"Blade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ready to march off too! And few companies of vagabonds in England ever marched off to prison in better spirits; we cheered one another, and laughed at our profound leader, until we came in sight of the black, bleak, and barren moor, without a solitary bush or blade of grass. Some of our prisoners swore that we had marched the whole length of England, and got into Scotland. We all agreed that it was not credible that such a hideous, barren spot could be any where ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... the hotter days, it was delicious to sit quietly in the garden and watch the evening pass into night. Nature, in these climes, chooses her vocalists from more humble performers than in Europe. A small frog, of the genus Hyla, sits on a blade of grass about an inch above the surface of the water, and sends forth a pleasing chirp: when several are together they sing in harmony on different notes. I had some difficulty in catching a specimen of this frog. The genus Hyla has its toes terminated by small suckers; and I found ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... The will to 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 ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... use the sails much; we depend chiefly on this," said the hermit, as he seated himself in the front hole and laid the long, heavy, double-bladed paddle on the saddle in front of him. Moses uses a single blade, partly because it is handier for steering and partly because he has been accustomed to it in his own land. You are at liberty to ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... it had been tiptoeing down the hillsides and across the lowlands as though it was afraid of disturbing a single blade of grass or a single drooping leaf. And then, at the crucial moment, it huffed and puffed itself up into a little hurricane, charged down upon the Galactic University buildings and whooshed through the Galactic Historian's study like a band of ...
— Collector's Item • Robert F. Young
... blade sheathed but ready, a clear judgment trained and used, ideals nobly striven for, and Wisdom ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... nobody hain't forgotten you, you'll find,' said the man, wiping his scythe blade with a wisp of grass; needlessly, for he had just whetted it; but it gave him an opportunity to look at ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... these, a corresponding number should be chosen from the oldest and the most sagacious members of the squadron, to form the rear-rank of the files or decads; since, to use an illustration, iron best severs iron when the forefront of the blade (6) is strong and tempered, and the momentum ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... last his living tomb of rock was rent; Though but a narrow rift He yet had made Enough; it did a horrid monster lift, That clutched him close and held aloft a blade; He felt himself undone, when, lo! ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... and life in the balance, Fear and hope in the glance of your eye. Draw your blade! Forget not we are gallants Who can laugh at ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... a pretty Baby-treat; Nor, I deem, for me unmeet: Here, for neither Babe or me, Other Play-mate can I see. Of the countless living things, That with stir of feet and wings, (In the sun or under shade Upon bough or grassy blade) And with busy revellings, Chirp and song, and murmurings, 50 Made this Orchard's narrow space, And this Vale so blithe a place; Multitudes are swept away Never more to breathe the day: Some are sleeping; some in Bands Travell'd into distant Lands; Others ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... "Pectus sacrato dividunt venabulo." The harpe shown on the taurobolic altars, is perhaps in reality a boar-spear having a kind of hilt (mora; cf. Grattius, Cyneg., 110) to prevent the blade ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... the beginning of April somebody saw him. It was in the dusk between supper and bed time, walking on the viaduct where he had the park below him. There was a wash of blue still in the sky and a thin blade of a moon tinging it with citron; here and there the light glittered on the trickle of sap on the chafed boughs. It was just here that he met her. She was about his own age, and she was walking oddly, as though unconscious of the city ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... his heel down into the sand, then pulled out his knife and began to clean the bowl of his pipe. The blade trembled in ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... prayers, and deuine how wee should prosper in our iourney and whether we should meet with any ill company or no? To which, our whole Carauan did agree. And they tooke certaine sheepe and killed them, and tooke the blade bones of the same, and first sodde them and then burnt them, and tooke of the blood of the said sheepe, and mingled it with the powder of the saide bones, and wrote certaine Characters with the saide blood, vsing many other ceremonies and wordes, and by the same deuined and found, that wee ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... without foundation. I found Fanny kneeling beside the old soldier in the parlor where we had seen the two women, and bathing his temples, while Lord Castleton was binding his arm; and the marquis's favorite valet, who, amongst his other gifts, was something of a surgeon, was wiping the blade of the penknife that had served instead of a lancet. Lord Castleton nodded to me. "Don't be uneasy,—a little fainting fit; we have bled him. He is safe now,—see, he is recovering." Roland's eyes, as they opened, turned to me with an anxious, inquiring ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... but, since he who sees the tail of a lone wolf imagines the whole pack, he alighted at a distance where the eyes of Heenhadowa saw as one sees in a fog. A space the size a man uses for his lodge he cleared of all bushes and weeds, to the smallest blade of grass he cleared ...
— In the Time That Was • James Frederic Thorne
... stumbled badly. At once Marigny struck with the deadly quickness and certainty of a cobra. His weapon pierced Medenham's breast high up on the right side. The stroke was so true and furious that the Englishman, already unbalanced, was driven on to his back on the sand. Marigny wrenched the blade free, and stooped with obvious intent to plunge it again through his opponent's body. A warning shout from each of the three spectators withheld him. He scowled vindictively, but dared not make that second mortal thrust. These French gentlemen whom he had summoned from Paris were bound ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... the "Early Purple," which is abundant in our woods and pastures; the "Meadow Orchis"; and the "Spotted Orchis" of our heaths and commons. Less frequent are the "Bee Orchis," the "Butterfly Orchis," "Lady's Tresses," and the "Tway blade." ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... From being immersed in well-nigh solid media of cloud and hail shot with lightning, I find myself uncovered of the humid investiture and left bare to the mild gaze of the moon, which sparkles now on every wet grass-blade and frond of moss. ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... making the obscure obscurer, are thought to be original, because they are so chaotic and clumsy. But we have yet to learn that lead is priceless because it is weighty, or that gold is valueless because it glitters. The Damascus blade is none the less keen because it is polished, nor the Corinthian shaft less strong because it is fluted and its ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... bayonet at a lump of hard bread. He sprawled contentedly in the hot sun, with humped shoulders and legs far apart, and with his cap tipped far over his eyes. Every now and again he would pause, with a piece of cheese balanced on the end of his knife-blade, and look at the twisted figures by him on the grass, or he would dodge involuntarily as a shell swung low above his head, and smile nervously at the still forms on either side of him that had not moved. Then he brushed the crumbs ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... medals, instruments of torture, and some other curiosities. It was the Bishop of Ypres who, at midnight on June 4, 1568, announced to Count Egmont, in his prison at Brussels, that his hour had come; and the cross-hilted sword, with its long straight blade, which hangs on the wall of the Museum is the sword with which the executioner 'severed his head from his shoulders at a single blow' on the following morning. The same weapon, a few minutes later, was used for the despatch of ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... out how the handle was put on, so their aunt went to the knife-box and got out an old knife that had lost its handle. They saw that the blade had a long thin piece of iron at the ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various
... was partly shaded by a ramada and partly open to the hot sun. There was a chicken-yard in one corner of the inclosed square, and in the centre stood a rickety old pump, which indicated some sort of a well. Not a green leaf or tree or blade of grass in sight. Nothing but white sand, as far as one could see, in ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... / of Saxons a great throng, Each a broadsword bearing / that mickle was and long, With blade that cut full sorely / when swung in strong right hand. 'Gainst strangers were they ready / to guard their castles and ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... I ween It now to investigate is time, Was nothing but the British spleen Transported to our Russian clime. It gradually possessed his mind; Though, God be praised! he ne'er designed To slay himself with blade or ball, Indifferent he became to all, And like Childe Harold gloomily He to the festival repairs, Nor boston nor the world's affairs Nor tender glance nor amorous sigh Impressed him in the least degree,— Callous to all he ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... Sikh procured sabre, quoit, and mace, Abdul Huq, Wahabi, jerked his dagger from its place, While amid the jungle-grass danced and grinned and jabbered Little Boh Hla-oo and cleared his dah-blade ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... serious, was over. What some men gained by anger and invective St. George gained by good humor, ranging from the faint smile of toleration to the roar of merriment. One reason why he had so few enemies—none, practically—was that he could invariably disarm an adversary with a laugh. It was a fine old blade that he wielded; only a few times in his life had he been called upon to use any other—when some under-dog was maltreated, or his own good name or that of a friend was traduced, or some wrong had to be righted—then his face would become as hot steel and there would belch out a flame of denunciation ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... out just as the Filipino turned back toward them with fear-leaden feet, and in the moment of discovery of the Mohammedan who leaped in his shadow, they saw the glistening blade rise above the Filipino's head and fall in a terrific sweep that seemed to end at the point where neck and shoulder join. Before their eyes the ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... comparatively few officers in their collection; while by the direct-tax system the land must be literally covered with assessors and collectors, going forth like swarms of Egyptian locusts, devouring every blade of grass and other green thing. And, again, by the tariff system the whole revenue is paid by the consumers of foreign goods, and those chiefly the luxuries, and not the necessaries, of life. By this system the man who contents himself to live upon the products of his own ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... a Mysterious Ending.—And so HUGH, carrying a lamp in his right hand, and grasping the blade of his sword in his left, entered the cave of which he had heard so much. Will he ever return? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... a lurking affection for the Bruce have given incentive to love of country? Buchan, of a truth, thou art dull as a sword-blade ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... you to go and shake her," said Meldon, "or pour cold water over her, or anything of that sort. Just take your scythe over close to where she is, and as soon as ever I give the signal, you begin to scrape the blade of it with your stone and whistle a tune at the same time as loud ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... 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." ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... haven't seen such a pretty flower in all my life. Here are forget-me-nots, and—and these I have picked for you," she added, taking from under the tansies a small bunch of cornflowers, tied around with a thin blade of ...
— The Rendezvous - 1907 • Ivan Turgenev
... has been made in the construction of the nippers. In the ordinary Heilmann's comber, the upper blade has a groove in its nipping edge, and the cushion plate is covered with cloth and leather, the fibers being held by the grip between the leather of the cushion plate and the edges of the groove in the upper blade, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... Turrald had a brother Simon, a roystering blade and lawless adventurer, who disappeared some years before his elder brother's death. Little was known of him except that he was supposed to have closed a brawling career on the field of Bosworth, when Richard the Crookback was killed and the short-lived ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... start the engine again and head for the camp—and dinner—they suddenly spied a powerful speed boat coming out from the Canadian side. It cleaved the water like the blade of a knife, throwing up a silver wave on either side. And as it passed the Lauriette Ruth and her companion could see several ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... imprisoned on Devil's Island for several years. His name is Gen. Paolo Tibaldi, who was sentenced to life imprisonment on the island for conspiring against Napoleon III. He says that when he was there the island was a bare rock without a tree or a blade of grass, and the heat of the sun was terrible. The provisions supplied daily by the Government were a pound and a half of the worst kind of bread, for each convict, a piece of old meat or salt fat, beans or rice, a little oil, and also a kind of spirits called tafla. The general claims that ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 11, March 17, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... dug and cured before frost touches them, and before the leaves fall to any great extent, peanut vines make a very good provender for all stock. Some say it is better than blade fodder for horses and mules, but we are not prepared to advance this extravagant claim for it. It is, however, certainly an excellent article of fodder for cattle, sheep, mules, and horses, and if many sap peanuts are left on the vines, stock that is not worked much, ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... Spreading out the paper on the top of a stump, he slowly scribbled his name below mine; and then, holding the leaf before my eyes, pointed to the signature—but without saying a word. This done, he replaced the document on the stump; and drawing his knife, stuck the blade through the paper, and left the weapon quivering in the wood! All these manoeuvres were gone through with as cool composure, as if they were only the prelude to some ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... that obedience to it would work in every man like leaven, which is lost sight of in the lump of dough, and seems to add nothing to it, yet transforms the whole in raising up the loaf; or as the corn of wheat which is buried in the glebe like a dead body, yet brings forth the blade, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... and laid upon the table athwart the chalk lines. The emperor immediately draws his short hunting-knife, and after making several mystic passes with it in the air, strikes the prostrate body of the neophyte a smart blow with the flat of the broad blade. The huntsman toots forth the signal of "dead! dead!" which is used to call the pack off the quarry, and the new-fledged "weide-man" is permitted to struggle off the table and onto ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... each with a splendid new rapier, the blades of which were made of the best Toledo steel, of so fine a temper that it was possible, without injury to the weapon, to bend the point round until it met the hilt, the blade springing back, when released, to its original position and shape. This gift naturally delighted the ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... desired. And how much more greatly he desired than ever had this old man by his side, with his wealth and his easy satisfactions! The old Don apparently had never been thwarted, and therefore he did not know how keen and punishing a blade ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... The fire you have lighted shall blaze in a fashion ye think not of. The Word of God is a consuming fire. The sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, pierces the heart and reins of man; and that sword hath been wrested from the scabbard in which it has rusted so long, and the shining of its fiery blade shall soon he seen ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of magic moonlight the only sound was the murmurous splash of the rising waves as they met the first grim rocks of the Point. Presently they would dash in thunder round the granite blade, and the sleeping pool would be turned to a smother ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... eyes looked at him, as he walked over to the deal painting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window. What was he doing there? His fingers were straying about among the litter of tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something. Yes, it was for the long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel. He had found it at last. He was going ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... snowstorms or late rains, they happened to escape the autumn fire besom, they were likely to be burned in the spring after the snow melted. But whether burned in the spring or fall, ashes and bits of charred twigs and grass stems made the whole country look dismal. Then, before a single grass-blade had sprouted, a hopeful multitude of large hairy, silky buds about as thick as one's thumb came to light, pushing up through the black and gray ashes and cinders, and before these buds were fairly free from the ground they opened wide and displayed purple blossoms about two inches in diameter, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... the bonze ventured to reply, "is enough to make you laugh! They amount to this: there existed in the west, on the bank of the Ling (spiritual) river, by the side of the San Sheng (thrice-born) stone, a blade of the Chiang Chu (purple pearl) grass. At about the same time it was that the block of stone was, consequent upon its rejection by the goddess of works, also left to ramble and wander to its own gratification, and to roam about at pleasure to every and any place. One day ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... first born of our earth were the grass-blade and the herb. They preceded the brute creation and the human family—the grass for the animal creation, the herb for human service. The cattle came and took possession of their inheritance, the grass-blade; man came and ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... the buildings and would demand a special type of medical missionary. Or again, we hear it argued that medical missions are the point of the missionary sword; but if it is the point of the sword then it ought to be in front of the blade. That, too, would direct the location of the doctors and hospitals. It would also affect the character of the building unless the missionary sword is to become an immovable object, which having once cleft a rock remains fast in the breach until a God-sent hero, like King Arthur, appears ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... haunted him. He would start up from dreaming of it, his hair moist with perspiration, for, strangely enough, he was always on the point of doing it harm: either his teeth were meeting in it, or he had drawn the blade of a knife down the middle of the blue-veined whiteness, and the blood spurted out along the line, which reddened instantly in ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of the Laighton and Lufkin pattern weighs 5 lbs., without the handle, and is eighteen inches long. It is of iron, except about eight inches of the blade, which is of cast steel, tempered and polished like a chopping axe. It is considerably curved, and the workmen suit their own taste as to the degree of curvature, by putting the tool under a log or rock, ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... till the Negroes had filled several 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 ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... the trees, the sunlight fell in bars on the carpet of pine-cones. The scent of the living forest was in his nostrils, and when he threw back his head, it seemed to him that the blue sky was resting upon the tree-tops. Taking off his coat, he felt the edge of his blade, while he leaned against the great pine he had marked out for sacrifice. In the midst of the wood he saw the walls of his house rising—saw the sun on the threshold—the smoke mount from the chimney. The dream in his brain was the dream of the race in its beginning—for he saw the home ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... first time. Fain would I tell you something of all that I felt when first my fingers closed about a sword-hilt, the forefinger passed over the quillons in the new manner, as Falcone showed me. But it defies all power of words. The sweet seduction of its balance, the white gleaming beauty of the blade, were things that thrilled me with something akin to the thrill of the first kiss of passion. It was not quite the same, I know; yet I can think of nothing else in life that is worthy ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... screwed down tightly, so that the king, and all his cabinet councilors too, might pass up and down the staircase without any fear. Every blow of the hammer fell upon a thick pad or cushion, and the saw was not used until the handle had been wrapped in wool, and the blade steeped in oil. The noisiest part of the work, moreover, had taken place during the night and early in the morning, that is to say, when La Valliere and Madame were both absent. When, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the court returned to the Palais ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and change, which changes are generally marked by little iron crosses in the woods, but, once they have settled down, desertion is far rarer than in civilised countries. I have seen a native workman with his shoulder blade in his arm-pit, his face cut to ribbons, and with pieces of casting sticking to his back through the carrying away of a crane, cavil against the idea of being taken into the township where the doctor was, lest his old woman, unused to a ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... of the Baltic Sea is situated the ancestral castle of the noble family Von R——, called R—sitten. It is a wild and desolate neighbourhood, hardly anything more than a single blade of grass shooting up here and there from the bottomless drift-sand; and instead of the garden that generally ornaments a baronial residence, the bare walls are approached on the landward side by a thin forest of firs, that ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... blade, Toledo trusty, For want of fighting was grown rusty, And ate into itself, for lack Of somebody ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... for a considerable time beside the fire, eats tenderly. The back-ribs make an excellent roast; indeed, there is not a sweeter or more varied one in the carcass, having both ribs and shoulder. The shoulder-blade eats best cold, and the ribs warm. The ribs make excellent chops. The Leicester and Southdowns afford the best mutton-chops. The breast is mostly a roasting-piece, consisting of rib and shoulder, and is particularly good when cold. When the piece ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... the temper of a blade that must be the proof of a good sword, and not the gilding of the hilt or the richness of the scabbard; so it is not his grandeur and possessions that make a man considerable, but his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... for three or four centuries. Yet genuine old swords, of the true steel, are occasionally to be found. They are readily distinguished from modern imitations by their clear and silvery ring when struck, and by the finely watered appearance of the blade, produced by its having been first made of woven wire, and then worked over and over again until it attained the requisite temper. A droll Turk, who is the shekh ed-dellal, or Chief of the Auctioneers, and is nicknamed Abou-Anteeka (the Father of the Antiques), has a large collection ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... is full of treasures; but Beowulf heeds them not, for near him lies Grendel, dead from the wound received the previous night. Again Beowulf swings the great sword and strikes off his enemy's head; and lo, as the venomous blood touches the sword blade, the steel melts like ice before the fire, and only the hilt is left in Beowulf's hand. Taking the hilt and the head, the hero enters the ocean and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... There he showed unmistakable symptoms of insanity, and his end was lamentable. During the Hundred Days, after a conversation with the Emperor, he threw himself against a carving-knife with such violence that the blade came out two inches behind his back. As it was believed at this time that I had incurred the anger of the Emperor, the rumor went abroad that it was I who had committed suicide, and this tragic death was announced in several ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... by Mr. Vane with a joyous thump on the shoulder-blade. "I say, old man, Miss Harding has turned out to be the most fearful doubting Thomas—thinks the whole scheme quite mad and all that sort of thing. I'm far too great a duffer to convert her, but perhaps you might, ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... at sunset to consider this subject, and beheld how the departing orb was scattering his beams over the mountains. Every blade of grass was gathering in some rays of beauty, every tree was glittering in the majesty ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... an' blaws himsel' oot! There was mony a conjectur as to hoo he cam by his deith, an' mony a doobt it wasna by fair play. Some said he dee'd by his ain han', driven on til't by the enemy; an' it was true the blade he cairriet was lyin' upo' the grass aside 'im; but ither some 'at exem't him, said the hole i' the side o' 'im was na made wi' that. But o' a' 'at cam to speir efter 'im, the English lord was nane. He hed vainished the country. The general opinyon sattled ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... interest his dress, slashed in the fashion of Henri IV, and his resemblance to the Bearnese monarch in the latter years of his life, though the King's hair had been prevented by the assassin's blade from acquiring the whiteness which that of the old peasant had peacefully attained. A furious pealing of the bells, however, attracted the general attention to the end of the great street, down which was seen filing a long procession, whose banners and glittering pikes rose above ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... departure shouldst thou at any time feel in fear for my safety, then by this token which I leave thee thou shalt know of my fate and lot, good or evil." Then, drawing from his waist-shawl a little hunting-knife like a whittle, he gave it to Princess Perizadah, saying, "Take now this blade and keep it ever by thee; and shouldst thou at any day or hour be solicitous concerning my condition, draw it from its sheath; and if the steel be clean and bright as 'tis now then know that I am alive and safe and sound; but an thou find stains of blood thereon then shalt thou ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... and a weight in my heart, feeling it really wasn't a home that I was driving toward. But it was one of those crystal-clear prairie nights when the stars were like electric-lights shining through cut-glass and the air was like a razor-blade wrapped in panne-velvet. It took you out of yourself. It reminded you that you were only an infinitely small atom in the immensity of a crowded big world, and that even your big world was merely a microscopic little mote lost amid its uncounted millions of sister-motes in the infinitudes ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... and fully armed, the best knight King Hugo hath. I will lift my sword and bring it down upon him in such wise it shall cleave helm and hauberk, saddle and steed, and the blade shall delve a ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... right, except that in wet weather it ached. In fact he could even tell by it when we were going to have rain. His "blooming barometer" he called it. Here he laughed—a hearty laugh, for he was a genial blade and liked ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... bowl, a hush fell upon all. At the sight of the pipe von Kalbach ground his heel in the turf, and when the word was given he rushed at Richter like a wild beast. You, my friend, who have never heard the whistle of sharp Schlager cannot know the song which a skilled arm draws from the blade. It was music that morning: You should have seen the noble's mighty strokes—'Prim und Second und Terz und Quart'. You would have marked how Richter met him at every blow. Von Kalbach never once took his eyes from the blue smoke from the bowl. He was terrible in his fury, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "he was always on the same side with Lord Gosford and myself. He and his friend, Sir Peter Howell, who was the admiral that took the French squadron, in the glorious administration of Billy Pitt, and afterwards took an island with this same General Denbigh: aye, the old admiral was a hearty blade; a good deal such a looking man ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... our quarterback. We afterwards learned that all four of the backfield wanted to carry the ball over. Crowther reached down and plucked three blades of grass and the halfbacks and the fullback each drew one with the understanding that the one drawing the shortest blade could carry the ball. Much to their astonishment, they found that all the pieces of grass were of the same length. Crowther, who made the ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... Marquis d'Espard, whom he wished to see interdicted, in order that he might be made curator. His face was thin as a knife-blade, and he was frigid and severe. Judge Popinot said he reminded him somewhat of Cain. He was one of the deepest personages to be found in the Marquise d'Espard's drawing-room, and was the political half of that woman. [The Commission in Lunacy. Scenes from ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... was so popular, so beloved by the slum-dwellers, that whenever he showed a disposition to spare an opponent, the whole mass of the populace were quick with the mercy-signal: the moment they saw Palus sheathe his blade their arms went up with his, almost before his, thumbs as flat as his, never a thumb out nor any ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... also reduces the weight of the hook, an advantage for dry flies. Of course flies may be tied on any style or grade of hook, but considering the work involved in making the fly, and realizing that with an old razor blade the fly can be quickly removed from the hook should the first attempts prove unsatisfactory, you will see the advantage in using ...
— How to Tie Flies • E. C. Gregg
... "neat," whether applied to a fish, a cow, a chariot, a laurel, the steps of a temple, or the art of wrestling. He renders "horridus," "in a rude pickle;" "virgo" is generally translated "the young lady;" "vir" is "a gentleman;" "senex" and "senior" are indifferently "the old blade," "the old fellow," or "the old gentleman;" while "summa arx" is "the very tip-top." "Misera" is "poor soul;" "exsilio" means "to bounce forth;" "pellex" is "a miss;" "lumina" are "the peepers;" "turbatum fugere" is "to scower off ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... dressed, sit in his chair on the veranda, and walk about the house and garden a little, the Senora, at ease in her mind about him, had resumed her old habit of long, lonely walks on the place. It had been well said by her servants, that there was not a blade of grass on the estate that the Senora had not seen. She knew every inch of her land. She had a special purpose in walking over it now. She was carefully examining to see whether she could afford to sell to the Ortegas a piece of pasture-land which they greatly desired to buy, as it joined a ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... dreadful thought! It seems to me that the man who possesses his eyesight must behold a thousand evidences of a Creator denied to a blind man; and in the same way the man who knows most of the material world should see the most conclusive evidences of design and a Designer. The humblest blade of grass preaches an incontrovertible sermon. What force is it that brings it up, green and beautiful, out of the black, dead earth? Who made it succulent and filled it full of the substances that will make flesh and blood and bone ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... quite certain whether the knife was wanted for the purpose of scalping him, or merely with a view of amputating the unruly member which had been the instrument of offence. "Well, take this one," said Nichols, handing him a five-bladed pocket-knife, with the large blade open, "go out and cut me a ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Ferguson was encamped was the top of an eminence some six hundred yards long and about two hundred and fifty yards from one base across to the other; and its shape was that of an Indian paddle, varying from one hundred and twenty yards at the blade to sixty yards at the handle in width. Outcropping boulders upon the outer edge of the plateau afforded some slight shelter for Ferguson's force; but, unsuspicious of attack, Ferguson had made no abatis to protect his camp from the assault to which it was so vulnerable ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... all simple receivers. The understanding, the affections, the moral sentiments, all, are primarily and characteristically, recipients of influence; and only secondarily agents. Now, how different is the value of ore, dead in its silent waiting-places, from the wrought blade, the all but living engine, and the ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... courage was over-swayed. He yielded and ladled out in the old-fashioned way, on the point of a knife-blade, what he believed to be the right amount. Henry immediately sank into a heavy sleep. He died before morning. His chance of life had been infinitesimal, and his death was not necessarily due to the drug, but Samuel Clemens, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... outside of the sad atmosphere of human life and its eternal tragedy! A vain effort and a vain thought, since that from which I sought to escape came from nature itself, from every visible thing; every leaf and flower and blade was eloquent of it, and the very sunshine, that gave life and brilliance to all things, was turned ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... 1304. Knife. The knife blade is made of tempered steel, and when put away for a long period should be covered with a light coating ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... Great-heart to Mr. Valiant-for-truth, Thou hast worthily behaved thyself. Let me see thy sword. So he showed it him. When he had taken it in his hand, and looked thereon a while, he said, Ha! it is a right Jerusalem blade ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... stretched her aid, Her sympathetic tow and eddy; The oars of air with azure blade, And silent gravities persuade And waft them onward, slow and steady— On ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... find out then," proposed Hal, whipping out his jack-knife, opening a blade and beginning to dig. The crowd grew in size. Messrs. Farnum and Pollard had great difficulty in ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... danger of losing it all again by enemies of several sorts, which it was scarce possible to keep from it; as first, the goats, and wild creatures which I called hares, which, tasting the sweetness of the blade, lay in it night and day, as soon as it came up, and ate it so close, that it could get no time ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... composed: thick steams, From land, from flood up-drawn, dimming the day, " Like a dark ceiling stand: " slow through the air Gossamer floats, or, stretch'd from blade to blade, The wavy ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... me," he exclaimed, "that my sword sleeps in the scabbard, while the enemies of the house of Home triumph." He drew his sword, and approaching the picture of his father, he pressed the weapon to his lips, and continued, "By the soul of my ancestors, I swear upon this blade, that the proud Albany and his creatures shall feel that one Home still lives!" He dashed the weapon back into its sheath, and approaching the stranger, drew him towards the lamp, and said, "Ye are Trotter, who was my cousin's henchman, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... Ginger, then pare off the rines of one or two good Lemmons, and slice them thin into the Mutton, when it is almost well stewed between two dishes, and so let them stew together two or three warmes, when they are enough, put them in a clean dish, and take the shoulder blade being well broyled on a grid-iron, and lay it upon your meat, garnishing your dishes with some slices and rinds of the Lemmons, ...
— A Book of Fruits and Flowers • Anonymous
... the soldier's eye Lit with a sudden flame; And as he grasped the ancient blade, He murmured Warren's name; Then said, "My boy, I leave you gold— But what is richer still, I leave you, mark me, mark me now— The sword ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... had flown off to beg from flower to flower, and the Butterfly had fluttered away to his playfellows, the Dragon-fly still remained, poised on a blade of grass. Her slender and burnished body, more brightly and deeply blue than the deep blue sky, glistened in the sun beam; and her net-like wings laughed at the flowers because THEY could not fly, but must stand still and abide the wind and the rain. The Dragon-fly sipped a little of the Child's ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... ashen spear of Ajax with his great sword, at the socket of the blade behind, and cut it quite off; Telamonian Ajax indeed vainly brandished the mutilated spear in his hand; but the brazen blade rang, falling upon the earth at a distance from him. Then Ajax knew in his blameless soul, and shuddered at the deeds of the ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... He took it from my fingers, dug with its blade, and suddenly from the inside I saw a tiny hole appear in the frame of the sash beside the lock hasp. "Here we are!" He brought his upper half back into the room and held up a wooden plug, painted—dipped in paint—the exact color ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan |
