"Button" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hugh had eighteen machines, at each of which a skilled woman sat; and he hired young girls to sew through buttons and hook-and-eyes and to make button-holes. These women and girls were under the hand of Millie, who kept count of their comings and goings and the work they performed, holding from their wages the value of the material they spoilt and of the minutes they were not at their task. Millie ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... restoratives, soon brought him to consciousness. Seeing he was not dead, his companions now dressed his wounds as well as they could, under the circumstances. It was soon perceived that they were not of a very dangerous order. One bullet had struck a button and glanced off, leaving only a bruise on the breast; the other had penetrated the chest, but not in a fatal direction. The fall from his horse had stunned Hadley; there was also a mark on the side of his head, indicating that the horse had struck him with his foot, adding materially to the effect ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... hilarity of a rustic bridal, and, as he stumbled along, sawing away upon his fiddle till he made all crack again. Then came the happy bridegroom, drest in his Sunday suit of blue, with a large nosegay in his button-hole; and close beside him his blushing bride, with downcast eyes, clad in a white robe and slippers, and wearing a wreath of white roses in her hair. The friends and relatives brought up the procession; and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... contests, a woman has ever the best of it at all points. The man plays with a button to his foil, while the woman uses a weapon that can really wound. Burgo knew that he must go,—felt that he must skulk away as best he might, and perhaps hear a low titter of half-suppressed laughter as he went. Even that might be possible. "No, Lady Glencora," he said, "I will ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... we must not set down every coincidence as borrowing. Thucydides himself insists on the recurrence of the same or similar events in a history of which human nature is a constant factor. "Undo this button" is not necessarily a quotation from King Lear. "There is no way but this" was original with Macaulay, and not stolen from Shakespeare. "Never mind, general, all this has been my fault," are words attributed to General Lee after the battle of Gettysburg. ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... spikes were wanting to the iron railings. When the telegram came I was sitting in my study writing a discussion on the atomic theory of Krelli of Balmoral. I at once changed the Woking jacket in which I was writing for evening dress—which wanted, I remember, a button—and hastened to the Park. I did not tell my wife anything about it. I did not care to have her with me. In all such adventures I find her more useful as a sentimental figure in the background—I, of course, allow no sentiment in the ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... mandarins, stood disclosed in all their charms. The lady of this mansion was seated at table covered with works of a different description: it exhibited the various arts of woman, in regular gradation, from the painted card-rack and gilded firescreen, to the humble thread-paper and shirt-button. Mrs. Fox was a fine, fashionable-looking woman, with a smooth skin, and still smoother address. She received her visitors with that overstrained complaisance which, to Mary's nicer tact, at once discovered that all was hollow; but poor Miss Grizzy was scarcely seated before she was already transfixed ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... to bear my clothes on my back, and never made any fire but without doors, for my necessity, in dressing my food, &c. Now I made me three good vests, with large robes or gowns over them, to hang down to the feet, and button close to the wrists, and all these lined with furs, to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life: Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life. And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never!— Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.—- ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... and, with the assistance of her two little sisters, did all that was required for the household. After a short repose, we went out again into the clearing, when one of my friends asked him how he got on with his axe? "Pretty well," replied he, laughing; "I'll show you." He led us to where a button-wood tree was lying; the trunk was at least ninety feet long, and the diameter where it had been cut through between five and six feet; it was an enormous tree. "And did you cut that down yourself?" enquired ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... time, while they cleared a larger and larger space, they searched feverishly with the electric torch for some sign of a knob which would indicate a door, or some button or spring which might be used to open it. But there was nothing, and in the meantime the smoke was drifting back, in more and ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... to go to Russia. If there is anything you want to know about pass-ports just apply to me. With all confidence, I sailed down to the Consulate and was met by a pair of legs attached to a huge mustache and the funniest little button of a head you ever saw. I think the Lord must have laughed when he got through making that man! He was horribly bored with life in general, and me in particular. He motioned me wearily to a chair beside a table, and, handing me a paper, managed ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... me curiously, without answering for a moment. "I'm not a liar, Withers; but I'm not going to quarrel either. You're the only chap I care a button for; or, at any rate, you're the only chap that's ever come here; and it's something to tell a fellow what you feel. I don't care a fig for fifty thousand ghosts, although I swear on my solemn oath that I know they're here. But she"—he turned deliberately—"you laid a tanner ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the platform I see Josiah furtively on-button his stiff linen cuffs as if preparin' to throw 'em off for life. His face radiant, and hummin' sotey vosey ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... it, somehow: it hung a good deal like a night-gownd; but your father he bought it for the color. He traded off some shells for it in some o' them furrin places. You wouldn't think it now, but it used to be jest the color o' a robin's egg or a light-blue 'bachelor's button;' and your father he used to stick one o' them in my belt whenever they was in blossom, when I hed the gownd on. He hed a heap o' notions about things matchin'. He brought me that gownd the v'yage he made jest afore Caleb was born; and I never hed ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... slowly—put the paper down, and gazed first up at the ceiling; then he glanced round, and found all the attentive eyes on him: he smiled—it was just a visible smile, no more—and his head fell again on his breast, while his hand idly twisted a button ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... which they sat, looked like a very young man. His complexion was brilliantly fair, his beard jet black, and his curly hair most carefully arranged. He had his opera-hat under his arm, a camellia in his button-hole; and his light-yellow kid gloves were so tight, that it looked as if they must inevitably burst the instant ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... party of natives, as hostages for the loss of a boat, which had been stolen, to the great jeopardy of a party employed on the survey; and some of these natives, as well as a child whom he bought for a pearl-button, he took with him to England, determining to educate them and instruct them in religion at his own expense. To settle these natives in their own country, was one chief inducement to Captain Fitz Roy to undertake our present voyage; ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... had an unbounded confidence in this man's common honesty. He had frequently restored to me sixpences and shillings carelessly dropped upon the floor, for I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-button affairs. The proceeding, then, which followed will ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... Places without any Buttons to their Coats, which they supply with several little Silver Hasps, tho' our freshest Advices from London make no mention of any such Fashion; and we are something shy of affording Matter to the Button-Makers for ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... table after having put the mixture into them and steam them about fifteen minutes. Turn them out carefully and serve hot. Tomato sauce poured around them is an improvement. If preferred they can be cold and decorated with aspic jelly and a ragout made of truffles, cooked tongue, or ham and button mushrooms, or a little tomato ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various
... painful thrill ran through his frame. He had found the brothers; they stood in the middle of the room, proud and radiant, with silken badges on their shoulders, and lilies-of-the-valley in their button-holes, looking at the row of girls dressed in white, who ornamented the walls, with ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... button your blouse up again," ordered Private Hyman. "You ain't called upon to fight that bully. Hooper, if you're spoiling for fight I'll do my best to be ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... of the brewery, which it was at last resolved should be sold. Lord Lucan tells a very good story, which, if not precisely exact, is certainly characteristical: that when the sale of Thrale's brewery was going forward, Johnson appeared bustling about, with an ink-horn and pen in his button-hole, like an excise-man; and on being asked what he really considered to be the value of the property which was to be disposed of, answered, 'We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... who would be fool enough to give half a crown for them all. He threatened to call his servants to throw me out of the window. Until then I had been very composed; but on this threat, anger and indignation seized me in my turn. I sprang to the door, and after having turned a button which fastened it within: "No, count," said I, returning to him with a grave step, "Your servants shall have nothing to do with this affair; please to let it be settled between ourselves." My action and ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... clusters in thick curls on each side of the face; on the chest is a frill turned down in two points; the gown, fastened in front by a row of buttons, has long and tight sleeves, with a small slit at the wrists closed by a button; lastly, the Queen wears, over all, a sort of second robe in the shape of a cloak, the sleeves of which are ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... thrilled as she walked away from Drouet. She felt ashamed in part because she had been weak enough to take it, but her need was so dire, she was still glad. Now she would have a nice new jacket! Now she would buy a nice pair of pretty button shoes. She would get stockings, too, and a skirt, and, and—until already, as in the matter of her prospective salary, she had got beyond, in her desires, twice the purchasing ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... up like a turnip with a candle inside, simply because some plain young man did the inevitable, and came up into the drawing-room after dinner; and I've seen clever women go to pieces like a linen button at the wash, simply because some ignorant man did the inevitable, and preferred a more foolish and better-looking ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... orpiment (a sulphide of arsenic) according to the purpose for which it is desired. After further operations of melting and straining, the lac is melted and spread into thin sheets to form ordinary shellac, or is melted and dropped on to a smooth surface to form "button-lac." Ordinary shellac almost invariably contains some rosin, but good button-lac is free from this substance. The presence of 5 per cent. of rosin in shellac can be detected by dissolving in a little ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith
... night, usually presents arms to nobody; but a sentinel on camp-guard by day is expected to perform that ceremony to anything in human shape that has two rows of buttons. Here was a human shape, but so utterly buttonless that it exhibited not even a rag to which a button could by any earthly possibility be appended, buttonless even potentially; and my blameless Ethiopian presented arms to even this. Where, then, are the theories of Carlyle, the axioms of "Sartor Resartus," the inability of humanity to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sort of thing will not last long." One of the leading members of the new club, M. de Guiraitiand, an old officer of seventy-eight years, makes speeches in public against the National Assembly, tries to enlist artisans in his party, "affects to wear a white button on his hat fastened by pins with their points jutting out," and, as it is stated, he has given to several mercers a large order for white cockades. In reality, on examination, not one is found in any shop, and all the dealers in ribbons, on being interrogated, reply ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... me, perhaps too late, that these confessions may be taken as didactic in themselves; in writing them I have had not the slightest intention of improving anybody's mind but simply of relieving my own, by button-holing the reader who happens to come my way. I should like to add that what is called the coarseness of the eighteenth-century novel and romance is much more healthful than the nasty brutality of a school of our novelists—who make up for their ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... thanking her for the invitation, and saying that he should try to call for dinner. The tone of the note seemed to him too intimate, and he tore it up; he wrote another, but that was too formal, almost offensive. Again he tore it up, and touched a button on the wall. A servant, morose, with flowing side-whiskers and in a ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... knowledge on which some of our members are not capable of giving information.' Never was honour better deserved or better repaid. Without his record the fame of that club would have passed away, surviving at best in some sort of hazy companionship with the Kit-Cat, Button's, Will's, and other clubs and assemblies. Never was there a club of which each member was better qualified to take care of his own fame with posterity. None of Johnson's associates would have hesitated in declaring ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... creatures, which, unfortunately for them, belonged to a rare species. Their antennae, which are club-shaped, terminated abruptly in a kind of button, and their elytra, which are a brilliant black, are crossed by a belt of yellow color. In vain I turned over the ground and the prey, but I could only find ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... Husband," may be taken as an example: one "that's just come to a small estate, and a great perriwig—he that sings himself among the women—he won't speak to a gentleman when a lord's in company. You always see him with a cane dangling at his button, his breast open, no gloves, one eye tuck'd under his ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... racket," said Aunt M'riar. "So I lay there ain't much wrong with them." She picked up a piece of work to go on with, and explored a box for a button to meet its views. Evidently a garment of Dolly's. Probably this was a slack season for the higher needlework, and the getting up of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... son, a young person of seven, who owed his cognomen to the crop of flaming red curls which adorned his round button of a head. ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... Aroused from his doleful reverie by the sound, Daniel jumped from his chair and, going to the hall, shouted for Azuba. Then he remembered that Azuba was not on the premises and answered the ring himself. He had forgotten to push the button of the porch light and, peering out into the dark, he could see only that the person standing upon the top step was a woman. A carriage had drawn up at the curb and the driver was unloading a trunk ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine—with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And now—because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough to find a listener or two on the former occasion—I again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years' experience in a Custom-House. The example of the famous "P. P., Clerk of this Parish," was never more faithfully followed. The truth seems to be, however, that when he casts ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to wear several thin, warm garments than one thick one, for the simple reason that going uphill one wants to peel to the minimum; sitting on top of a mountain or ridge in a wind, one wants to pile on everything one possesses, and going downhill one wants a medium amount, all of which will button up so that the snow cannot penetrate inside. Ordinary country clothes will usually suffice for the first season, especially if they are of smooth material which ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... like to walk, but if you look at it in that way I won't do it again," she promised, and in the silence which followed stole a look now and then at John Hunter, revelling in his well-groomed appearance. A vision of her father's slatternly, one-suspendered shoulders, and button-less sleeves flapping about his rough brown wrists, set against this well-shirted gentleman produced sharp contrast and made of the future a thing altogether desirable. The useless arguments between her parents arose before ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... have thought that this gentle girl could be so jubilant? The young fellow was delighted to hear her, and stood quite still and smiled down on her as she with nimble fingers stuck a violet and a leaf into the top button-hole of his coat. He very nearly gave her a kiss—nobody was looking on, and her shining parting was so ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... I tried a big bluff. I took hold of the lapel of her waist, intending to undo just one button. I let go in fright when I found there was no button,—only an awful complication of hooks or some other feminine method for keeping things together,—and I grew red and trembled, thinking what might have ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... the roll and found that he was surrounded by a sort of petticoat of oil-skin which could be drawn up and buckled round his chest. In this position it could be kept by a loop attached to a button, or a wooden pin, thrust through ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... being arrayed in the dentist's garb with only a domino over it, I did not wish to be seen. I fled into the closet there, and the next moment two juniors passed, carrying something in their arms, wrapped in shawls. I heard one say, 'When I give the signal, Miss Blank will touch the button and put out the lights.' When they were beyond hearing I stole from the closet and found a small bundle at my feet. Investigation revealed this ghostly garb, and, if I am not mistaken, those shawls, in ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... boy? And unless you let me know I'll swear you are no sailor, Blue jacket or no, Brass button or no, sailor, Anchor and crown or no! Sure his ship was the Jolly Briton— 'Speak low, woman, ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... the telephone. The officer pressed the button impatiently and, as he did not receive a reply at ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... as he and the men were impressed by the important point to which his line of argument was leading, then went on excitedly: "We only have t' reason deflectively t' put our fingers on th' button what caused th' doggonedest Injun fights this country ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... past the country inhabited by the Shillooks, the largest and most powerful black tribe on the banks of the White Nile. They are very wealthy, and possess immense herds of cattle; are also agriculturists, fishermen, and warriors. Their huts are regularly built, looking at a distance like rows of button mushrooms. They embark boldly on the river in their raft-like canoes, formed of the excessively light ambatch-wood. The tree is of no great thickness, and tapers gradually to a point. It is thus easily cut down, and, several trunks being lashed together, a canoe is quickly formed. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... pay a sincere tribute to two departments of our British Army. The Commissary Department which supplies every want of the soldier, from a high explosive shell to a button. It is as near to the one hundred per cent. mark of efficiency as it is possible for a human organization to become. It is not too much to say ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... soldier for the ancient attire of Germany. His fair locks, which the Russian was used to wash every morning, he was now bidden to bedaub with grease and flour, while he energetically cursed the black spatterdashes which it took him an hour to button every morning. Orders to establish these novelties among his men were sent to Suwarrow, then in Italy with the army, the directions being accompanied with little sticks for models of the tails and side curls in which the soldiers' hair was to be arranged. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... for denying the gentleman to be there when she asked for him; but indeed the poor woman had not erred designedly; for Mrs Slipslop asked for a clergyman, and she had unhappily mistaken Adams for a person travelling to a neighbouring fair with the thimble and button, or some other such operation; for he marched in a swinging great but short white coat with black buttons, a short wig, and a hat which, so far from having a black hatband, ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... who has seen through me all the time and who hasn't been taken in by me, as the world has; and I shall say to him, 'By the way, here is a small fire and a few laurel leaves; please warm your hands at the one and wear the others in your button-hole.' That is the proper way in which a woman should treat fame—merely as a decoration for the ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... Frank said, struggling to reach the door; but Peterkin button-holed him and held him fast, ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... choose to make on human character, I hope to soften the criticism with the "milk of human kindness." As rude rough rocks on mountain peaks wear button-hole bouquets so there are intervening traits in the rudest human character, which, if the clouds could only part, would show out in ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... impetus was given to the surgery of wounded, mortified or diseased pieces of intestine by the introduction from Chicago of an ingenious contrivance named, after the inventor, Murphy's button. This consists of a short nickel-plated tube in two pieces, which are rapidly secured in the divided ends of the bowel, and in such a manner that when the pieces are subsequently "married'' the adjusted ends of the bowel are securely fixed together ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... detecting and following the sympathy of an audience is half the outfit for an orator; and Mrs. Frankland felt the need of additional statement to carry the matter rightly to Phillida. She was ever feeling about for the electrical button that would reach a hearer's sympathies, and never content ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... competition still defies) - Our celebrated "Sir!!!" Then all the crowd take down our looks In pocket memorandum books. To diagnose, Our modest pose The kodaks do their best: If evidence you would possess Of what is maiden bashfulness, You only need a button press - And WE do ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... proposition for you! And me just a plain, every-day mitt juggler that don't take thinkin' exercises reg'lar. "Guess you've pushed the wrong button this time, Sadie," says I. "But I'll stay in your corner till the lights go ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... causes of offence and had no difficulty in finding them. Everything about that conversation was suspicious. For how did it begin? With a broken head, with every button of his clothes torn open as though he had just been searched to the skin, he woke up in his father's presence. The father might pose as a good Samaritan who had come upon a sufferer by the wayside, but he should not have ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... it, because when my regiment was ordered to the front, my old colored Mammy—Ma'm Judy—who nursed me, sewed one just like that, inside the lining of my coat skirt. But, Dyce, that rabbit's foot was not worth a button; for the very first battle I was in, a cannon ball killed my horse under me, and carried away my coat tail—rabbit's foot and all. Don't pin your faith to left hind feet, they are fatal frauds. You ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the first officer. "Steady on your course, quartermaster," he shouted. "Stand from under on deck." He turned a lever which closed compartments, pushed a button marked—"Captain's Room," and crouched down, ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... blackthorn bloom began to faintly show the tiniest white studs, and the boys in great triumph brought in the first blue thrush's eggs. Nature would go on though under the thumb of the north wind. Poor folk came out of the towns to gather ivy leaves for sale in the streets to make button-holes. Many people think the ivy leaf has a pleasant shape; it was used of old time among the Greeks and Romans to decorate the person at joyous festivals. The ivy is frequently mentioned in the classic poets. Not so with the countrywomen in the villages to-day, ground ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... submitted to the consideration of the most eminent scientific and practical men of the day; after which evidence was taken at great length before a Select Committee which sat on the subject. Among those examined on the occasion were the venerable James Watt of Birmingham, Mr. John Rennie, Professor Button of Woolwich, Professors Playfair and Robison of Edinburgh, Mr. Jessop, Mr.Southern, and Dr. Maskelyne. Their evidence will still be found interesting as indicating the state at which constructive science had at that time arrived in England.*[8] There was a considerable diversity of opinion ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... like much to see your Essay upon Entrails: is there any honorary token of silver gilt? any cups, or pounds sterling attached to the prize, besides glory? I expect to see you with a medal suspended from your button-hole, like ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... shrugged his shoulders. He touched the button of the electric bell, and when the servant appeared, ordered coffee. He selected a cigarette from a silver case with considerable care, and having lighted it smoked for some moments in silence. The servant brought ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... and open the safe. Dump all the papers and money and whatever else you find into the bags and then get out fast. Hop into the plane and take off. When you're clear of the building, turn the heaters on it. I want it melted down and the men and stuff inside with it. Don't leave even a button ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... Joan was easily his master, but it made a good show for all that, for La Hire was a grand swordsman. What a swift creature Joan was! You would see her standing erect with her ankle-bones together and her foil arched over her head, the hilt in one hand and the button in the other—the old general opposite, bent forward, left hand reposing on his back, his foil advanced, slightly wiggling and squirming, his watching eye boring straight into hers—and all of a sudden she would give ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the day of Mr. Farraday's expected call, and Miss Mason had hardly departed when the bell rang. Mary hastily put away her sewing and pressed the electric button which opened the downstairs door to visitors. She wished Stefan were back again to help her entertain the editor, and greeted him with apologies for her husband's absence. She was anxious that this man, whom she instinctively ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... College—was reclining among vast blue and pink cushions in the bows, pensively twirling a Japanese parasol, one arm flung round the shoulders of her companion—a fellow-student; fair and stolid and good-humoured. Broome summed her up mentally: "Tactless but trustworthy. Anglo-Saxon to the last button on her ready-made Shantung coat and the blunted toe ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... With their spiritual honours had come to many of them honours temporal; indeed, so plentiful were the purple ribbons of the Palms and the red rosette of the Legion—with here and there even a Legion button—as to suggest that the entire company had been caught out without umbrellas while a brisk shower of decorations passed their way. A less general, and a far more picturesque, decoration was the enamelled cigale worn by the Cigaliers: at once the emblem of their Society, ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... chairs and gazed about us in awe. No hotel had ever affected any of us like this before. At first we talked in whispers; then as our courage revived, we became critical. Then somebody thought of having a "Scoot"; tremulously he pressed the button for the waiter. The waiter came and they had two "Scoots" each. Then somebody made a funny remark and one of us laughed out loud. Suddenly the laugher stopped and said, "I feel as if I ought not to laugh; I feel that nobody ever laughed in ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... train the lad to work in the mill, and was patient beyond what the patience of most fathers would have been with his stepson's idleness and shiftlessness. "Never mind," he was used to say. "Levi'll come all right. Levi's as bright as a button." ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... there was something he MUST do before dinner), I was left with two whole hours still at my disposal. For a time I walked through the rooms of the house, and looked at myself in all the mirrors—firstly with the tunic buttoned, then with it unbuttoned, and lastly with only the top button fastened. Each time it looked splendid. Eventually, though anxious not to show any excess of delight, I found myself unable to refrain from crossing over to the coach-house and stables to gaze at Krassovchik, Kuzma, and the drozhki. ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... travellers, I had been led to fear horrible things of custom-houses. This over, we took a stroll about the city. I was first struck by seeing so many people walking in the middle of the streets, and so many gentlemen going about with pinks stuck in their button-holes. Then, the houses being all built of brown granite or dark brick, gives the town a sombre appearance, which the sunshine (when there is any) cannot dispel. Of Liverpool we saw little. Before the twilight had wholly faded, we were again ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... you, sir? Let this right hand, which I now raise in air, and clench in awful menace, warn you not to repeat the damning accusation. Sevenoaks howls, and it is well. Let every man who stands in my path take warning. I button my coat; I raise my arms; I straighten my form, and they flee away—flee like the mists of the morning, and over yonder mountain-top, fade in the far blue sky. And now, my dear sir, don't make an ass of yourself, but sit down. Thank you, sir. I make ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... morbid, Mrs. Chance—forgive me for saying it. For after all what does it matter what people say or think about any of us? I dare say that if your husband had by chance invented a new button- hook or something, and had been paid fifty thousand pounds for the patent, or if someone had died and left him a fortune, people would have seen all the good that was ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... her smelling-bottle, Mistress Anerley looked at her husband as if he were Bonaparte himself. He, though aware that it was inconsistent of her, felt (as he said afterward) as if he had been a Frenchman; and looked for his hat, and fumbled about for the button of the pew, to get out of it. But luckily the clerk, with great presence of mind, awoke, and believing the sermon to be over, from the number of men who were standing ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... him, but she was as one of whom he took no account. He turned to the desk and began to write with a deliberation all the more terrible to her because of the white anger he felt. And still she stood. He pressed the button on his desk, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... walked along, an' he walked along, an' he met a tiger. An' e tiger eat 'em up. Evly bit of 'em. Escept hims feet. An' he walked along, an' he walked along, an' he walked along, an' he met a horsh. An' e horsh ate 'em all up. Evly bit of 'em. An' nofing was left. Ony hims button. An' hims mover had no dear ittle ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... navigating compartment. Water rushed into the [v]ballast tanks, the boat grew heavy, and its rolling and pitching ceased: the Kate sank and ran ahead under water, steering by means of the [v]periscope. Andrey pushed a button and a cone of pale blue rays poured from the tube. The [v]screen of the periscope grew alive with tiny waves, passing clouds, and a tail of smoke on the skyline. With his chin resting on his arm, Andrey scanned the image of the sea which lay before him. ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... once, he took Macwheeble by the button, and led him into one of the deep window recesses, whence only fragments of their conversation reached the rest of the party. It certainly related to stamp-paper and parchment; for no other subject, even from the mouth of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... order of St. Francis came into the room to beg something for his convent. No man cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies. The moment I cast my eyes upon him, I was determined not to give him a single sou; and accordingly I put my purse into my pocket—button'd it up—set myself a little more upon my centre, and advanced up gravely to him; there was something, I fear, forbidding in my look: I have his figure this moment before my eyes, and think there was that in it ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... the Go-cart swiftly sped And smashed that Cop completely, And as he sailed o'er Bobby's head Bob snipped a button neatly! ...
— The Slant Book • Peter Newell
... was hideous even if the eyes had been normal. He was slashed with a wide cicatrice of livid scar tissue from one cheekbone across his nose and down to the button of his jaw on the ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... charming bonhomie, found among all classes, is apt to take the form of gossip overmuch, which is sometimes wearisome. The Franc-Comtois, I must believe, are the greatest talkers in the world, and any chance listener to be caught by the button is not easily let go. Yet a considerable amount of volubility is pardoned when people are so ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... overdrive button. The universe of stars went out, while everything living in the ship felt the customary sensations of dizziness, of nausea, and of a spiraling fall to ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... chanced that the widow who had given the new vault to the cemetery association had a horror of allowing supposed dead folks to be buried alive. As a consequence she had had the vault furnished with an electric button which opened the door from the inside. It had been stipulated that a light should be placed close to the button, but as yet this ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... be a new thing in the earth; it would comprise all that was strong and wise in human society, and would exclude every germ of weakness and frailty. The sealing of the charter was like the touching of the electric button which, in our day, sets in motion for the first time a vast mechanical system, or fires a simultaneous salute of guns in a hundred cities. King Charles I., who was to lose his anointed head on the block because he tried to crush popular liberty in England, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... friend, whoever you are,' he murmured placidly, as he began to struggle with the stiff button-holes of ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... gold coin here somewhere," said the Wheat, "such a pretty one, it would make a capital button for your jacket, dear, or for your mamma; that is all any sort of money is good for; I wish all the coins were made into buttons ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... camera and focused it on Alan. He pressed a button; a droning sort of hum came from the machine. Alan felt a ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... to relieve our distress. With his help I swiftly selected an outfit that was not half bad for ready-to-wear garments. There was a black morning-coat, snug at the waist, moderately broad at the shoulders, closing with two buttons, its skirt sharply cut away from the lower button and reaching to the bend of the knee. The lapels were, of course, soft-rolled and joined the collar with a triangular notch. It is a coat of immense character when properly worn, and I was delighted to observe in the trying on that Cousin Egbert ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... he had taken up his location just now, it was close to the button which governed the two electric lights in the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... to accompany her father, and hoped to be a real comfort to him. She would take charge of his cabin and keep it in beautiful order, and repair his clothes, and take care that a button was never wanting; and would pour out his coffee and tea, and write out his journal and keep his accounts, she hoped. And should he fall sick, how carefully she would watch over him; indeed, she flattered herself that she could be of no slight use. Then, she might be a companion to Walter, who might ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... Whenever you want hot water, instead of bringing a bucketful from the spring and building a fire and sitting down to watch it simmer, you just turn a handle and out it comes, smoking; and whenever you want ice-water, you touch a button and give ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... have a flower too, mamma,' said Minette, jumping up, and taking him a red geranium. 'Let me put it into your button-hole, it ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... Vanya . . ." said Samoylenko, turning crimson and taking him by the button. "You must forgive my meddling in your private affairs, but . . . why shouldn't you ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... "Many Hindus now use leather slippers, but some adhere to the proper custom of wearing sandals, which have wooden soles, a strap of leather to pass over the instep, and a wooden or horn peg with a button on its top. The foot is passed through the strap and the peg is placed between two of the toes." [280] It is certain, however, that leather shoes and slippers were known to the Hindus from a fairly early ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... pressed the answer button. A voice said, "Sir, the space-liner Vestis reports breakout from overdrive. Now ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... pleasantly frank, close-cut gray hair, short gray whiskers, and a bristling white mustache. Across his forehead, cutting through his right eyebrow, was a desperate scar, that I at once associated in my own mind with the red ribbon of the Legion that he wore in the button-hole of his black frock-coat. He looked the officer in retreat, and the very gentleness and sweetness of his manner made me sure that he had done some gallant fighting ...
— For The Honor Of France - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... from his pocket a little red button with the letters I.W.W. printed across it. He pinned it, caressingly, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... when I exhibited the Morse system to the astonished dignitaries of Peking, those old men, though heads of departments, chuckled like children when, touching a button, they heard a bell ring; or when wrapping a wire round their bodies, they saw the lightning leap from point to point. "It's wonderful," they exclaimed, "but we can't use it in [Page 205] our country. The people would steal the wires." Electric bells are now common ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... usually been unquiet and tumultuous. The superior mob, like the lower ones, does not wish the seeds of Caesars or of Bonapartes to flourish in our territories. These mobs pant for a spiritual levelling; for there is no more distinction between one man and another than a coloured button on the lapel or a title on the calling-card. Such is the aspiration of our truly socialist types; other distinctions, like valour, energy, virtue, are for the democratic steam-roller, veritable impertinences ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... startled by the signal of four bells. One of the men, reaching forward, touched a button, and the signal could be heard in the conning tower. That was, evidently, to inform the commander there that all was in readiness. Everything was expectancy now. ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... said Sir William, "to please you I shall do so," and, rising and fetching his sword, he desired the stranger, who was an ugly-looking fellow, to draw and defend himself. After a pass or two Sir William, with a dexterous stroke, cut off a button from the vest ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... play educated games now," Pearl had said, when she started them at this one. "'Bull-in-the-ring,' 'squat-tag,' 'button, button, who's got the button?' are all right for kids that don't have to rise in the world, but with you lads it's different. Ye've got to make yer games count. When I get to school I'll learn lots of games for ye, but ye must ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... covered with levers, electric switches, push buttons, and contrivances the nature of which Parker could not guess. The doctor leaned forward. He threw over a switch. The lights in the room became less bright. He pressed a button. The Danse Macabre of Saint-Saens floated weirdly upon the air, as though the music came ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... his garters; a coat of crimson velvet faced with white velvet: a short cloak of crimson lined with white satin, covering the left shoulder and fastened on the right-hand side by a double clasp of diamonds; a black velvet cap, surmounted by two aigrets, a diamond loop, and for button, the most celebrated of the crown jewels, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... ruminating over Tom's unexpected exit from her little world, Emma Dean's brisk step sounded outside. The door swung open. Emma gave a soft exclamation as she saw the room in darkness. Pressing the button at the side of the door, she flooded the room with light, only to behold Grace standing in the middle of the floor, still wearing her outdoor wraps, an open ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... cylinder and a small brass megaphone, and, having wound the motor, pressed the starting-button. Almost at once a stentorian voice rang through ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... gaiety and splendour of his dress. It is a white satin pinked vest, close sleeved to the wrist; over the body a brown doublet, finely flowered and embroidered with pearl. In the feather of his hat a large ruby and pearl drop at the bottom of the sprig, in place of a button; his trunk or breeches, with his stockings and riband garters, fringed at the end, all white, and buff shoes with white riband. Oldys, who saw this picture, has thus described the dress of Rawleigh. But I have some important additions; for I find that Rawleigh's shoes ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... wants are moderate, but their fulfilment must be certain. The break-up of the government, which deprives me of my salary as a private secretary, deprives me of luxuries which I can do without—a horse, a brougham, a stall at the play, a flower in my button-hole—but my clerkship is my freehold. As long as I possess it, I can study, I can work, I can watch and comprehend all the machinery of government. I can move in society, without which a public man, whatever his talents or acquirements, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... ambiguity of period and even of clime in him, and he rejoices in that inability to depict the modern which is the most convincing sign of the contemporary. He has a genius for landscape, yet he abounds in knowledge of every sort of ancient fashion of garment; the buckles and button-holes, the very shoe-ties, of the past are dear to him. It is almost always autumn or winter in his pictures. His horizons are cold, his trees are bare (he does the bare tree beautifully), and his draperies lined with fur; but when ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... command, not because I am ill, but because I had formidable threatening of illness, like a black cloud which after all does not come down. The threat consisted in my left hand losing all sense and power. This is now the sixth day. On the third I regained power to button, though clumsily, and to use my fork. Of course I am ordered to use my brain as little as possible, and in future to change my habits. I must leave off all letters and other writing much earlier in the evening. But frequent short walks I hold ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... wonder at. He had seen it all before. That which did cause him surprise was the calm—the unnatural calm as it seemed to him—which prevailed in the house in Carlton Terrace. For a day or two, indeed, there was much going to and fro, much closeting and button-holing; for rather longer the secretary read anxiety and apprehension in one countenance—Lady Betty's. But things settled down. The knocker presently found peace, such comparative peace as falls to knockers in Carlton Terrace. ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... lass, and mak a clean fireside, Put on the muckle pot; Gie little Kate her button gown And Jock his Sunday coat; And mak their shoon as black as slaes, Their hose as white as snaw; It's a' to please my ain gudeman, For ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... capable. One might almost say in regard to such primitive organisms, that for each situation an instinct is provided and the situation calls forth its appropriate reaction almost as automatically as the pressing of an electric button causes the ringing of a bell. But, as animals rise higher in the scale, the kinds of conduct required become more varied and complex. For example, an impulse from the flight or fear instinct, in the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10 |
