"Flatten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is in the water, a board may be placed upon it, weighted so as not to flatten against the bottom of the vessel, or it may be kept in position under the water by pressing thin slips of wood over from side to side. The skin being well saturated—which, according to the size of the bird, will take place in from twelve to twenty-four hours—must ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... guarding on him," was Jeff's confident reply. "There aint no winder to the corncrib, and the door fastens with a bar outside. Some of the chinking has fell out atween the logs, but he can't crawl through the cracks less'n he can flatten himself out like a flying squirrel. Furthermore, there's the dogs that will be on to him if he gives ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... flute brings out this quality of song. I must not allow the pressure of too much greed to flatten out the reed, for then, as I fear, music will give place to the questions "Why?" "What is the use of so much?" "How am I to get it?"—not a word of which will rhyme with what Radhika sang! So, as I was saying, illusion alone is real—it ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... Flossie, who had, by this time, wiggled herself to a place beside Freddie, and so near the window that she could flatten ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... confines gave him place to grow: Just as in our streets, when the people stay To see the prince, and so fill up the way That weasels scarce could pass; when he comes near They throng and cleave up, and a passage clear, As if for that time their round bodies flatten'd were. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... No, but she'd flatten you out so that you'd go under that door and leave room for the jolly draught ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... chunk of stove wood or anything, and let 'em have it rattlety-bang-jing. I never seen her do it, of course—all that was afore MY time—but pa used to say it never made no difference whether 'twas the man come tryin' to collect the store bill or the minister or anybody, she'd up and flatten him just the same. Course pa said 'twas a whole lot more li'ble to be the bill man than the minister 'cause there was ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... like little white shells. He would take one between finger and thumb and play with it as if it were a toy, pulling at the lobe of it, or trying to flatten out the curved part. Her breasts, her shoulders, her knees, her little feet, every bit of her, he would examine and play with and kiss. She would lie and let him, seeming absorbed in some far-away thought, of which he was the object, then all at once ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... build and one of the best as well, is the "hunter's fire," All you need is an axe. Take two green logs about six to eight inches thick and five feet long and lay them six inches apart at one end and about fourteen inches at the other. Be sure that the logs are straight. It is a good plan to flatten the surface slightly on one side with the axe to furnish a better resting place for the pots and pans. If the logs roll or seem insecure, make a shallow trench to hold them or wedge them with flat stones. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... think of myself as laid on the shelf before Brace drifted in, and when I do that I get old-acting and stiff-jointed. But I've noticed that it's the same with folks as it is with the world, when they begin to flatten down, then the good Lord drops something into them to make 'em sorter rise. No need to flatten down until you're dead. Feeling tired is healthy and proper—not feeling at all is being finished. So now, Peter, you just go along to bed. I always have felt ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... "Hard a-port! flatten in forward! brail up the trysail, my men! Be smart!" cried Kloots, as from the wind's chopping round to the northward and westward, the ship was taken aback, and careened low before it. The rain now came down in torrents, and it was so dark that it was with difficulty they could ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and the rows in turn sewed to each other like a patchwork quilt, taking care to have the fur all run the same way. The robe should now be dampened again and stretched and tacked to its full extent to remove any wrinkles and flatten the seams. This sewing is all done from the back of the robe using an even over-hand stitch. Just before the final stretching it is well to apply arsenical solution ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... the forefinger as you go, to make it lie quite flat. Beginners should flatten down the seam with their thimbles, or with the handle of the scissors, before they begin to hem, as the outer and wider edge is very apt to get pushed up and bulge over, in the sewing, which hides ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... world. And then, after he had stroked the soft fur, and smelled the buckskin and sweet grasses, and tasted the crumbling maple sugar, and dressed himself in the barbaric splendours of the North, he could flatten his little nose against the dim square of light and look out over the glistening yellow backs of a dozen birchbark canoes to the distant, rain-blurred hills, beyond which lay the country whence all these things had come. Do you wonder that in after years that child hits the Long Trail? ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... hear. Whose arrow is the plague—whose quick flash splits The mid-sea mast, and rifts the tower to the rock, And hurls the victor's column down with him That crowns it, hear. Who causest the safe earth to shudder and gape, And gulf and flatten in her closing chasm Domed cities, hear. Whose lava-torrents blast and blacken a province To a cinder, hear. Whose winter-cataracts find a realm and leave it A waste of rock and ruin, hear. I call thee To make my ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Bompas were not consistent with his duty to me as host; and it did him honor and me too. But [with gathering fury] she isn't good enough for you, it seems. You regard her with coldness, with indifference; and you have the cool cheek to tell me so to my face. For two pins I'd flatten your nose in to teach you manners. Introducing a fine woman to you is casting pearls before swine [yelling at him] ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... parterre. [flat land area] table land, plateau, ledge; butte; mesa (plain) 344. [instrument to measure horizontality] level, spirit level. V. be horizontal &c adj.; lie, recline, couch; lie down, lie flat, lie prostrate; sprawl, loll, sit down. render horizontal &c adj.; lay down, lay out; level, flatten; prostrate, knock down, floor, fell. Adj. horizontal, level, even, plane; flat &c 251; flat as a billiard table, flat as a bowling green; alluvial; calm, calm as a mill pond; smooth, smooth as glass. recumbent, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... warning pats, they tiptoed guiltily to the side of the house and peered in at the dining-room window, where the shade was raised a couple of inches above the sill. A noise at the back of the house made them start and flatten against ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... relate them to the whole world in every dull detail, regardless of the right of other men to get an occasional word in edgewise—these are the true marks of the genuine bore. He must know that you take no interest in him or his story. Even if you did, his manner of telling it would flatten you, yet he fascinates you with that glassy stare, that self-conscious and self-admiring smirk, and distils his tale into your ears at the very moment when you are burning to talk over old College-days with CHALMERS, or to discuss an article in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... began to narrow again, and the only way to tackle it was to flatten themselves, limpet-like, against the cliff face, and claw their way onwards, gripping every possible little projection which gave any ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... implements, but in ten minutes most of them had very fair "lying down" cover. Ten minutes was all they were allowed. There was no artillery fire by the end of that time, but the bullets began to whizz past, or flatten themselves in the tree trunks. It was rather hard to see precisely what was happening. Black dots emerged from the wood, and quickly flitted back again. The ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... on a moulding board and cut into five parts or loaves. Allow about nineteen ounces to each loaf. Take the dough up between the hands and work into a round ball. Place on the moulding board and cover for ten minutes. Now with the palm of the hand flatten out the dough and then fold halfway over, pounding well with the hand. Now, take the dough between the hands and stretch out, knocking it against the moulding board, fold in the ends and shape into loaves. Place in well-greased pans and ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... Don Luis saw the great blade of a scythe cleaving the air at the height of his head. Had he hesitated for a second, for the tenth of a second, the awful weapon would have beheaded him. As it was, he just had time to flatten himself against the ladder. The scythe whistled past him, grazing his jacket. He slid down to ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... to Colonel Musgrave with assumed modesty, adding that it would be a good thing to flatten out the tins before dispatching them, and that Sergeant Scott, who was a handy man, ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... to find the solid part of these strata, it is necessary to make a shaft at the foot of the wall of great depth through the strata; and in this shaft, on the side from which the hill slopes, smooth and flatten a space one palm wide from the top to the bottom; and after some time this smooth portion made on the side of the shaft, will show plainly which part of ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... them without going to some open space where several streets meet. The bearers trudge along, keeping step with each other, and uttering a loud, peculiar cry to clear the way, reminding one of the gondoliers on the canals of Venice. People were obliged to step into shops and doorways, or flatten themselves against buildings, in order to make room for us to pass in the palanquins, but they did so with a good grace and took it quite as a matter of course. Whenever we stopped for a trifling purchase or to visit some point of interest, a small crowd was sure to collect. The narrow lanes ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... rain. As soon as leaves appear on the scion, the sack is removed and all the new sprouts are broken off below the graft. I put only one scion on each graft. I use Beck's cold wax. It is easy to thin with water and I just flatten a stick for my brush. I never wax the bud but wax scion well ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... short after a brilliant achievement nor conclude with an imposing tableau; they die out gradually. Someone gets out here, some-one else falls off there, and there is a general running down of the machinery that has propelled the festival up to the last moment. They flatten unmistakably, and it is almost a pity that some sort of climax cannot be engaged for each occasion, in the midst of which everyone should disappear, in red fire and ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... reached the ocean, lightnings which the ravenous and mountainous waves swallowed before they could pierce the gloom. The ship lay over on her side, held there by the madly rushing wind, which seemed to flatten down the sea, cutting off the top of the waves, and breaking them into fine white spray which covered the ocean like a thick cloud, as high as the topmast heads. Each gust seemed unsurpassable in intensity, but was succeeded, after a pause, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... heroic; at best, it is only pitiable; at worst, it is detestable. Athanasius contra mundum is grand only in cases where the snag is right, and the mundus wrong. Then persecution becomes the second-highest form of blessedness—the highest form, of course, being the ability to turn round and flatten-out the persecutor. Now, if Alf could open the windows of his understanding——But then, one of the gravest disabilities in the leopard of thirty-five, or thereabout, is connected with the changing of ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... have noticed that the side show 'professor' uses up most of the superlatives in the English language when he gives his lecture, and each of 'em seemed afraid that the other would get some of his share of the dictionary. Adipose used to look at Jake's coiled body as if he would like to sit on it and flatten it out, and the snake would return the glance with a naughty little twinkle in its eye, as if he was estimating how much it would have to stretch its skin to accommodate A. A. in its interior, until it ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... interested in the above important question; for up to that moment I had always been haunted by a horrid paragraph I had met with somewhere in an Icelandic book of travels, to the effect that it was the practice of Icelandic women, from early childhood, to flatten down their bosoms as much as possible. This fact, for the honour of the island, I am now in a position to deny; and I here declare that, as far as I had the indiscretion to observe, those maligned ladies appeared to ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... that, though a squirrel leaps from a great height without hesitation, it is practically impossible to make him take a jump of a few feet to the ground. Probably the upward rush of air, caused by falling a long distance, is necessary to flatten the body enough ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... them, and a triumphant return to his post, where hereafter he would be looked up to and quoted as an expert and authority on Apache-fighting. He knew just where the hostiles lay, and was going straight to the point to flatten them out forthwith; and so the little command moved off under admirable auspices and in the best ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... dough quickly and lightly, handling as little as possible. Drop large spoonfuls of the batter in muffin pans and bake in a quick oven for tea biscuits; or, sift flour thickly over the bread board, turn out the dough, roll several times in the flour, give one quick turn with the rolling-pin to flatten out dough, and cut out with small cake cutter, (I prefer using a small, empty tin, 1/2 pound baking powder can, to cut out cakes.) Place close together in an agate pan and bake, or bake in one cake in a pie tin and for shortcake; or place spoonfuls of the dough over veal or beef stew ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... adhesive, and crawling upstairs on his hands and knees, began operations at the top step. But he had barely got the first "plaster" fairly made and ready to apply when there came a rush of footsteps behind him and he was obliged to duck down and flatten himself against the floor of the landing to escape being run down by a man who dashed in through the lower floor, flew at top speed up the stairs, and, with a sort of blended cheer and yell, whirled open a door on the ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... more perfect method than this. The eye lens is plastic, like a piece of india-rubber. Its edges are attached to ligaments (L L), which pull outwards and tend to flatten the curve of its surfaces. The normal focus is for distant objects. When we read a book the eye adapts itself to the work. The ligaments relax and the lens decreases in diameter while thickening at the centre, until its curvature is such as to focus all rays from the book sharply on ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... hour the mill was riddled with balls. They dashed against the old walls like hail. When they struck the stones they were heard to flatten and fall into the water. They buried themselves in the wood with a hollow sound. Occasionally a sharp crack announced that the mill wheel had been hit. The soldiers in the interior were careful of their shots; they fired only when they could take aim. From time to time the captain consulted his ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... them seem as if their mothers used to sit upon their faces when they was kids, to keep them warm and flatten their noses out." ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... your three Cs, you will take 1C as a starting point, and by it, tune 1G a perfect fifth above. Tune it perfect by drawing it gradually up or down until all pulsations disappear. Now after making sure you have it perfect, flatten it until you can hear slow, almost imperceptible waves; less rapid than one per second. This flattening of the fifth is called tempering, and from it comes the word "temperament." The fact that the fifth must always be tuned a little flatter than perfect, is a matter ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... he had expected, he met Julia and his expected son-in-law. His greeting of the former was kind and fatherly enough, but the moment he saw the latter, he felt, as he afterward said, an almost unconquerable desire to flatten his nose, gouge his eyes, knock out his teeth and so forth, which operations would doubtless have greatly astonished Dr. Lacey and given him what almost every man has, viz., a most formidable ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... needed, the chocolate, melted over hot water, and the vanilla, also more water if necessary. Work with a silver plated knife and knead until thoroughly mixed, then break off small pieces of uniform size and roll them into balls, in the hollow of the hand, flatten the balls a little, set the half of an English walnut upon each, pressing the nut into the candy and thus flattening it still more. The caramel gives the chocolate ...
— Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes • Miss Parloa
... anywheres except in a dirty little North St. Louis flat with us three girls in a bed? Haven't I got my name all over town for speed, just because I've always had to rustle out and try to learn how to flatten out a dime to the size of a dollar? Where do I come in on the solid-gold talk, I'd like to know. I'm the penny-splitter of the world, the girl that made the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store millinery department famous. I can look tailor-made on a five-dollar bill and ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... contradict Peter. It helps keep up his spirits for him to think he can read the characters of people just as quick as he can aim a rifle. And it's a mighty important thing to keep Peter's spirits up. If Peter's spirits was to go down, things round here would flatten out worse than a rotten punkin ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... in a circle, just at the mouth of the dug-out which most of the half-section inhabit, and flood with tobacco-stained saliva the place where they put their hands and feet when they flatten themselves ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... least was its effect previous to, and after Noah used it; and if they fail in this, that necessarily, this part of their argument is also a total failure. Let us look into the Bible. God cursed our first parents. Did this curse kink their hair, flatten their skulls, blacken their skin and flatten their nose? If it did, then Noah was sadly mistaken and these gentlemen too, in supposing that it was Noah's curse, that accomplished all this, for it was already done for the whole race—and long before, by God himself. ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne
... which bungling men may admire, but can never imitate. The sclerotic coat of the eye, and the choroid which lies next it are full of muscles which, by their contraction, both press back the crystalline lens nearer the retina, and also flatten it; the vitreous humor, in which the crystalline lens lies, a fine, transparent humor, about as thick as the white of an egg, giving way behind it, and also slightly altering its form and power of refraction to suit the case. ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... 6 miles apart, but fiew words of each others language- the language of those above having great Similarity with those tribes of flat heads we have passed- all have the Clucking tone anexed which is predomint. above, all flatten the heads of their female children near the falls, and maney above follow the Same Custom The language of the Che-luc-it-to-quar a fiew miles below is different from both in a Small degree. The wind increased in the evening and blew verry hard from the Same point W. ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... Our strength and weight Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! But the glory of smashing is lost of late, We raid less eagerly now than then, For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, The guns be many, the men be more; We fidget with pickets before and behind, Who snoozed ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... as long as it is necessary to enclose within the cake of butter. This is placed in the middle and the edges of the sheet of paste are drawn over it, closing well with fingers moistened in a little water so that no air remains inside. Then begin to flatten, first with the hands, then with the rolling pin, making the sheet as thin as possible, but taking care that the butter does not come out. If this happens throw at once a little flour where the butter appears and always have ...
— The Italian Cook Book - The Art of Eating Well • Maria Gentile
... that hail of missiles—he could but roar and growl and dodge and eventually he was driven away entirely from the carcass of Bara, the deer. He went roaring and resentful; but in the very center of the clearing his voice was suddenly hushed and Tarzan saw the great head lower and flatten out, the body crouch and the long tail quiver, as the beast slunk cautiously toward the trees ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... close the eyes and pass the fingers, very gently, several times across them outward, from the canthus, or corner next the nose, towards the temple. This tends slightly to flatten the corner and lens of the eye, and thus to lengthen or extend the angle of vision. The operation should be repeated several times a day, or at least always after making one's toilet, until shortsightedness is nearly or completely removed. For long sight, loss ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... strange roof. The manufactory in which the men were at work was a strong contrast to this desolate place, a stunning noise, Cyclops with bared arms dragging sheets of red-hot copper, and thrusting it between the cylinders to flatten it; while it passed between these, the flame issued forth with a sort of screeching noise. When I first heard it I thought somebody was hurt: the flame was occasioned by the burning of the grease put between the rollers. There ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... confessed her chum. "And I was about to suggest that, if you tackle the job of rebuilding them, you flatten 'em out a good bit so Aunt Susan can get ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... "No, it would flatten against most parts of his body. By the by, I saw an instance of a rhinoceros having been destroyed by that cowardly brute ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... as the sun rose, we saw the last low marshy points widen, flatten and recede, and beyond the outlying towers of the lights caught sight of lazy liners crawling in, and felt the long throb of the great Gulf's pulse, and sniffed the ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... body flung down across the bed, asleep. George would wake up slowly, with much yawning and grumbling, Emeline would add her gloves and belt to the unspeakable confusion of the bureau, and Julia would flatten her tired little back against the curve of an armchair and follow with heavy, brilliant eyes the argument that ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... like springing bridges of crimson lacquer; they swing up over curved heels like whirling tanagers sucked in a wind-pocket; they flatten out, heelless, like July ponds, flared and ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... curling vine. "Round seem to prowl the tiger, and the lynx, "And savage forms of panthers, various mark'd. "Up leap'd the men, by sudden madness mov'd; "Or terror only: Medon first appear'd "Blackening to grow, with shooting fins; his form "Flatten'd; and in a curve was bent his spine. "Him Lycabas address'd;—what wonderous shape "Art thou receiving?—speaking, wide his jaws "Expanded; flatten'd down, his nose appear'd; "A scaly covering cloth'd his harden'd skin. "Lybis ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... endways. The cause of this contraction is pulling the bend too quickly, and too much at a time, without dressing in the sides at B B as follows: After you have pulled the pipe round until it just begins to flatten, take a soft dresser, or a piece of soft wood, and a hammer, and turn the pipe on its side as at Fig. 37; then strike the bulged part of the pipe from X B toward E, until it appears round like ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... it will be useful to ask ourselves another question. What should we have expected the drop to do? Well, to this I suppose most people would be inclined, arguing from analogy with a solid, to reply that it would be reasonable to expect the drop to flatten itself, and even very considerably flatten itself, and then, collecting itself together again, to rebound, perhaps as a column such as we have seen, but not to form this regular system of rays and ...
— The Splash of a Drop • A. M. Worthington
... had been choking and stuttering in a great spasm, but my last point bid fair to flatten him out on the floor. I took the overpowered philosopher and led or carried him to ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... and then'—Oh, what a little fool I am, and so many cookies to make. Please don't send me home. I will work now like a beaver," and her round white arms grew tense as she rolled with a vigor that would almost flatten brickbats. ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... threatened to fade and vanish in the fog and falling dusk, the ice was in motion, great pans of the pack tossing like chips in the gigantic waves. Nowhere was the ice at rest. It was neither heavy enough nor yet sufficiently close packed to flatten the sea with its weight. And a survey of the creeping fog and the ominous approach of a windy night portended that no more than an hour of drab light was ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... his fist and holding it within an inch of my nose. "Say afraid again, you miserable insect, and I'll flatten you." ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... to make a noise on her island any more than she wished smoke to be seen, so at the end of her day's work she went to her gypsy's camp hoping that she might find a tool or something that would serve her for a hammer with which to flatten the tins that were to be used for plates, saucepans, ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... and opened the door. He went inside and picked up the gun from the shelf. The Slem-gun would take care of them. He notched it up to full count. The chain reaction from it would flatten them all, the police, ...
— The Skull • Philip K. Dick
... in front of the top of the shoulder; pass the index, pointing upward, as high as the top of the head; turn it forward and downward as far as the breast—chief; pass the extended index, pointing up ward and forward, forward from the mouth twice—talk; then open and flatten the hand, palm up, outer edge toward the face, place it about fifteen inches in front of the chin, and draw it horizontally inward until the hand nearly ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... I lay flatten'd along the beam, scarce daring to breathe. But at length, when the man had pass'd below for the sixth time, I found heart to wriggle myself toward the doorway over which the gallows protruded. By slow degrees, and pausing whenever the fellow drew near, I crept close up ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... grass-snake. He lay with all his four-foot length displayed in graceful sinuous curves, and was listened to in silence. Nothing loves a snake, however harmless. "With me, as with the caterpillars, it is mostly bluff. I can swing back my head, and flatten the nape of my neck, as well as any deadly adder. I can also strike, but there is no poison behind the blow. My only weapon of offence is smell, a sickening musty smell, that makes the enemy loose his hold. Once I am halfway down a hole, I'm safe. ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... large tenderloins and flatten out as wide as possible, spread one with a very thick layer of dressing (such as is used for turkey dressing). Place the second tenderloin on this and tie them together, roast in a medium oven, basting frequently with boiling water and a small ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... I say," rejoined the captain. "The world is made so. There are the good and the bad. The Eternal Father has created things thus. Get a little more on the main sheet, and then flatten in ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... out in as many neat little piles on a plate, and left there over night. Next morning the piles are examined, and if any of them has fallen down, he or she whom it represents will die within the year. Again, the women carefully sweep out the ashes from under the fireplace and flatten them down neatly on the open hearth. If they find next morning a footprint turned towards the door, it signifies a death in the family within the year; but if the footprint is turned in the opposite direction, it bodes a marriage. Again, divination by eavesdropping is practised in the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... one? You have harried me and injured me and wronged me and set tortures for me, but here I stand, unharmed. This day I will have my revenge. My servant Ahmed has departed for the walled city of Bala Khan. He will return with Bala Khan and an army such as will flatten the city of Allaha to the ground, and crows and vultures and tigers and jackals shall make these temples their abiding-places, and men will forget Allaha as they now forget the mighty Chitor." She swung round toward the priests. "You have yourselves to thank. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... ensorcelled, the rocky walls about it seemed to flatten. They glowed and all at once pressed forward like gigantic slices of palest emerald jade, translucent, illumined, as though by a circlet of little suns shining ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... filling a space larger than the orbit of Neptune. Gravitation gradually contracted this matter into a condensing globe of immense extent. Some parts would naturally be denser than others, and in the course of contraction a rotary motion, it is affirmed, would be engendered. Rotation would flatten the globe somewhat in the line of its axis. Contracting still more, the rarer gases, aided by centrifugal force, would be left behind as a ring that would ultimately be separated, like Saturn's ring, from the retreating body. There would naturally be some places in this ring denser than others; ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... draw eight pigeons, split them down the middle of the back, flatten them by pounding them with the blade of a heavy knife, broil them on a greased gridiron, the inside first; lay each one on a slice of buttered toast, and dress them with a little maitre d'hotel butter, made ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... wrought-iron plate is not quite flat; it sticks up a little here towards the left, 'cockles,' as we say. How shall we flatten it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent. Well, here is a hammer, and I give the plate a blow as you advise. Harder, you say. Still no effect. Another stroke. Well, there ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... of—superefract? I thought the whole performance was an act, to prove you're a better man than I am. You talk about dreams. Good God! You don't know what dreams are! If you say one more word about quitting, I'll show you whether I love you or not—I'll squeeze you so hard it'll flatten you ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... longer satisfies us when we come face to face with it. The cause of this is always the same. Imagination and reality bear the same relation to each other as poetry and prose: The former conceives objects to be huge and precipitous, the latter always thinks that they flatten themselves out. The landscape painters of the sixteenth century, compared with those of our own day, furnish the most striking example ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... figures, the same expressions, with this further inconvenience added to the disgust it creates, that the words Joys, Ardours, Transports, Extasies and the rest of those pathetic terms so congenial to, so received in the Practice of Pleasure, flatten and lose much of their due spirit and energy by the frequency they indispensably recur with, in a narrative of which that Practice professedly composes the whole basis. I must therefore trust to the candour of your judgment, for your ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... common idea among trappers, that the beaver uses his tail for a trowel to flatten down the mud, but this is denied by more observing naturalists, who assert that the tail is merely employed for swimming, although when he is at work with his paws, he may flap it about, but not ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... next to the udder; separate the skin, and flatten the meat on a clean cloth; make slits in the bottom part, that it may soak up seasoning, and lard the top very thick and even. Take a stewpan that will receive the veal without confining it; put at the bottom three ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... the advice to flatten himself on the ground. Instead, he stood straighter—even rose on his toes and stared in the direction whence he judged the shot ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... well mixed with the yolk. In this condition it is possible to balance the egg on its end and make it stand upright on the glass. This trick is more certain to be successful if you are clever enough to flatten the end ever so slightly and evenly, by giving it a gentle and ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... inner life of everybody that has ever lived would be no rational endeavour. Instead of lifting the historian above the world and making him the most consummate of creatures, it would flatten his mind out into a passive after-image of diffuse existence, with all its horrible blindness, strain, and monotony. Reason is not come to repeat the universe but to fulfil it. Besides, a complete survey of events would perforce register all changes that ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... logging-truck was a hundred yards in front of him now, and from the wheels of the caboose an odour of something burning drifted up to him. "I've got your wheels locked!" he half sobbed. "I'll hold you yet, you brute. Slide! That's it! Slide, and flatten your infernal wheels. Hah! You're quitting—quitting. I'll have you in control before we reach the curve. Burn, ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... cirque, as a river often begins in its lake, the glacier flows downward, river-like, along a course of least resistance. Here it pours over a precipice in broken falls to flatten out in perfect texture in the even stretch below. Here it plunges down rapids, breaking into crevasses as the river in corresponding phase breaks into ripples. Here it rises smoothly over rocks upon its bottom. Here it ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... about 1/2 inch. Presuming that the butter is perfectly free from moisture, and as cool as possible, roll it into a ball, and place this ball of butter on the paste; fold the paste over the butter all round, and secure it by wrapping it well all over. Flatten the paste by rolling it lightly with the rolling-pin until it is quite thin, but not thin enough to allow the butter to break through, and keep the board and paste dredged lightly with flour during ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... you take me for?" returned Cerizet. "With that worthy old fellow, from whom I have already wormed a promise of thirty thousand francs, I play the ninny; I flatten myself to nothing. But I've made Bruneau talk, that old valet of his. You can safely ally yourself to his family, my dear fellow; du Portail is powerfully rich; he'll get you made sub-prefect somewhere; and thence to a prefecture and a ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... contagious, Young John soon pushed away his own plate, and fell to folding the cabbage-leaf that had contained the ham. When he had folded it into a number of layers, one over another, so that it was small in the palm of his hand, he began to flatten it between both his hands, and to eye Clennam attentively. 'I wonder,' he at length said, compressing his green packet with some force, 'that if it's not worth your while to take care of yourself for your own sake, it's not worth doing ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... in the end. For with all his roughness he can be unexpectedly adroit. Whinstane Sandy once told me something he had learned about Polar bears in his old Yukon days: with all their heaviness, they can go where a dog daren't venture. If need be, they can flatten out and slide over a sheet of ice too thin to support a running dog. And the drift-ice may be widening, but I refuse to give up my hope of hope. "Let the mother go," as the Good Book says, "that it may be well ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... eastern. Hence the western Cornice road is a terrace along an always steep, sometimes sheer, mountain side, while the eastern crosses a succession of low maquis-covered spurs, which beyond Cap Sagro flatten and become monotonous. Pino is one of the most beautiful sites on the western coast. It is also important as the spot where the cross-road through the vale of Luri, under Seneca's tower, falls into the western Cornice. Half-way on this road the village of Luri ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black
... "Flatten 'em out," said he, briefly. "Politics. First off I'm going to practice general law; then I'll be solicitor-general for this county. After that, I shall be attorney-general for the state. Later I may be governor, unless I ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... accidental. But it holds the chief and highest power, as mese to hypate, in respect of the concupiscent; as mese to nete, in respect of the irascible; insomuch as it depresses and heightens,—and in fine makes a harmony,—by abating what is too much and by not suffering them to flatten and grow dull. For what is moderate and symmetrous is defined by mediocrity. Still more is it the end of the rational faculty to bring the passions to moderation, which is called sacred, as making a harmony of the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... as women sit up of nights listening for a footstep, will they flatten their faces at the window, though all without be black. Jean had not been back in the kitchen for two minutes before she raised the blind. Her eyes were close to the glass, when she saw another face almost meet hers, as you may touch your reflection in a mirror. But this ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... Although three-dimensional, every statue casts a two-dimensional image on the retina. It makes as many of these plane pictures as there are points of view from which it can be seen. One can easily convince oneself of this by viewing a statue from a distance, when it will flatten out to a mere outline or silhouette. As such, it should be clear and simple and pleasing, capable of being grasped as a whole irrespective of detail. Michelangelo demanded that every statue be ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... the hour of any mercy was gone by; the cup was brewed and must be drunken to the dregs; since so many had fallen all must fall. The light was bad, the cheap revolvers fouled and carried wild, the screaming wretches were swift to flatten themselves against the masts and yards or find a momentary refuge in the hanging sails. The fell business took long, but it was done at last. Hardy the Londoner was shot on the foreroyal yard, and hung horribly suspended in the brails. Wallen, the other, had his jaw broken on the maintop-gallant ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... keep Hynds House, if only to teach these Hyndsville women a lesson." She spoke after a pause. "Sophy, they flatten their ears and arch their backs at sight of us; and whenever there's a good chance for a wipe of a paw, why, we catch it across the nose. Now I," she admitted frankly, "am naturally full of cat feelings myself. I will not do what you want to do—walk off looking aggrieved, after the fashion ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... and 10,000 tons per square inch, and this must be only a very small fraction of that attained within larger celestial bodies. Jeans has computed the pressure at the centre of two colliding stars as they strike and flatten, and finds it may be of the order of 1,000,000,000 tons per square inch—sufficient, if their diameter be equal to that of the sun—to vaporize them ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... they could not afford to be squeamish. Obstinate violence had to be overcome by resolute vigour. The mule was now helplessly fixed, with its tongue hanging out and its eyes protruding. Nevertheless, in that condition it continued, without ceasing, to struggle and try to kick, and flatten its ears. It was a magnificent exhibition of determination to resist to the very death!—a glorious quality when exercised in a good cause, thought I—my mind reverting to ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... directed in the recipe, roll the mixture lightly between the hands into a ball. Have a plentiful supply of bread crumbs spread evenly on a board; roll the ball lightly on the crumbs into the shape of a cylinder, and flatten each end by dropping it lightly on the board; put it in the egg (to each egg add one tablespoon of water, and beat together), and with a spoon moisten the croquette completely with the egg; lift it out on a knife-blade, and again roll lightly in the crumbs. Have every ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... extreme thinness of the little plate, that they could have effected this by gnawing away the convex side; and I suspect that the bees in such cases stand in the opposed cells and push and bend the ductile and warm wax (which as I have tried is easily done) into its proper intermediate plane, and thus flatten it. ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... perfectly straight; if they split up lengthwise, they contain weak places due to streaks. All the varieties should, upon boiling, hold their shape and double in size; in case they break into pieces and flatten, they are ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... man seemed to have was to batter down the score of players and flatten out Jack Dudley, far below at the bottom; but when, with the help of the referee, the mass was disentangled, and Jack, with his mop-like hair, his soiled uniform, and his grimy face, struggled to his ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... long slow rolling,—massive and formidable. Sometimes, just before breaking, a towering swell would crack all its green length with a tinkle as of shivering glass; then would fall and flatten with a peal that shook the wall beneath me.... I thought of the great dead Russian general who made his army to storm as a sea,—wave upon wave of steel,—thunder following thunder.... There was yet scarcely any wind; but there must have been wild weather elsewhere,—and ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Byeway, Grattan, (The Pyrenees begin to flatten, A feast denied to storm and shower, The pen's the wonder-working power); Or Smith, the master of "Addresses," Carves history out in modern messes:— Tells how gay Charles cook'd up his collops, How fleeced his friends, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... also seems necessary to look forward on all the changes which cannot fail to occur. Even the structure of the human body will be modified. It is an uncontradictable fact that without exercise all organs flatten and end by disappearing altogether. It has been observed that fishes deprived of light become blind. I myself have seen in Valais that shepherds who fed on curdled milk lost their teeth very early; some of them never had any at all, When men feed on ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... hanging sails. The men on board the felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L'Infresco with its lovely harbour of refuge, lonely as a bay in a desert island, its silent ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... promontory being a mere precipice overlooking the ocean, a sudden gust of wind dashed so violently against us, that in the danger of being blown into the sea, I dropped on the turf at full length, and saw Diane do the same, with her four paws spread as widely as possible, to flatten her body more completely to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... it!" exclaimed Madame Boche, amazed at the strength of her blows. "You could flatten out a piece of iron with your ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... hand had given the ship an angry shake to recall the men that peopled her decks to the sense of reality, vigilance, and duty.—"Helm up!" cried the master, sharply. "Run aft, Mr. Creighton, and see what that fool there is up to."—"Flatten in the head sheets. Stand by the weather fore-braces," growled Mr. Baker. Startled men ran swiftly repeating the orders. The watch below, abandoned all at once by the watch on deck, drifted towards the forecastle in twos and ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... feet made scarcely any sound on the granite floor. Still we were incautious, and it was purely by luck that I glanced ahead and discovered that which made me jerk Harry violently back and flatten ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... prune the vine, But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimm'd the eglantine: Nay, my friend, nay,—since oft thy praise Hath given fresh vigour to my lays; Since oft thy judgment could refine My flatten'd thought or cumbrous line, Still kind, as is thy wont, attend, And in the minstrel ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... damper or 'Johnny-cake,' which serves you in place of yeast bread. A Johnny-cake is made thus:—Put a couple of handfuls of flour into your dish, with a good pinch of salt and baking soda. Add water till it works to a stiff paste. Divide it into three parts and flatten out into cakes about half an inch thick. Dust a little flour into your frying-pan and put the cake in. Cook it slowly over the fire, taking care it does not burn, and tossing it over again and again. ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... and flatten chops, sprinkle each with sherry wine, rub with salt and white pepper and broil over a clear fire until they are done, according to the tastes of those who are to eat them. Melt together 4 tablespoons Crisco, if there are 8 chops, a small tumbler mint jelly, add to it chopped ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... "heavies" told that fifteen miles away someone was being unmercifully plastered; but the nearer artillery slept. With eyes and ears straining to their utmost, with muscles held ready to relax and let him flatten out at the first sign of enemies, he continued up this new and very dangerous slope, possessing no idea where it would lead, knowing only that he must reach his own lines before dawn. And now he realized that the air ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... proved their undoing. When he awoke to a realization of their peril it was also to discover that his motor had stalled. The plane had attained frightful momentum, and the ground seemed too close for him to hope to flatten out in time to make a safe landing. Directly beneath him was a deep rift in the plateau, a narrow gorge, the bottom of which appeared comparatively level ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I think they'll open fire pretty soon now, because the night is growing uncommon bright. The stars are so big and shining, and there are so many of them they all look as if they had come to a party. Flatten yourselves down, boys! I can see a figure kneeling by a bowlder and that means one shot, ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... hooked, wriggled about, as if to hook themselves still firmer. And every moment, with rapid action, the fishermen hauled in their lines, hand overhand, throwing the fish to the man who was to clean them and flatten them out. ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... imagined eating them; but they were both too sickly, he thinks, to be really hungry. As for the bazaar, with its dolls and toys, and its Father Christmas, and bright lights, they both thought it paradise. They used to flatten their noses against the glass; sometimes a shopman drove them away; but they came back and back. At last the iron shutters would come down—slowly. Then he and his sister would stoop—and stoop—to get a last look. Presently ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the wheel, and jam it hard up," commanded George; "the rest of you to your stations. Mr Bowen and Mr Cross, you will mount guard over the galley-doors, if you please, until we have got the ship round. Raise tacks and sheets, round with the main-yard, and flatten in forward. Well, there, with the main-braces. Now swing your fore-yard, board the fore and main-tacks, and haul over the head-sheets. Right your helm, my lad; give her a spoke or two, if you find she wants it, as she gathers ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... to the door. The passage into which it opened was an exceedingly narrow one, as I have often said, but I never dreamt of barring this woman's way, though not a word did she stoop to say to me. I was only too glad to flatten myself against the wall, as the rustling fury strode past me into the lighted room ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... thanks for her pains, and was altogether too good for a world in which her excellencies were unappreciated. As usual, her hair was dressed in accordance with her mood, a brush dipped in water having been employed to flatten out the curls which had been painfully achieved a few ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... subsessile, contracted into a short, stout, stem-like base. When very small they appear like a tiny white knot on the surface of the log. This grows, so that soon a hollow sphere with an opening at the top is produced. The plant now begins to expand and flatten, producing an irregular, flattened disk with small upturned edges. The margin often becomes split and wavy, sometimes drooping and revolute; disk pale or dark brown, more or less wrinkled toward the center; externally the cup is a scurvy-white. The asci are ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... African rhinoceros, as already stated, is without the plaits, folds, and scutellae, that characterise its Asiatic congener, yet it is far from being a soft one. It is so thick and difficult to pierce, that a bullet of ordinary lead will sometimes flatten upon it. To ensure its penetrating, the lead must be hardened ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... an enchanter's wand in the realms of Fairy- land; for, where all had been previously quiet and easy-going, with only the helmsman apparently doing anything on board so far as the vessel's progress was concerned, there was now a scene of bustle, noise, and motion,—men darting forwards to flatten the headsails and aft to ease off the boom sheets, and others to their allotted stations, waiting for the well-known orders from the captain, who stood in the centre of the poop, with the passenger beside him, looking on with a critical eye at the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... from the party, out of sorts with himself, angry with Azalia, and boiling over with wrath toward Paul. He set his teeth together, and clenched his fist. He would like to blacken Paul's eyes and flatten his nose. The words of Azalia—"I know nothing against Paul's character"—rang in his ears and vexed him. He thought upon them till his steps, falling upon the frozen ground, seemed to say, "Character!—character!—character!" ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... or lend. Tip me your daddle; give me your hand. Tip me a hog; give me a shilling. To tip the lion; to flatten a man's nose with the thumb, and, at the same time to extend his mouth, with the fingers, thereby giving him a sort of lion-like countenauce. To tip the velvet; tonguing woman. To tip all nine; to knock down all the nine pins at once, at the game of bows or skittles: ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... up, dismounted and approached our guns, which were now plying shell and solid shot. With his field glasses he took in the situation. The enemy's shot were coming thick and fast; leaden balls were seen to flatten as they would strike the axles and tires of our gun carriages; trees were barked and the air was ladened with the familiar but unpleasant ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... to see the Huns flatten out, when—"Wouff! wouff! wouff! wouff! wouff!" said Archie. The German birds were not hawks at all; they were merely tame decoys used to entice us to a pre-arranged spot, at a height well favoured by ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... Some of them prove that your kind and forgiving parent is still alive at this moment; others prove that he expired under heart-rending circumstances six months ago; and I propose to use whichever alternative seems best—that's to say, whichever will flatten you out most effectively. ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... put a drop of blood upon a glass slide, and place upon it a cover of thin glass, we can flatten it out until the color almost disappears. If we examine this thin film with a microscope, we see that the blood is not altogether fluid. We find that the liquid part, or plasma, is of a light straw color, and has floating in it a multitude of very minute bodies, called corpuscles. ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... to have any influence on his cheerful mood. He drew in long breaths of the stimulating air and sniffed joyously at the fragrance of the murmuring forests which clothed the higher hills. Far below the timber would dwindle, the ridges would flatten into round knolls and lose their verdure; then would come the dust and ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... proper altitude from which to view a cabinet of curiosities," said she, "and something tells me you ought to flatten your nose, too." She held out both hands to be helped up. "Oh, WHAT a house for a ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White |
