"Blade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... do, the soul to dare, The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire, Of hasty love or headlong ire. His limbs were cast in manly could For hardy sports or contest bold; And though in peaceful garb arrayed, And weaponless except his blade, His stately mien as well implied A high-born heart, a martial pride, As if a baron's crest he wore, And sheathed in armor bode the shore. Slighting the petty need he showed, He told of his benighted road; His ready speech flowed fair and ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... first-class compartment he found himself, unluckily for his present mood, alone. All the way down to Exeter the fit was on him. He stood up in the carriage, swaying his unseen blade, celestial temper fine, and rolling forth in a loud voice Miltonic verses of his old encounters in heaven with the ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... it may be said that the function of all cutting tools is to separate one portion of material from another along a definite path. All such tools act, first, by the keen edge dividing the material into two parts; second, by the wedge or the blade forcing these two portions apart. If a true continuous cut is to be made, both of these actions must occur together. The edge must be sharp enough to enter between the small particles of material, cutting without bruising them, and the blade of the tool must constantly force apart the two ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... the sword from its scabbard and laid it across his knee. He felt its edge; he drew his finger down the long groove that ran along the center of the blade; his gaze rested almost passionately on the floral arabesque that fringed that bed of the river of blood. Not a spot of rust from hilt to point; the scabbard, too, was bright ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... a fungous growth, the best of which for this purpose is obtained from the beech. Gun flints were most generally used. One of these was placed on a bit of dry punk, and held firmly in the left hand, while the back of the closed blade of the knife thus brought into contact with the flint by a quick downward stroke of the right hand produced a shower of sparks, some of which, falling on the punk, would ignite; and thus a fire was produced. In the winter, if the fire went out, there were, as I have already stated, ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is healthy, you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction. Fear secretes acids, but love and trust are sweet ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... boars are hunted on horseback, the chief weapon used being a spear with a stout two-edged blade. A horse must be thoroughly trained to this sport, and must possess great fleetness of foot, as the boar is a very rapid runner. The time chosen for the hunt is at daybreak, as the boar has probably been eating sugar-cane or other food all night, and is sleepy and heavy in the morning, and ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... by sixteen Navajos, and, with their backs to the wall, fought for an hour or more, finally abandoning their thirteen horses and running for better shelter. Dodge was shot through the knee cap, a wound that incapacitated him from the fight thereafter. The elder Tenney fell and broke his shoulder blade and was stunned, though he was not shot. This left the fight upon the younger Tenney, who managed to climb a twelve-foot rocky escarpment. He reached down with his rifle and dragged up his father and Dodge. The three opportunely found ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... many courts and passages so like one another and so uniformly paved that I seemed to gain a new comprehension, as I passed along, of the fondness that solitary prisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year, have had—as I have read—for a weed or a stray blade of grass. In an arched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with walls so glaringly white that they made the massive iron window-bars and iron-bound door even more profoundly black than they were, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... how, like one who uses a trip-hammer, he drew the iron under the rapidly-plied axe, until the round spike was a narrow, thin blade about six inches in length. Then shifting the angle of the iron a little, he directed Regnar how to beat down one side to an edge, and lastly how to curve the flat of the blade a little at the point, or rather end. Then, producing several small pieces of lime and ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... the country had been flayed. The red ribs of it lay open to the sky. The whole flank of the ridge had been torn open—it lies there bleeding, gaping open to the callous skies with scarcely so much as a blade of grass or a thistle to clothe its nakedness—covered with the wreckage of men and of their works as the relics of a ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... to be an enemy?" cried Orrick, fiercely; "see here," said he, drawing out a long knife, and holding it up so that the light of the stove glittered on its keen blade, "what if I give you a taste of this, ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... to have banditti seize men and hide them away, especially in a country that is engaged in war," replied Mender, slowly. "Now, if, in one of the narrow, dark streets of Old Naples, these young Americans were settled by a few quiet thrusts with the blade, their bodies might then be dropped into a sewer. The bodies might not be found for weeks. On the other hand, captives, no matter how securely hidden, may find means to escape, and all our care in the matter would go ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... the old man, with the preternatural force of rage in his limbs, had sprung forward, and the dagger had flashed out. In the next moment the dagger had snapped in two, and Baldassarre, under the parrying force of Tito's arm, had fallen back on the straw, clutching the hilt with its bit of broken blade. The pointed end ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... like taking him by the nape of the neck and dropping him down the sewer, but I turned to Mr. Thompson and talked cutlery. I told him I had a line of No. 1 goods at low prices, every blade warranted, and put up in ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... fierce battle under every blade, By the etiolation of the shade, By drouth and thirst and things undone half made, ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... minutes. I lay down in the bottom of the car and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so far succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood. Having no lancet, I was obliged to open a vein in my arm with the blade of a penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I experienced a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a basin-full most of the worst symptoms were gone. The difficulty of breathing, however, was diminished in a very slight degree, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... four-pronged Assam fork is the best tool, and that for the light picking over of the whole of the soil after crop a light two-pronged digger is best. This last tool is shaped like a mamoty, but with two prongs rather widely set apart instead of the broad blade of the mamoty. It being very light, it can easily be turned in the hand, so that clods may be broken with the back of the tool, and it can be used by women, which of course is of great advantage ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... being supplied with animal food of their own raising is too remote for a prudent man to calculate. The cattle look in good condition, and I was surprised to hear that neither corn nor fodder is given to them. The enclosures in which they are confined furnish hardly a blade of grass at present. There are people appointed to tend them who have been used to this way of life, and who seem ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... vanes he found a small blade, showing by its connection that it possessed range of action, yet immovable as the vane itself, as though held firmly by inner leverage. Those on the horizontal vanes were tilted upward. Just abaft the T-shaped projection—which, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... on the flashing blade, and fixed his piercing eyes on the princess. "Madame," he said, "when you came to me in Paris, it was the Count de Provence who had sent you. He sent me a letter through you at that time. Tell me, did he send me ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... Wang only smiled that innocent bland smile of his, producing his own long knife, that had a blade like an American bowie, being over a foot long ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Master said, 'Never flagging when I set forth anything to him;— ah! that is Hui.' CHAP. XX. The Master said of Yen Yuan, 'Alas! I saw his constant advance. I never saw him stop in his progress.' CHAP. XXI. The Master said, 'There are cases in which the blade springs, but the plant does not go on to flower! There are cases where it flowers, but no fruit is subsequently produced!' CHAP. XXII. The Master said, 'A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... sentry, by a happy inspiration, proffers his bayonet for inspection, as it were a new doll. Mucklewame bows solemnly, and fingers the blade. Then he produces his own bayonet, and the two weapons are compared—still in constrained ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... is to reach us at all. All education must begin low, and rise from step to step. The A, B, C of morals must be first learned. The whole analogy of providence shows this to be God's method of procedure. The kingdom of God is like the growing seed; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Gradual, and even slow, progress is the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... the sciences at nought. But if such is the wonder of the mere spectator, how strange to be the very vessel of the mystery, to know it moving through its mystic stations within our very bodies, to feel the tender shoots of the young life striking out blade after blade, already living and wonderful, though as yet unsuspected of other eyes; to know the underground inarticulate spring, sweeter far than spring of bird and blossom, while as yet all seems barren winter in the ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... blade am I, Care ca'nt never touch my heart, Every trouble I defy, Vhile I views the foaming quawt. A very good song, and very well sung; Jolly kimpanions, every one, Clap your hats on, keep your heads vann, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... messenger was sent by the commanding officer at the fort suggesting that the two caravans camp together, which we did. In the morning, when we started out, I rode ahead on my mule as usual, and when I had got about half-way to the fort I saw the white shoulder-blade of a buffalo setting up on end about fifty yards from the road. I rode out and picked it up; it was standing on end with a little wisp of grass wrapped around it; on the face of it were three men painted red. The broad end of the blade in ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... still echoing with trade, Walk grave and thoughtful men, Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade As ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... his fellow-servant was killed, was said to be very trifling. In a moment of rage, his young master, John Piper, plunged the blade of a small knife into Perry's groin, which resulted in his death twenty-six hours afterwards. For one day only the young master kept himself concealed, then he came forward and said he "did it in self-defense," and there the matter ended. The half will never ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... strange man must have known he was horribly ugly—that is, if he ever bent to drink of the clear bright waters of the lovely Meuse, which reflected in those days every lily-bell and every grass-blade which grew upon its banks, and gave a faithful portraiture in its cool waters of every creature that leant over them—though he was certainly the most frightful creature that had ever met the blacksmith's sight, it was evident enough that he did not like being called ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... tolerable animal into a savage, from a savage into a barbarian, and so on; and some thousands of years hence he may be beginning once more those arts which we have now lost, and be carving interlacements like the New Zealanders, or scratching forms of animals on their cleaned blade-bones, like the ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... to the Serpent's palace. You will find the King asleep upon his bed, which is all hung round with bells, and over his bed you will see a sword hanging. With this sword only it is possible to kill the Serpent, because even if its blade breaks a new one will grow again for every head the monster has. Thus you will be able to cut off all his seven heads. And this you must also do in order to deceive the King: you must slip into his bed-chamber ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... of the household, Madame Fontaine was always first in the room when the table was laid for the early German dinner. A knife with a speck on the blade, a plate with a suspicion of dirt on it, never once succeeded in escaping her observation. If Joseph folded a napkin carelessly, Joseph not only heard of it, but suffered the indignity of seeing his work performed for him to perfection by the ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... of the gunwale, and as reward for his chivalry had his knuckles rapped sharply by the oar-blade. Then he forgot himself, and Miss Welse also, and swore, ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... each mortal deems Of that which is from that which seems; But other harvest here Than that which peasant's scythe demands, Was gather'd in by sterner hands, With bayonet, blade, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... and picking up the little food thrown to them. Dr. Barrows states that the group contains no pure types characterized by wide, flat noses and kinky hair. In addition to the bow and arrows they carry a knife called "kampilan" having a wide-curving blade. They use this weapon in a dance called "baluk," brandishing it, snapping their fingers, and whirling about with knees close to the ground. This is farther north than Negritos are found in Zambales but is in territory contiguous to that of the Tarlac Negritos. The entire region contains ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... plunge the shining blade into the unresisting bird, and the air will be filled with stuffing and half smothered profanity. The Thanksgiving turkey is a grim humorist, and nothing pleases him so well as to hide his joint in a new place and then flip over and smile when the student misses it and buries the knife ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... a second Turk who, having chanced the morning before to climb to the baggage shelf for his razor and soap preparatory to welcoming a fellow countryman to the Isthmus, had been mildly startled to step on the shoulder-blade of a negro of given length and proportions lying prone behind the stacked-up impedimenta. The latter explained both his presence in a white labor-camp and his unconventional posture by asserting that he was the "mosquito man," ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... head of celery, 1 onion, 3 oz. of Allinson wholemeal bread without crust, 1 oz. of butter, pepper and salt, and 1 blade of mace. Wash, scrape, and cut the carrots into dice. Prepare and cut up the onions and celery. Set the vegetables over the fire with 3 pints of water, adding the mace and seasoning. Let all cook until quite soft, which will probably be in 1-1/2 ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... scalpel very freely upon yourself, my boy," said Phillip Stanley, in his friendliest tone. "But let us see if there isn't a different kind of blade that will serve us better. If you were cruelly bound with thongs, and some friend should pass you a keen-edged knife, you would not sit hopelessly looking at your bonds and still continue to bemoan your bondage; you would instantly begin to sever the ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... down here," he commanded, pushing a piece of paper towards me, with a look keen as the flash of a blade. "Any date, man," he added, as I appeared to hesitate in the embarrassment I thought natural under the circumstances. "Put down day, month, and year, only don't go too far back; not farther ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... was not quick enough to escape the charge. A trooper pursued him, overtook him before he reached the sidewalk, and knocked him down with a quick stroke given with the flat of his blade. His horse struck the boy with one of his hoofs as the lad stumbled on ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... springing out of reach of his assailant; and with his own blade bared, placing himself on the defensive. "Kape cool, ye frog-atin' son av a gun, or ye'll make mate for us sooner than ye expected, ay, before yez have time to put up a pater for yer ugly sowl, that stans most disperately in ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... seen neater work, either in Petersburg or in London. He then looked at a dagger and its scabbard or sheath. I said the sheath was intended as a further, but more beautiful specimen of the work of the poor Africans in leather; and the blade of their dagger as a specimen of their work in iron. Their works in cotton next came under our notice. There was one piece which attracted his particular notice, and which was undoubtedly very beautiful. It called from him ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... face turned the same way as the horse, he runs the risk of getting a knock in the face from the animal's knee or hoof. When cleaning him he should turn his face in the opposite direction to the horse, and planting himself well out of the way of his leg, at an angle to his shoulder-blade, proceed to rub him down. He will then escape all mischief, and he will be able to clean the frog by folding back the hoof. Let him clean the ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... means, thanks to a tank of water, sunk in one of the corners of the garden, and upon which were stationed a frog and a toad, who, from antipathy, no doubt, always remained on the two opposite sides of the basin. There was not a blade of grass to be seen in the paths, or a weed in the flower-beds; no fine lady ever trained and watered her geraniums, her cacti, and her rhododendrons, with more pains than this hitherto unseen gardener bestowed upon ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with a mind capable of intense application to any task that he took in hand. Upon his firm courage, resourcefulness and strength of purpose, difficulties and dangers acted merely as the whetstone to the finely tempered blade. He undertook hazardous enterprises from the sheer love of doing hard things which were worth doing. "He was one," wrote Flinders, "whose ardour for discovery was not to be repressed by any obstacle nor deterred by danger." He seemed ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... borrowed a large table knife, and as it were, stabbed it into the rice down into the bowl. Little stabs at first, and then deeper and deeper until the whole of the blade of the knife was in the rice, and the handle alone remained to be seen. After an incantation and jadoo-music, he caught hold of the handle and raised the bowl and the rice slowly into space. He then swung it to ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... not reply for a long time. He only bent down and took a handful of rushes up from the floor, and began to quietly clean the blade of his axe that he held under ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... uniform and homogeneous and that in placing this mixture the spading next to the lagging shall be done in such a way as to pull the coarse stones back and flush the mortar to the surface. Spading forks are excellent for this purpose. A better tool is a special spade made with a perforated blade; this special spade ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... wondering; and when he had the line of direction he knelt in the cushioned window-seat and began to probe with the blade of his pen-knife in a small round hole in ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... a fourth time he came within striking distance, and escaped. He half drew his knife, and at the movement Dixon sprang back until his shoulders touched the brush. Smilingly Gravois unsheathed the blade and tossed it behind him in the trail. His eyes were like a serpent's in their steadiness, and the muscles of his body were drawn as tight as steel springs, ready to loose themselves when ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... a stiff leg. The Bristol merchants gave him the freedom of the city in a gold box, and a splendidly-mounted sword with an inscription on the blade, which hangs over the mantel-piece at home. When I first left home, I asked him to give me his old service sword, which used to hang by the other, and he gave it me at once, though I was only a lad of seventeen, as he would give me his right eye, dear old father, which is the only one ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the minute particles of dew which whiten the grass-blade in early morn are moulded into spheres by the identical law which gives to the mighty sun ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... the sword back in the sheath (Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.) And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain, And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade.... (But Don John of Austria rides home from ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... mouse carefully in her little hand, and tied up the broken leg with a leaf of spearmint and a blade of grass. Then she carried her to the nest under the roots of an old tree, where four baby mice were squeaking sadly for their mother. She made a bed of thistledown for the sick mouse, and put close within reach all the berries and seeds she could find, and brought an ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... House of Usher", she would have fitted it like the paper on the wall. She had the air of one waiting tensely for the approach of some imminent doom. Mortimer, humming gaily to himself as he sand-papered the blade of his twenty-second putter, observed none of this. He was thinking of the ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... way their feet skimmed over the ground—"'most like flyin'." Not a blade of grass bent under their weight, not a grain of sand was dislodged; and—more marvelous than all—there was no tiredness, no aching of joint or muscle. All of which was bound to happen when feet ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... They formed a sort of rustic work, being rough-hewn except towards the edges, which were finely wrought; and, though no cement was used, the several blocks were adjusted with so much exactness and united so closely, that it was impossible to introduce even the blade of knife between them. *22 Many of these stones were of vast size; some of them being full thirty-eight feet long, by eighteen broad, and six ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... and inconceivable way. The harbor, too, a snug little hole between islands, was worthy of Labrador. Its shores were all of gray, unbroken rock, not rising in cliffs, but sloping to the sea, and dipping under it in regular decline, like a shore of sand; while not a tree, not a shrub, not a grass-blade, was to be seen. I never beheld a scene so bleak, bare, and hard. Nor did I ever see a shore that seemed so completely "master of the situation." The mightiest cliff confesses the power which it resists. Grand, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... far off on the horizon, an immense, flaming blue sword sprang up from the black water. It rose, cleaved the darkness; its blade flashed across the clouds and illumined the surface of the sea with a broad blue hand. In this luminous ray stood out the black, silent ships, hitherto invisible. It seemed as though they had been waiting at the bottom of the sea, whither they had ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... sandy soil Bears no glad trace of leaf or tree; No grass-blade sigheth to the heaven Its ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... sceptre like a pedant's wand To lash offence, and with long arms and hands Reached out, and picked offenders from the mass For judgment. Now it chanced that I had been, While life was yet in bud and blade, bethrothed To one, a neighbouring Princess: she to me Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf At eight years old; and still from time to time Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, And of her brethren, youths of puissance; ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... on in every growing blade of grass and flower. Is it not wonderful to watch the chemical processes in nature's laboratory, mixing and flinging out to the world the gorgeous colorings and marvelous perfumes of the rose and wild flower! No city ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... not face the Prussian scourge alone—she could not. These two truths had been revealed to her with the first tap of the Prussian drums: that every inch of soil, every grass-blade, every pebble of her land was dearer to her than life; and that her life was nothing to her father. He who alone in all the world could have stood between her and the shameful pageant of invasion, who could have taught her to face it, to front it nobly, who could have bidden ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... lost no time in getting at their labor, and Baree watched and listened without so much as rustling a blade of the grass in which he was concealed. He was trying to understand. He was striving to place these curious and comfortable-looking creatures in his knowledge of things. They did not alarm him; he felt no uneasiness at their number or size. His stillness was not the ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... us to keep in the shadow. For the moon shone very clearly that night, so clearly, I remember, that I could see the grass which grew between the joints of the pavement, and the little shadows thrown by each separate blade upon the worn surface of its stones. Now I wondered how we should pass the gate, for there a guard was stationed, which had of late been doubled by order of the Khania. But this gate we left upon our right, ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... to him then, with bloodless lip, What had befallen her on board the ship; But youthful Harrald listen'd undismay'd, And merely gripp'd the handle of his blade. "My son," she murmur'd, when her tale was told, "Fear withers me, but thou look'st blythe and bold." The youth uplifted then his sparkling eye, And said, whilst gazing on ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... sight of Dun and his three followers riding up the street to the castle, he was fain to draw out his sword and make a salutation; but it stuck sae dourly in that he was obligated to gar ane of the town-officers hold the scabbard, while he pulled with such might and main at the hilt, that the blade suddenly broke off, and back he stumbled, and up flew his heels, so that even my grandfather was constrained, notwithstanding the solemnity of the occasion, to join in the shout of laughter that rose thereat from all present. But provosts and bailies, ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... personage of rank, finishing by tossing his hat behind his back and proceeding bareheaded to the work of killing the bull. This is a process accompanied by much formality. The espada, armed with the estoque, a sword with a heavy flat blade, brings the bull into the proper position by means of passes with the muleta, a small red silk flag mounted on a short staff, and then essays to kill him with a single thrust, delivered through the back of the neck close to the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... large clasp knives which laboring men use to cut their bread and bacon with. Her delicate little fingers did not hide more than two thirds of the handle; I noticed that it was made of buckhorn, clean and shining as the blade was, and ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... or two lunges, and then, with a strange movement unlike anything any one present was acquainted with, seemed to wind his blade round Del Ferice's, and, with a violent jerk of the wrist, sent the weapon flying across the open space. It struck a window of the house, and ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... inside fought together as well as they could, while those outside listened as it grew less, the bodies falling stupefied without further sound of rising. One or two, still active, began striking at the boards with what heavy thing they could find, until suddenly the blade of an axe ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... ourselves each side of the little swarthy table. Mame is fumbling in her pocket. Now her lean hand, lumpy and dark, unroots itself. She produces a bit of cheese, scrapes it with a knife which she holds by the blade, and swallows it slowly. By the rays of the lamp, which stands beside us, I see that her face is not dry. A drop of water has lingered on the cheek that each mouthful protrudes, and glitters there. Her great mouth works in all directions, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... water; but they were very few. Scott understood dimly that many people in the India of the South ate rice, as a rule, but he had spent his service in a grain Province, had seldom seen rice in the blade or the ear, and least of all would have believed that, in time of deadly need, men would die at arm's length of plenty, sooner than touch food they did not know. In vain the interpreters interpreted; in vain his two policemen showed ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... uncovered a mass of human bones, forming two complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal, and what appeared to be the dust of decayed woollen. One or two strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a large Spanish knife, and, as he dug farther, three or four loose pieces of gold and silver coin ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... fought In blouddy fielde With bright blade in hand Hath Temir won & forst to yeld Many a Captaine strong and stoute And many a king his Crowne to vayle, Conquering large countreys and land, Yet ne uer wanne I vic to rie I speake it to my greate glorie So deare and ioy full vn to me, As when I did first con quere ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... Tucker had put forth the extra strength to drive the dull old one along the furrows, while even the grindstone had worn away to such unevenness that each revolution had made only half the impression on a blade pressed to its rim and thus caused the sharpening to take twice as long and twice the force as would have been required on a new one. But grindstones, too, cost cents and dollars, and Uncle Tucker had ground on patiently, even hopefully, until this the very ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... good King Arthur (How high is your desire?) His sword within its scabbard lay, The sword with blade of fire. ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... of patience went on. A quarter of an hour, a half hour, and an hour passed, and still Henry did not stir. If a blade of grass or a twig beside him moved it was because the force of the wind did it. While he lay there, he examined the thicket incessantly with his eyes, but he depended most upon his ears. He listened so intently that he could hear a lizard scuttling ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... my comrade, who always spoke of Charles as a puppet in the hands of his mother and brother, "is trusting to a broken reed. For my part I hope the instant our chief is strong enough to travel he will hasten to Rochelle. I have more faith in a keen blade than in a king's promise," and from Yolet's face one would have judged he was of ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... those different dispositions of wood and water, hill and valley, that travelling through England and France affords a man. But when he wished to point them out to his companion: "Never heed such nonsense," would he reply; "a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another. Let us, if we do talk, talk about something; men and women are my subjects of enquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left behind."' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... found a very convenient hole in the cloak, through which it had thrust itself in the most obtrusive manner, and looked like a tail with a vicious sting, for the cap of the leathern scabbard had been lost, and about three inches of steel blade and point were visible. ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... calcanea. One bone of the metacarpus. Another of the metatarsus. A fragment of the frontal or coronal bone, containing half of an orbital cavity. A middle third of the tibia. Two more fragments of tibia. Two astragoli. One upper portion of shoulder-blade. One fragment of the lower jawbone. One half of an os humeri, the whole constituting thirteen small and twenty-eight large fragments, there ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... the evening a pot of pombe was brought, when the man in charge, half-drunk, amused us with frantic charges, as if he were fighting with his spear; and after settling the supposed enemy, he delighted in tramping him under foot, spearing him repeatedly through and through, then wiping the blade of the spear in the grass, and finally polishing it on this tufty head, when, with a grunt of satisfaction, he shouldered arms and walked away ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... to-night," he said, "and I'll leave you here, Sabina; but be quite happy. I dare say Daniel will be all right. He's a pious blade and all that sort of thing and doesn't understand real life. And as some fool broke our bit of real life rather roughly on his ear, it was too much for his weak nerves. I shan't take you very far off anyway. We'll have a look round soon. I'll go to a house agent or somebody ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... to the summons! Come in your war-array, gentles and commons. Come from deep glen, and from mountain so rocky; The war-pipe and pennon are at Inverlocky. Come every hill-plaid, and true heart that wears one, Come every steel blade, and strong hand that bears one. Leave untended the herd, the flock without shelter; Leave the corpse uninterred, the bride at the altar; Leave the deer, leave the steer, leave nets and barges: Come with your fighting gear, broadswords ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... farthest hill. In desperation, she turned aside and galloped after a mailed horseman who was trotting down a clover-sweet lane with a rattle and clank that frightened the robins from the hedges. He reined in with a guffaw when he saw what mettle of blade it ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... drops of a solution of 1 grain of phosphate of ammonia to 200 oz. of water (i.e. one part to 87,500) is here reproduced: such energetic inflection is never caused by water alone. With leaves in the weak solutions, the blade or lamina often becomes inflected; and this is so rare a circumstance with leaves in water that I have seen only two instances; and in both of these the inflection was very feeble. Again, with leaves in the weak solutions, the ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... sword! What blow has served to break thee? To shreds I shattered thy shining blade; the fire has melted the splinters Ho ho! Ho ho! Ho hei! Ho hei! Ho ho! Bellows ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... used for chopping the domestic fuel. Some of these "dahs" are very finely finished, the handle and sheath of wild plum being bound by delicately plaited bands of bamboo fibre, in which the ends are most skilfully concealed, and the blade, often 2 feet long, is ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... the eldest, is twenty-four feet in height, with a beard the hairs of which are like copper wire. He carries a magnificent jade ring and a spear, and always fights on foot. He has also a magic sword, 'Blue Cloud,' on the blade of which are engraved the characters Ti, Shui, Huo, Feng (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind). When brandished, it causes a black wind, which produces tens of thousands of spears, which pierce the bodies of men and turn them to dust. ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... subsequently employed a woman to bake. The people generally were very poor throughout the country, and the cultivated area appeared insufficient for the support of the population. Every yard of land was ploughed, but the entire valley of Gallibornu was fallowed, and did not possess one blade of corn, as the soil required rest after the yield of the previous season. None of these people have an idea respecting a succession of crops in scientific rotation, therefore a loss is sustained ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... others begin to prepare their favourite smoke of hashish. A board is called for and the hashish-powder spread out upon it. The operator chops it into still finer particles by means of a semicircular blade, deftly blowing away the dust—this brings out its strength. He is in no hurry; it is a ceremony rather than a task. Slowly he separates the coarser from the finer grains, his fingers moving with loving deliberation over the smooth board. Then the cutting process is repeated ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... at first carried in two of the dugouts, and then let loose on the banks. We went up-stream for a couple of hours against the swift current, the paddlers making good headway with their pointed paddles—the broad blade of each paddle was tipped with a long point, so that it could be thrust into the mud to keep the low dugout against the bank. The tropical forest came down almost like a wall, the tall trees laced together with vines, and the spaces between their ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... of the 1879 pattern—a most serviceable and reliable fire-arm, far superior to the modern small-bore rifle in the opinion of soldiers themselves, as a man-stopper and rush-checker. A long, wicked-looking bayonet with a basket hilt, the back of the blade serrated for three-quarters of its length, like the edge of a large saw, swung from the left hip; and the armoury was completed by a long-hilted, long-bladed knife, or short sword, stuck through ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... linen, an Indian from creation issuing her palms. Her golden hair rippled over her shoulders, her eyes glowed, a bright mist clung about her, a ring of gold hovered above her head, she shook the flaming blade of a sword towards ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... his lungs. By the glint of the metal work about the bits Andy made out two bridles hanging on the wall near the bed. Taking them down, he worked swiftly. As soon as the fellow on the bed would have his breath he would scream. Yet the time sufficed Andy; he had his knife out, flicked the blade open, and cut off the long reins of the bridles. Then he went back to the bed and shoved the cold muzzle of his revolver into the throat of ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... calabashes and gourds full of water, and collected a quantity of boiled corn. As soon as this was done, we set off again, and entered the desert. We were astonished and terrified when we looked around us, not a single vestige of herbage, not a blade of grass was to be seen—all was one wide waste of barren sand, so light as to rise in clouds at the least wind, and we sank so deep in walking through it that at last we could hardly drag one foot after the other. But we were repaid for ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... river, into which I must fall if my footing fails, I call for help. The men come and pass me a line, but I cannot let go of the rock long enough to take hold of it. Then they bring two or three of the largest oars. All this takes time which seems very precious to me; but at last they arrive. The blade of one of the oars is pushed into a little crevice in the rock beyond me in such a manner that they can hold me pressed against the wall. Then another is fixed in such a way that I can step on it; ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... the countess's diamonds, held them in one hand, drew his sabre with the other, and began to strike with the flat of its blade such of the sleepers as he thought the most intrepid. He succeeded in awaking the colossal grenadier, and two other men whose rank it ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... up the four edges, and thus made a sort of trough, in which I placed a piece of wax taken from one of the candles. When it was melted, I mixed with it a little lampblack I had obtained by putting the blade of a knife over the candle, and then ran this composition in the ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... probe Thrust in and sound the ugly, gaping wound. Quezox: Most noble sire, if I may caution speak It were to all this filthy, croaking brood Ne'er lend an open ear, for in it they Will honey-coated poison quick distil. Francos: Trust me, good Quezox, I to every thrust, Of treach'rous blade, will offer ample shield. Methinks I'll place them on the waiting rack And while I promises sweet-coated make, Will gently turn the screw until their bones Do crack. And then to happy period make, The ax shall deftly lop some waiting head, With touch most skilful, ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... rather weary of their town sharpness coupled with their indifference and want of imagination, where any nature, save human nature, was concerned. 'I will bring an ear of Hiltonbury wheat home with me—some of the best girls shall see me sow it, and I will take them to watch it growing up—the blade, the ear, the full corn in the ear—poor dears, if they only had a Hiltonbury to give them some tastes that are not all for this hot, busy, eager world! If I could only see one with her lap full of bluebells; but though in this land of Cockaigne of ours, one does ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... water rippled on with a pleasant sound, the trees rustled in the light wind that murmured among their leaves, the birds sang upon the boughs, and the lark carolled on high her welcome to the morning. Yes, it was morning; the bright, balmy morning of summer; the minutest leaf, the smallest blade of grass, was instinct with life. The ant crept forth to her daily toil, the butterfly fluttered and basked in the warm rays of the sun; myriads of insects spread their transparent wings, and revelled in their brief but happy existence. Man ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... memory to ascertain whether he had left his sword in its scabbard, or had laid the naked blade, as was his custom, by him while he slept. The more he tried to think the more confused his thoughts became. His forehead felt circled with burning iron, his lips were dry and parched, his step faltering as if under the influence of some potent spell. He ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... perceived a few of them coming towards the woods warily, behind me there was another gang closing in. I began to feel like the caterpillar on the blade of grass in front ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, For want of fighting was grown rusty, And ate into itself, for lack Of somebody to ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... lock, but I hear no sound. I am in a silence like that of the grave. I try to speak. My lips move, but, try as I may, no sound comes out of them. A sharp terror is pricking into me, and I flinch as if it were a knife-blade. Well, sir, that is a thing I cannot understand. You know me—I am not a coward. If I were really in a like scene fear would be the least of my emotions; but in the dream I tremble and am afraid. Slowly, silently, the door opens, ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... paused in his steady, plunging climb and looked back over the rock-slides and boulders; and while his mules munched their grain well back out of sight he focussed his new field glasses and watched. From the knife-blade ridge up which he had spurred and scrambled the whole country lay before him like a relief map, and in the particular gash-like canyon where he had located the Stinging Lizard he made out his furtive pursuers. ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... were pouring along in unbroken streams from the great centres of Russian military power. The fierce Cossack from the Don and the Dneister, the Tartar from the Ukraine, the beetle-browed and predatory Baschkir, with all their variety of wild uniform, and "helm and blade" glancing in the summer's sun, crowded on the great military thoroughfares, while fresh supplies of well-appointed and formidable artillery were carefully transmitted. The foundries of Russia were blazing in the manufacture of warlike ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... mere trifles, and hardly worth a consideration, that this knowledge is arrived at. Thus, it takes but a minimum amount of wisdom to realize that a spear of grass, when trodden upon, is usually crushed to the earth; but, few reflect that the attempt is made by nature to restore the blade to its naturally upright position, and in doing so, requires a certain period of time to accomplish the task. This process, to the trailer, is an index by which he judges the age of the visit made by the Indians, to that section ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... for a cent, with twenty gold-monogramed blades and a guaranty of expert surgical attendance if he cuts himself, would stir his active interest neither more nor less than a safety-razor for a hundred dollars, with one Cannotbedull blade and an iron-clad agreement to pay the makers an indemnity if he found it unsatisfactory. He buys them secretly, lest his wife justly accuse him of extravagance, and practises cunning in getting rid of them ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... of all these?—which are questions, we confess, that we and the public have often asked, with regard to Turner's late pictures—we do not acknowledge a naturalness—the license has been abused—not "sumpta pudenter." It is not because the vividness of "a blade of grass or a scarlet flower" shall be beyond the power of pigment, that a general glare and obtrusion of such colours throughout a picture can be justified. We are astonished that any man with eyes should see the unnaturalness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... towering palm-trees were scattered here and there. Above and behind the village was the dark green forest. The street was the broadest I ever saw in Africa; one part of it was about one hundred yards broad, and not a blade of grass could be seen in it. The Sycobii were building their nests everywhere, and made a deafening noise, for there were thousands and thousands of these ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... thy jewelled girdle A little, that its rubies May tinkle softest music too, And whisper thou art near; Though now, if in the forest Thou should'st bend one blade of Kusha With silken touch of passing foot, His heart would know and hear; Would hear the wood-buds saying, "It is Radha's foot that passes;" Would hear the wind sigh love-sick, "It is Radha's fragrance, this;" Would ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... one bare, thin, soft, girlish arm, hanging listlessly, was lost in the folds of her pink tunic; in the other she held her fan, and with rapid, short strokes fanned her burning face. But while she looked like a butterfly, clinging to a blade of grass, and just about to open its rainbow wings for fresh flight, her heart ached ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... sir! Will you not share the jest? Aren't you the sparky blade, the daffing callant, Naffing and nickering like a three-year-old? Come, none-so-pretty, cough the old wheeze up, Before it chokes you. Let me clap your back. You're, surely, never laughing at ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... an' fr'm jandice to jealousy, but if a brick bounces on me head I'm crated up th' same as iv yore an' put away. Rockyfellar can make a pianny out iv a bar'l iv crude ile, but no wan has been able to make a blade iv hair grow on Rockyfellar. They was a doctor over in France that discovered a kind iv a thing that if 'twas pumped into ye wud make ye live till people got so tired iv seein' ye around they cud scream. He died th' nex' year iv premachure ol' age. They was another doctor ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... yours," said I, coming to a standstill in the middle of the street, as I saw the young man had his sword drawn and pressed close against his side to allay suspicion. I forgot all about law and order, and had my own blade free of the scabbard on the instant; but the young man spoke smoothly and made no motion of attack, which ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... itself! And she—ah, who shall read a woman's thoughts at such an hour as that! Let me be content to see her as she was; her face grown girlish in that great release, her eyes sparkling in a new joy of being, her step so light that no blade of grass could have been bruised thereby. Let me hear her voice again while she lifts her face to mine and asks me that question which even ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... unbelieving. She moved through my days and through my dreams, as the rose-cloud moved upon the mountain sky. She floated between me and my sick. She hovered above me and my dying. She was a mist between me and my books. Once when I took the knife for a dangerous operation, the steel blade caught a sunbeam and flashed; and I looked at the flash—it seemed to contain a new world—and I thought: "She is my own. I am a happy man!" But I was sorry for my patient. I was not rough with him. And ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... been up just long enough to take the before-dawn chill from the air without having swallowed all the diamonds that spangle bush and twig and grass-blade after a night's soaking rain, it is good to ride over the hills of Idaho and feel oneself a king,—and never mind the crown and the sceptre. Lone Morgan, riding early to the Sawtooth to see the foreman about getting a man for a few days to help replace a bridge carried fifty yards downstream by ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... after a Mr. Akermann, who introduced it from Mexico in 1829); Fig. 10.—Stem becoming cylindrical at an early age, and clothed with little clusters of spiny hairs; the branches are flattened out, and form broad, rather thin, blade-like growths, with the margins sinuately lobed (waved and notched). The flowers are large—over 6 in. in diameter—the petals, very acutely pointed and undulated along the edges; flower tube 2 in. long, with a few small scales scattered over ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... had, therefore, no other weapons than such as could be fashioned out of the tools which they had used in husbandry or mining. Of these rude implements of war the most formidable was made by fastening the blade of a scythe erect on a strong pole. [384] The tithing men of the country round Taunton and Bridgewater received orders to search everywhere for scythes and to bring all that could be found to the camp. It was impossible, however, even with the help of these contrivances, to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tell you all, Your Spanish gennet is the best horse; your Spanish Stoup is the best garb; your Spanish beard Is the best cut; your Spanish ruffs are the best Wear; your Spanish pavin the best dance; Your Spanish titillation in a glove The best perfume: and for your Spanish pike, And Spanish blade, let your poor captain speak— Here comes ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... anvil. He wore a wig and false beard; his white and manicured hands had nothing of the workman about them; and his easy air, prominent belly, and flabby muscles readily betrayed the actor. With an absurd hammer he struck—as no one else would ever strike—a fantastic-looking sword-blade. One guessed he was a dwarf, because when he walked he bent his legs at the knees. He cried out a great deal, and opened his mouth in a queer fashion. The orchestra also emitted peculiar noises like several beginnings ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... mistake her silence for an acknowledgment of guilt, for she sprang to her feet, and her dagger-blade flashed in her hand. In another moment, it would have been stained with blood, had ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... "we are out for evergreens. This is not a food-grabbing affair. Let's get back to the car. I don't see a blade of ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... hope. But they and their agents lost heart before the insuperable obstacle of the young prince's loyalty. It was simple, unaffected, and without exaggeration. He never drew his sword and kissed the blade, and swore by the Blessed Virgin to give his last drop of blood for his sovereign and his country. He never made solemn vows to accomplish ends that looked impossible. But when the charge sounded, he pressed his steel ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... away, for the open departure of so merry a blade would not have been permitted, and in the hall he found Dick mounting a ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... sharp attack was made on the intruders, but Rolf put on his helmet and bade his men to retire, which they did in good order. He walked backward through the whole hall, shield on arm and sword in hand, parrying and dealing blows, so that when he left the room, though no blade had touched him, a dozen of the courtiers lay bleeding. But being greatly overmatched, he ordered his men to mount, and they ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... day's proceedings, they would die in the attempt to kill the women. Roughly handled as they were, one of them had time to draw a dagger from his belt and aimed to plunge it into the bosom of Saronia. The glistening blade was falling towards her, but quicker than its descent was Endora, who threw herself between them and received the ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... rotated about sixty turns a minute, and the clay, in a plastic state, was put in the cup-shaped top, and the hands used to force the clay up the side wall. When the crock was formed in as even a manner as it could be by hand, the blade described was used to ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... straight for a sabre lying on a table to continue his bloody work. In the meantime the priest had risen to his feet and awaited with resignation new torments which certainly were even worse than the first, for he gave him so many and such hard blows with the sabre that the blade was broken close to the hilt. This accident so infuriated Delfin that he again threw himself upon the priest, kicking him furiously and striking him repeatedly until he again threw him to the ground, and not yet satisfied, ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... Nawakhani [424] or feast of the new rice crop in August or September, and the Am Nawakhani or that of the new mango crop in April or May. At the feasts the new season's crop should be eaten, but if no fresh rice has ripened, they touch some of the old grain with a blade of a growing rice-plant, and consider that it has become the new crop. On these occasions ancestors are worshipped by members of the family only inside the house, and offerings of the new crops ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... more by instinct than by reason plunged in primitive ideas of the possibilities of personal action and freedom of decision. His highly-colored speech had drawn a small crowd of super-revolutionists about him, childish, genuine groundlings, who wanted to be keener than the blade of which they were only the handle. Some ignorant old fellows also belonged to the clique and contributed no little to raise Victor's self-esteem. Once in a while the more experienced soldiers in the army indulgently ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... disgorged a crowd of men. Shorty, wiry, thin-faced Venusians, each with skewer-blade strapped to his side and some with ray-guns out, they came scrambling into the open, swearing and wondering. The second guard's insane repetitions directed most of them in his direction; and they piled in a crowd around him. They had no attention for what was happening ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... this dreadful stranger in the wilds of London. He writhed under the ordeal of that protracted scrutiny. He tugged to free his imprisoned wrist. His captor was meanwhile fumbling with a penknife in his unoccupied hand. A blade was slowly opened; the leather watch-guard was sliced through in a second; the revolver dropped harmlessly into the dew. The man swooped down and whipped it through the railings ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... was poised above Frank's heart, and in another moment the blade would have been buried to the hilt ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... great kingdoms fall on death Before the stabbing blade, Their brazen might was only breath, Their substance but a shade— Be not ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... branch to remain. By reversing the same kind of stick and driving a small nail near the other end or cutting a notch, it may be used to suspend kettles over a fire. A novel candlestick is made by opening the blade of a knife and jabbing it into a tree, and upon the other upturned blade putting a candle. A green stick having a split end which will hold a piece of bread or meat makes an excellent broiler. Don't pierce the bread or meat. Driving a good-sized green stake into the ground ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... her eyes shining under levelled brows. She let the point of the great sword rest on the grass, and she leaned upon its mighty cross-piece, resting her cheek against its handle. Her red hair ran in ripples over her shoulders and over the hilt of the blade, red as ever the blood the blade had ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of yore Beat out the glowing blade, Nor wielded in the front of war The weapons that he made, But in the tower at home still plied ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I had passed upon the way were piled the hides of bullocks, and from the train you might see their skeletons lying, each one bleaching where it died for want of fodder, scattered here and there on the brown and burning earth; for even every river bed was waterless, and not a single blade of green could you descry, for many hundred miles. And hence it came about, that as I gazed upon the two emaciated hacks that were to pull me from the station, a dozen miles out, and as many more back, I could bring myself to sit behind them only by the thought that thereby ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... that came near me was a bee, which hummed merrily by. What did the busy insect seek there? Not a blade of grass grew, and the only vegetable matter on this point was a cluster of withered moss at the very edge of the awful precipice, and it I gathered at considerable risk as a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... out old stumps, etc., although, if a vine is well managed, it will seldom be necessary. Fig. 23 will show a kind which is very convenient for the purpose, and will also serve for orchard pruning; the blade is narrow, connected with the handle, and can be turned ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... stabbed," repeated Uncle Loveday, "stabbed to the heart, and from behind. I found this blade as I examined your poor father's body. It was broken off close to the hilt, and left in the wound, which can hardly have bled at all. Death must have been immediate. It's a strange business, Jasper, and a strange blade by the ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... vaguely, half wishing that he was a flower, a blade of grass, or a tree, so that she might pine ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... features which I have already described, the beast was equipped with a massive tail about six feet in length, quite round where it joined the body, but tapering to a flat, thin blade toward the end, which trailed at right angles to ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... duty of the women to prevent the PADI being choked by weeds. The women of each room will go over each patch completely at least twice, at an interval of about one month, hoeing down the weeds with a short-handled hoe; the hoe consists of a flat blade projecting at right angles from the iron haft (Fig. 13). The latter is bent downwards at a right angle just above the blade, in a plane perpendicular to that of the blade, and its other end is prolonged by a short wooden handle, into the end of which it ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... tumult of revolt, but he sensibly drove his feelings through his muscles to the blade of his oar, and said nothing. Nance and Bernel were not likely to have gone to these lengths without what seemed to them ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... In getting up these bright mornings he looked with entirely new distaste upon the prospect from his window at the back. Beneath lay parallel strips of ground, divided from each other by low walls. These were called the "gardens" of the houses in Kennington Road, but no blade of grass ever showed upon the black, hard-trodden soil. Lank fowls ran about among discarded furniture and indescribable rubbish, or children—few as well-tended as Mrs. Bubb's—played and squabbled under the dropping soot. Beyond rose a huge block of tenements, each story ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... throat, I ducked quickly below his left shoulder as I swung him to left, meaning to chance a fall. He had, I fancy, some notion of his peril, for he put up his hand and bent forward, I saw the flash of a blade, and, my captor's head falling forward, a great spout of blood shot back into my face, as the pair of us tumbled together headlong from his horse. I was dimly conscious of yells, oaths, a horse leaping over me, and for a few seconds knew no more. Then I sat ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... in Holualoa, Kona, in the reign of Keawenuiaumi. He is mischievous and without fear. At 6 he can outdo all his playmates, at 20 he is fully developed, kills sharks with his hands and pulls up a kou tree as if it were a blade of grass. The king hides himself, and Kalaepuni rules Hawaii. The priest Mokupane plots his death. He has a pit dug on Kahoolawe, presided over by two old people who are told to look out for a very large man with long hair like bunches of olona fiber. Once Kalaepuni goes ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... You! The walker in the ways of St. Augustine—in his early ways, I think. You saint in embryo, you postulant for holy orders! You shall be ordained this night—with this!" And he raised his sword so that little yellow runnels of light sped down the livid blade. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini |
