevitable downfall of the greedy ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... she managed to hide the keepsake the Prince had given her. She hid it in a little book of verses. And the eldest lady saw her do it. Florizel was condemned to be executed for having wanted to marry someone so much above him in station. But when the axe fell on his neck the axe flew to pieces, and the neck was not hurt at all. So they sent for another axe and tried again. And again the axe splintered and flew. And when they picked up the bits of the axe they had all turned to leaves of ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... wife where we had found the presents we had brought her. My offerings to her were a light axe, which she could use to cut her fire-wood with, and an iron kettle, smaller and more convenient than the one she had. Fritz had retired, and now came in dragging with difficulty his huge cassowary. "Here, mamma," ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... maples, a shadberry bush, and wild raspberry vines to carry the varied foliage to the ground. Inside this beautiful tangle of Nature's own arranging, was a perfect tent, so thickly grown near the ground that a person could hardly penetrate it without an axe, but open and roomy above, with branches and twigs enough to accommodate an army of birds. Behind that waving green curtain of leaves took place many dramas I longed to see; but I knew that my appearance there would be a signal for the whole ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... be, break with sin at once. Severe operations are often necessary, for the skilful surgeon knows that the disease cannot be cured by surface applications. The farmer takes his hoe and his spade and his axe, and he cuts away the obnoxious growths, and burns the roots out of ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... uncle Toby (putting his hand into his breeches-pocket)—I like thy project mightily.—And if your Honour pleases, I'll this moment go and buy a pioneer's spade to take down with us, and I'll bespeak a shovel and a pick-axe, and a couple of—Say no more, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, leaping up upon one leg, quite overcome with rapture,—and thrusting a guinea into Trim's hand,—Trim, said my uncle Toby, say no more;—but go down, Trim, this moment, my lad, and bring up ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... when some hero of the Iliad tells us that [Greek: doru mainetai], his lance rages with eagerness to destroy; if we are alarmed at the terrour of the soldiers commanded by Caesar to hew down the sacred grove, who dreaded, says Lucan, lest the axe aimed at the oak should fly back ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew, Thou mak'st thy knife keen; but no metal can, No, not the hangman's axe, bear half the keenness Of thy sharp envy. Can ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... the forest, the axe of the woodcutter may betimes be heard. With (snow) covered contours, a thousand peaks their ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... that it was contrary to law at the fair of Edgerstown,' said he.—'I axe your pardon, sir,' said I, 'it was my brother, for I was by." With that he calls me liar, and what not, and takes a grip[40] of me, and I a grip of my flax, and he had a shilala[41] and I had none; so he gave it me over the head, I crying 'murder! ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... know everything belonging to the diocese. At first, doubtless, he must flatter and cajole, perhaps yield in some things; but he did not doubt of ultimate triumph. If all other means failed, he could join the bishop against the wife, inspire courage into the unhappy man, lay an axe to the rock of the woman's ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Every turn of the glen disclosed a charming woodland view. It was a wild valley of the northern hills, filled with the burning lustre of a summer sun, and canopied by the brilliant blue of a summer sky. There were signs of the woodman's axe, and the charred embers of forest camp-fires. I thought of the lovely canadas in the pine forests behind Monterey, and could really have imagined myself there. Towards evening we reached a solitary guard-house, on the edge of the forest. The glen here ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... of the world are like the green willow trees, which, aspiring to permanence, are consumed by a fire, fall before the axe, are upturned by the wind, or are scarred ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... would be robbed of all their clothing. But that shall not be the case, for I will rise with the sun to-morrow morning, and with my little bill-hook and snip-snap, I will level all these briars with the ground. You may come with me, papa, if you please, and bring with you an axe. Before breakfast, we shall be ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... whole days doing literally nothing. What should I do? I'm not the man for books; I can't get much sport nowadays; I don't care for billiards. I want to have an axe ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... with marked emphasis, "now thou art in England, O noble Earl,—so are we willing to come. But when thou wert absent from the land, justice seemed to abandon it to force and the battle-axe." ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... small ship, profusely enriched and ornamented with gold. It contained eighty soldiers, armed in the Danish style, with weapons of the most highly-finished and costly construction. They each carried a Danish axe on the left shoulder, and a javelin in the right hand, both richly gilt, and they had each of them a bracelet on his arm, containing six ounces of solid gold. Such at least is the story. The presents might be considered in ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... low stage in the development of the idea of a 'perfect personality,' so too the sort of miracles which are believed in, where the belief in magic flourishes, present us with a very low stage in the development of the idea of an almighty God. Axe-heads that float must have belonged originally to such a low stage; and rods that turn into serpents were the property of the 'magicians of Egypt' as ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... buxom lasses. One of these, a really superb young creature, not too liberally clothed to rob one's eyes of her noble contours, caught my attention by the singularity of something she carried. It was an enormous axe, the shining blade balanced easily on her head, and the handle jutting out horizontally like some savage head-dress. She looked like a beautiful young headswoman. Even she asked for "a copper, please," but with a saucy coquetry ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... resolution of pioneers, however, they began the journey. At the end of several days they had gone but eighteen miles. Abraham Lincoln was then but seven years old, but was already accustomed to the use of axe and gun. He lent a willing hand, and bore his share in the labor and fatigue connected with the difficult journey. In after years he said that he had never passed through a more trying experience than when he went from Thompson's Ferry to Spencer County, Indiana. On arriving, a shanty for immediate ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... more heat, ye will think of how we stood shoulder to shoulder, in that great battle which thy wise words planned, Macumazahn; of how thou wast the point of the horn that galled Twala's flank, Bougwan; whilst thou stood in the ring of the Greys, Incubu, and men went down before thine axe like corn before a sickle; ay, and of how thou didst break that wild bull Twala's strength, and bring his pride to dust. Fare ye well for ever, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... thing to do at this moment, is to overwhelm the celibate by some crushing phrase which you have been manufacturing all the time; when you have thus floored him, you will coldly show him the door. You will be very polite, but as relentless as the executioner's axe, and as impassive as the law. This freezing contempt will already probably have produced a revolution in the mind of your wife. There must be no shouts, no gesticulations, no excitement. "Men of high social rank," says a young English author, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... ready at four the next morning with a horse and trap which he could obtain from the landlord. If he would take along an axe, a roll of string, and a newspaper, she would find his money for him, ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... ones and such canvas as he could find for the making of a suit of sails for the proposed new boat. He accordingly got out all the old sails, and deposited them on the deck of the catamaran, together with a quantity of cordage, blocks, and other gear, a crowbar, pickaxes, hammer, and shovel, an axe, and a number of miscellaneous odds and ends that he thought would be useful, and conveyed the whole to the shore. Then entering the woods, he selected the first nine suitable saplings that he could find, and cut them down, afterwards conveying them, one at a time and with considerable labour, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... besides the making and mending of kettles, pots, pans and the like, it seems he was a skilful smith also, able to turn his hand from shoeing a horse to fashioning such diverse implements as the rustic community had need of, for beside the forge lay a pile of billhooks, axe-heads, sickle-blades and the like, finished or in ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... dogs had a drink given them and were patted and praised, and set to work again. And they licked and licked for hours and hours. And in the end all the paint was off the lions' legs, and Philip chopped them off with the explorer's axe which that experienced Provider, Mr. Noah's son, had thoughtfully included in the outfit of the expedition. And as he chopped the chips flew, and Lucy picked one up, and it was wood, just wood and nothing else, though when they had tied it up it had been real writhing resisting lion-leg ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... were like men who, falling to with axe and pick to demolish a building, had seen that same building collapse beneath their feet. They had sat quietly by all the day watching the events, content that these would shape themselves in accordance with their will. Young ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... unconditional submission from the nation. The deputation was further detained, and one of the number, the former President[*] of the Ministry, was even thrown into prison. Our deserted capital was occupied, and was turned into a place of execution; a part of the prisoners of war were there consigned to the axe, another part were thrown into dungeons, while the remainder were exposed to fearful sufferings from hunger, and were thus forced to enter the ranks of the ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... it. Gettysburg is to witness a charge recalling that of the six hundred horsemen at Balaklava. Each soldier will feel that the fate of the South depends on him, perhaps. If the wedge splits the tough grain, cracking it from end to end, the axe will enter after it—the work will be finished—the red flag of the South will float in triumph over ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke |
