"Grindstone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we know the consequences of it—the sweet little see-saw of hope and fear, productive of unlimited discussion and anxiety. No weak letting one stand at ease about that telegram! It keeps one's nose hard down on the grindstone." ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... mill and workshop. Their home. "Baby" learning civilized ways. The noise in the night. The return of the yaks. The need for keeping correct time. Shoe leather necessary. Threshing out barley. The flail. The grindstone. Making flour. Baking bread. How the bread was raised. What yeast does in bread. Temperature required. The "Baby" and the honey pot. The bread with large holes in it. George's trip to the cliffs. A ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... are working with bellows, pincers, and hammer, to prove the temper of some metal, which is so molten that a stream of it is pouring out of the furnace. Another example of this literal interpretation, is in the Psalter of Edwin, where two men are engaged in sharpening a sword upon a grindstone, in illustration of the text about the wicked, "who whet ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... on board the "Startler" there was no little excitement. The grindstone was in full use to sharpen cutlasses, and in addition there was a great demand made on the armourer for files to give to the lethal weapons a keener edge, one which was tried over and over again, as various messmates ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... Gaunt. Who's he to be wallowing in gold, when a better man is groping crusts in the gutter and spunging for rum? Now, here, in this blasted chest, is the gold to make men of us for life: gold, ay, gobs of it; and writin's too—things that if I had the proof of 'em I'd hold Jack Gaunt to the grindstone till his face was flat. I'd have done it single-handed; but I'm blind, worse luck: I'm all in the damned dark here, poking with a stick—Lord, burn up with lime the eyes that saw it! That's why I raked up you. Come, out with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the tribe, and set to using those same brains in the making of hatchets and ornaments. A few days passed and he was yet further enlarged. Powhatan longed for two of the great guns possessed by the white men and for a grindstone. He would send Smith back to Jamestown if in return he was sure of getting those treasures. It is to be supposed that Smith promised him guns and grindstones as many as ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... thinking about his edges, he cannot be thinking of his design; if of his design, he cannot think of his edges. Choose whether you will pay for the lovely form or the perfect finish, and choose at the same moment whether you will make the worker a man or a grindstone. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... where her father was with his tales of gods and heroes, and his ancient songs and his great sword. It was her task, self-chosen and rich in pride, to tend the great sword, to keep it stainless, to sharpen its edge on the grindstone while she sang the Song of the Sword, and the sparks flew and the great sword seemed to gleam with an answering fervor. But never in all the days of her young life had blood to be washed from the sword. For Sicily smiled under the sway of King Robert the Good, who had ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the homely garb of proverbial truisms. On the subject of frugality we cannot do better than take the worthy Mentor for our text, and from it address our remarks. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, "keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... this street that the old knife-grinder was slowly propelling his apparatus, which was fitted to two large light wheels. A very neat and comprehensive apparatus it was. There was the well-poised grindstone, with its fly-wheel attached; a very bright oil-can, and pipe for dropping water on to the stone; various little nooks and compartments for holding tools, rivets, wire, etcetera. Everything was in beautiful order; while a brass plate, on which was engraved ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... on the Aroostook River, the three boats, as well as the party, having been transported from Grindstone by rail, and launched at the junction of the Masardis with the first ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... gazing at planets through a cheap astronomical telescope; he might fail dismally to grasp the rudiments of the Latin grammar, and be incapable of conjugating an irregular verb; but his nose would be kept down to the grindstone of the school curriculum all the same, and not the smallest attention paid to his ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser held— The day that they razored the Grindstone, the day that the Cat was belled, The day of the Figs from Thistles, the day of the Twisted Sands, The day that the laugh of a maiden made light of the ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... weak, and opportunity is afforded to observe this action, and see its character exhibited. A common example of weak centripetal force is the adhesion of water to the face of a revolving grindstone. Here we see the deflecting force to become insufficient to compel the drops of water longer to leave their direct paths, and so these do not longer leave their direct paths, but move on in those paths, with the velocity they have at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... ennui trying to live, and an Englishman who said: "I do this or that, therefore I amuse myself. I have spent so many pieces of gold, therefore I experience so much pleasure." And they wear out their life on that grindstone. ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... sorry for the dog. Poor fellow! He couldn't go fishing. He had to stay home always. I felt sorry for the house and the dooryard and the cows and the grindstone and Aunt Deel. The glow of the candles and the odor of ham and eggs drew me into the house. Wistfully I watched the great man as he ate his supper. I was always hungry those days. Mr. Wright asked me to have an egg, but I shook my head and said "No, thank you" with sublime self-denial. ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... spring in my blood, and a bit of free activity like this under the blue sky suited my humour. A boy likes almost any work that affords him an escape from routine and humdrum and has an element of play in it. Turning the grindstone or the fanning mill or carrying together sheaves or picking up potatoes or carrying in wood were duties that were a drag ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... they did not know what we do, that this outer husk is a layer of pure silica, one of the hardest of known minerals. Boil it six weeks, and it comes out unchanged. Boil it six years, or six centuries, and the result would be the same. You can not stew a grindstone or bring granite to porridge, and the wheat-husk is equally obstinate. So long as enthusiasts ate husk and kernel ground together, little harm was done. But when a more progressive soul declared that in bran alone the true nutriment lay, and a host of would-be healthier people proceeded ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... girl she ever had in her house, and the best scholar in her class. Of course she is; I'd swear to that. She may not be rooted and grounded in the fundamentals your queer old uncle thinks necessary, and I doubt if she knows about the grindstone, and the rest of it. I'd laugh to see a great hulking fellow like you questioning her on such subjects. I've a great mind to write out the lingo, and send it to her anonymously, so she will be prepared to satisfy ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... many fantastic devices: among them we find the very common forms of evil spirits and lost souls driven away from the sacred building. A legend is connected with a corbel stone near the west end of the north aisle. It is fashioned into the likeness of a grindstone and it is handed down by tradition that once upon a time towards the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth a nobleman ran away with a blacksmith's wife, but afterwards repented of his sin and had imposed on him as penance the completion of the west end ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... knight, "the great pilferer Time hath since then taken away a little from my hair, and added somewhat (saving your presence) to my belly; and my face hath not been improved by being the grindstone for some hundred swords. But I ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... is just the man," he exclaims. "He is honest and firm to a thread, and keen enough to see through a grindstone if you turn fast ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... solid and greasy, and should be suitable for many purposes; earth for bricks and for tiles, mountain-chrystal, glass like that of Muscovy,(1) green serpentine stone in great abundance, blue limestone, slate, red grindstone, flint, paving stone, large quantities of all varieties of quarry stone suitable for hewing mill-stones and for building all kinds of walls, asbestos and very many other kinds applicable to the use of man. There are different paints, but the Christians are not skilled in them. They are seen ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... is a failure. I have never had a chance. My father was poor and couldn't give me the advantages that other young men had. So I've had my nose on the grindstone all my ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... came around the corner of the house, and settled down under the window. A group of lilacs, with feathery purple blossoms, made a deep, cool shade, where the children sat; and near them was an old grindstone, streaked with rust, and worn by many summers of sharpening scythes; a tin dipper hung on the wooden frame, nearly full of last night's rain, and with some lilac stars ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... that that's why he's so fond of wearing it. (Practically.) Well, I must take these down to the grindstone and put an ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... thus upon my favour, You know his temper, tye him to the grindstone, The next rebellion I'le be rid of him, I'le have no needy Rascals I tye to me, Dispute my life: come in ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... gently, "it'll be all the same in a thousand years!" The axe was blunt. He took it to the grindstone—a new patent, with a bicycle seat on it, and there he sat puffing and grinding until a neighbour's cow broke into our corn. He dropped the axe and ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... Instead of seeing it, as he expected, against the cold grey sky of the autumn morning, he saw nothing at all. He rubbed his eyes again and again. At last he cast them towards the ground, and there lay scattered about and broken into small pieces, all that remained of his mill. The wheels and grindstone lay near the base; the roof and sides had been carried almost a hundred yards away, and ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... beyond give the impression that he could do a great deal if he chose; "and," thought Allan Meredith, "carry home a sheaf of bills, I expect. He ought to have been the moneyed man, and I the one obliged to keep to the grindstone, perhaps. I don't know; the very necessity for doing something may have given him the kind of impetus he needed—to say nothing of having to keep up the prestige of an ancient name, which must be some spur ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Guericke, the inventor of the air-pump, made a machine which looked like a little grindstone—a wheel of sulphur mounted on a turning axle, which being used with friction produced powerful electrical sparks and lights. He found by experiments with this machine that bodies thus exerted by friction may impart electricity to other bodies, and that bodies so electrified ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... back the crying child, and had watched the little girl, who now darned away as skilfully as ever, the Ogress took down a huge knife from the wall, and began to sharpen it on a grindstone in a corner of the kitchen. As she sharpened the knife, she glanced from time to time at the little maid, and soon perceived that she had ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... like me. All you want is a grindstone: the rest comes of itself. I have one which is a little damaged indeed, but for which I would ask nothing more than your ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... inhabitants of Darrow had been long up and about, for the farm-yard was in order for the day, the carts gone a-field, and the cattle-sheds empty. George and Philip Burton were busily engaged near the barn door, the one in turning a grindstone, the other in sharpening an axe; and from the barn itself came the melodious voices of Lillie and her brother Jack. Presently they came out, she leading a long-legged horse which I immediately recognized as answering to the description of the colt. He was of a dull gray color, and at the first ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... scythe, one axe, and then to help in breaking the land, one plough and two harrows for every ten families; and to help you to put up houses we give to each Chief for his band, one chest of carpenter's tools, one cross-cut saw, five hand saws, one pit saw and files, five augers and one grindstone. Then if a band settles on its reserves the people will require something to aid them in breaking the soil. They could not draw the ploughs themselves, therefore we will give to each Chief for the use of his band one or two ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... looked for his name in the book. It was written in a fair, clerkly hand. He lived at Streatham. Suddenly I hated him. The dogged fool, to keep his nose on the grindstone like that. What was all his courage but the very tip-top of cowardice? What a vile nature—almost Sadish, proud, like the infamous Red Indians, of being able to ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... to work, and soon had a lot of tall trees down. Charley put up his forge and his grindstone, to keep the ax sharp, and I staid with him. Dick went tailing the cattle, and the overseer sat on a log, and looked on. The second day a mob of blacks came down on the opposite side of the river. They were quite wild, regular myals, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... work, ignoble and degrading, but he drew two crumbs of comfort from the bread of affliction. He was developing his arm-muscles and he was literally watering the said bread of affliction with the sweat of labour. As the heavy drops trickled from chin and nose into the meal around the grindstone, it pleased Moussa Isa to reflect that his enemy should eat of it. Since the shadow of Moussa was pollution to these travesties of men and warriors, let them have a little concrete pollution also. But in the cook-house, while arm and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... difficult attainment than that which is now so called; and, consequently, entitled the successful professor to a proportionable degree of plenary indulgences and privileges. No beau of this day could have borne out so ugly a story as that of Pretty Peggy Grindstone, the miller's daughter at Sillermills—it had well-nigh made work for the Lord Advocate. But it hurt Sir Philip Forester no more than the hail hurts the hearth-stone. He was as well received in society as ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... swords that were sharp from the grindstone, Fiercely we hack'd at the flyers before us. * * * * * Five young kings put asleep by the sword-stroke Seven strong earls of the army of Anlaf Fell on the ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... be home again," he breathed. "Now that I don't have to keep my nose to the grindstone I'm going to come home oftener. Things change so. We may never all be home ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... yet another week the King's nose was kept to the grindstone, and it would have irritated most men to find their good work repeatedly condemned; but William was, as you may have observed, singularly sweet-tempered, besides which he desired nothing so much as to remain ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... was ready, IT should be gently rolled down a gigantic groove provided for it, till it lighted on the edge of both wheels at the same instant. Of course it would not rest there, not the ten-thousandth part of a second. It would be snapped upward, as a drop of water from a grindstone. Upward and upward; but the heavier wheel would have deflected it a little from the vertical. Upward and northward it would rise, therefore, till it had passed the axis of the world. It would, of course, feel the world's attraction all the time, which would bend ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... the door which opens into the kitchen is a large dresser, with long rows of brass and copper cooking-utensils and bright-colored dishes, the little grindstone for sharpening knives, half-buried in its varnished case, and the egg-dish, old enough to ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... in the canoe, for bags of flour occupied the bottom and a grindstone and small forge were awkward things to stow. Jim, however, found a spot where he could lie down and the Indian huddled in the stern. He was a dark-skinned man, dressed like the white settlers, except ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... cliffs of the South Joggins, near Minudie, Nova Scotia (from north to south through coal with upright trees and sandstone and shale). c. Grindstone. d, g. Alternations of sandstone, shale, and coal containing upright trees. e, f. Portion of cliff, given on a larger scale in Figure 440. f. Four-foot coal, main seam. h, i. Shale with fresh-water ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... whose features were evidently European, though he was nearly as black as a negro who, strange to say, was discoursing with him in very tolerable French. The impulse of curiosity led me to accost the man at the grindstone, when his companion immediately made off. The itinerant artisan was from Aix in Provence; think of wandering thence to Darien in Georgia! I asked him about the negro who was talking to him; he said he knew nothing of him, ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... to the poor like ony whunstane, [any whinstone] And haud their noses to the grunstane; [hold, grindstone] Ply ev'ry art o' legal thieving; No matter—stick ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... work, one receives the impression that the author has done his task very well. It borders somewhat on hero worship, however, as is evident from the use of the following language: "If one could see a mystical presentation of the epoch, one would see Garrison as a Titan, turning a giant grindstone or electrical power-wheel, from which radiated vibrations in larger and in ever larger, more communicative circles and spheres of agitation, till there was not a man, woman, or child in America who was not a tremble." He says further: "We know, of course, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... steels of a lower grade. For forging it should be heated slowly and uniformly to a bright red and only light blows used as the heat dies out. Do not hammer at all at a black heat. Reheat slowly to a dark red for hardening and quench in warm water. Grind on a wet grindstone. ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... hardly afford to set up one," he confided. "And anyway, I haven't much leisure. Of course, when a good fellow like you comes along I can take a day off, once in a way. But generally my nose is down to the grindstone." ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... hour. Now the water on its surface, covering about three-fourths of it, and being more mobile than the solid earth, is, by centrifugal force, made to roll around the earth, the same as the water is made to move around the grindstone when in motion, a thing familiar to every body that uses that instrument. In the Southern Ocean this motion of the water is so well known to mariners who double Cape Horn in sailing from San Francisco to New York, that they now run considerably lower down in order to ride ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... saw the corporal coming across the road, with a hatchet in his hand. He had been to grind it at the mill, where there was a grindstone, that went ...
— Rollo at Work • Jacob Abbott
... workshops and tool-sheds attached to the home premises of Stoke Revel, and presently emerged, furnished with the object he had made diligent and particular search for; this he proceeded to carry in an inconspicuous way to a distant cottage where he knew there was a grindstone. He spent a happy hour with the object, the grindstone, and a pail of water. Whirr, whirr, whirr, sang the grindstone, now softly, now loudly—"this is an axe, an axe, an axe, and a strong arm that ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... part making the star-shaped cut is formed from a separate piece of steel, so attached to the handle as to make a close joint with the blade. The latter is beveled from the outside all round, so that by removing the part making the star-shaped cut, the edge may be ground on a grindstone. It is important that the angles in the blade be made perfect, and that its outline represents an exact half hexagon. To use the tool, place the tarred paper on the end of a section of a log or piece of timber and first cut the lower edge into notches, ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... shook his head. "I observed Lent this year scrupulously, and I haven't changed my tactics since Easter. I've been keeping my nose to the grindstone. Began to see things a little differently, Eloise. I decided it was mother's innings—decided to drop the butterfly ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... of the wood, was a cluster of low red farm buildings. The two hastened forward. Flush with the wood was the apple orchard, where blossom was falling on the grindstone. The pond was deep under a hedge and overhanging oak trees. Some cows stood in the shade. The farm and buildings, three sides of a quadrangle, embraced the sunshine towards the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... Norris, "the trouble with you is that you never want to do anything; you always want to do something else. I begin to think that there are compensations to a man in having fate hold his nose to the grindstone. He learns persistence, willy-nilly." ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... Catwhisker was several miles beyond Grindstone Island and was winding its way through a labyrinthine group to the north of Grandview. The scenery here was so enchanting that Cub and his father speedily agreed that the first convenient, unclaimed natural ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... chatter so much," said Sir George Staunton, "you will have the boat on the Grindstone—bring that white rock in a line ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... forgotten Laveuve, the miserable wretch who lay at death's door; and all of them were hastening away to their business or their passions, caught in the toils, sinking under the grindstone and whisked away by that rush of all Paris, whose fever bore them along, throwing one against another in an ardent scramble, in which the sole question was who should pass over ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... stirring up with a pole. He should practice turning a series of summer-sets rapidly, or jump up and see how many times he can strike his feet together before coming down. Let him make the earth turn round now the other way, and whet his wits on it as on a grindstone; in short, see how many ideas ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... elderly man, whose nose had been too close to the grindstone to permit of dalliance, and who now, monied and retired, found himself terribly alone in the pale sun of St. Martin's Summer, and to the little charming woman of forty, led back to life by an ardent ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... in the centre of a grindstone to protect the hole in the centre from the action of the axis; it is a charge frequently borne on escutcheons ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... brought down a reply from the oracular lips of the commander that became immortal on the frontier and made the petitioners nearly frantic. For a week the trio was the butt of all the wits at Fort Warrener. And yet the entire commissioned force felt that they were being kept at the grindstone because of the frivolity of these few youngsters, and they did not like it. All the same the cavalrymen stuck up for their colonel, and the infantrymen respected him, and the matinees were business-like ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... the few days of the following week for a round-up of the forces before the Wednesday election, the men all became absorbed to the point of oblivion to everything save the speculation as to how the race would go. But it was not in the nature of David Kildare to be held against the grindstone of serious endeavor too long at a time, and in the midst of the turmoil he proceeded to plot for a brief and exciting relaxation for himself and his strenuous friends, and he chose Saturday for ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the piano and when he realized she was a genius he most went off his head with pride. Why that man—the selfishest, laziest creature by nature—worked himself to skin and bone so that she should have the best lessons and everything she needed. We both held our noses to the grindstone just as tight as ever we could, and Mercedes was brought up pretty well, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... text-stream) interface designed specifically to be used in programmed combination with other tools (see {filter}, {plumbing}). 3. [MIT: general to students there] /vi./ To work; to study (connotes tedium). The TMRC Dictionary defined this as "to set one's brain to the grindstone". See {hack}. 4. /n./ [MIT] A student who studies too much and hacks too little. (MIT's student humor magazine rejoices in ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... do be right. Will I lose all the good we have gained for the sake o' bad temper? The end's in sight,—the blessed end o' the secrecy, an' the weary struggle o' keepin' me gineral's nose to the grindstone, and now to leave go? Not while Cleena Keegan draws a free breath, an' can handle a silly gossoon, ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... thistles, so that it could never be used as a country any more. So Ting-a-ling thought that as the King was putting on his war boots, something very great was surely about to happen. Hearing a fizzing noise behind him, he turned around, and there was the Prince in the court-yard, grinding his sword on a grindstone, which was turned by two slaves, who were working away so hard and fast that they were nearly ready to drop. Then he knew that wonderful things were surely coming to pass, for in ordinary times the Prince never lifted his finger to ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... plainly, that you are turning into the wrong road. You have been listening to some mischievous stranger or other - they're always about - and the best thing you can do is, to come out of that. Now you know;' here his countenance expressed marvellous acuteness; 'I can see as far into a grindstone as another man; farther than a good many, perhaps, because I had my nose well kept to it when I was young. I see traces of the turtle soup, and venison, and gold spoon in this. Yes, I do!' cried Mr. Bounderby, shaking his head ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... Sally and get a good cigar, Or even pot a milky coconut: And, all this while, life's had the upper hand: I slipt, the day I came; and lost my grip: Life got me by the scruff of the neck, and held My proud nose to the grindstone. My turn, now— I'll be upsides with life, and teach it manners, Before death gets the stranglehold: I'll have The last laugh, though it choke me. And what's death, To set us twittering? I'll be no frightened squirrel: Scarting and scolding never yet scared death: When ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... here, among other elements of difficulty, that Cecil's maid Grindstone was a thorough Dunstonite, who 'kept herself to herself,' was perfectly irreproachable, lived on terms of distant civility with the rest of the household, never complained, but constantly led her young mistress to understand that she was enduring ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... its scabbard in front of Fort Fisher, has fallen from the grasp of the "bottled" chieftain, whether from an invincible repugnance to warlike deeds, like that which pervaded the valiant soul of the renowned Falstaff, or because an axe on the public grindstone is a more congenial weapon in the itching palm of a Knight of Spoons, has not yet ...
— The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons • James Fairfax McLaughlin
... running to waste. It required Daylight's breaking of extra horses to pay for the materials, and the brother devoted a three weeks' vacation to assisting, and together they installed a Pelting wheel. Besides sawing wood and turning his lathe and grindstone, Daylight connected the power with the churn; but his great triumph was when he put his arm around Dede's waist and led her out to inspect a washing-machine, run by the Pelton wheel, which really ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... London, in a book published in 1750. He supposed the stars of our sidereal system to be distributed in a vast stratum of inconsiderable thickness compared with its length and breadth. If we had a big grindstone made of glass, in which had become uniformly imbedded a vast quantity of grains of sand or similar minute particles, and if we were able to place our eye somewhere near the centre of this grindstone, it is easy to see that we should see very few particles near the direction of the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... lieutenant forgot his little accidents next day, and went straight to the carpenter, bullied him again, and after bearing it for awhile Chips's adze would become so blunt that he was obliged to go off to the grindstone, where he would stop for a couple of hours, a good deal of which time was spent in oiling ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... sometime. I does it to all the boy babies. There's luck in it." In those days there were great hopes, and prophecies had not ceased. Many a sweet sleep did I have under the elm tree's shade later on; and many a tiresome hour turning the grindstone for the long bladed sythes. In the trunk of the tree were stuck many worn out blades, their points imbedded by the tree's growth from year to year. Thus they became tallies marking the past seasons of haying. Under ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... before about one thousand times the coat of arms of the human race ought to consist of a man with an ax on his shoulder proceeding toward a grindstone, or it ought to represent the several members of the human race holding out the hat to one another; for we are all beggars, each in his own way. One beggar is too proud to beg for pennies, but will beg for an introduction into society; another does not care for society, but he wants a postmastership; ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... does Mr. Lee proceed, weaving a new economics and a new bosom for advertisiarchs in the mere act of brushing his teeth. But alas, the recurring explosions of the loathsome and intellectual disease keep my nose on the grindstone—or handkerchief. Do I begin to soar on upward pinion, nose tweaks me back ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... out at him with all the sorrowful wisdom that is comprised in a life sharpened on the grindstone of a remorseless civilization. It was a girl such as one might find anywhere in that neighborhood, she had the hardy prettiness, the alertness, the predatory quality which belong to wild creatures civilized by force. It was set on the canvas with a skill that made Rufin smile with frank pleasure; ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... consequence of more rapid rotation, the bulging out at its equator and the flattening at its poles were carried to an extreme limit. This form has been correctly though satirically compared to that of a grindstone. It rests to a certain extent, but not entirely, on the idea that the stars are scattered through space with equal thickness in every direction, and that the appearance of the Milky Way is due to the fact that we, situated ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... bring your mind to the reading of a book, or to the study of any subject, as you take an axe to the grindstone; not for what you get from the stone, but for the sharpening of the axe. While it is true that the facts learned from books are worth more than the dust from the stone, even in much greater ratio is the mind more valuable than the axe. Bacon says: "Some books are to be tasted, others ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... out the local paper from its heading to the last advertisement, the everlasting game of dominoes no sooner finished than renewed, the same walk at the self-same hour and ever along the same roads—all that brutifies the mind, like a grindstone crushing the brain, filled them with indignation, called forth their protestations. They preferred to scale the neighbouring hills in search of some unknown solitary spot, where they declaimed verses even amidst drenching showers, without dreaming of shelter in their very hatred of ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... idea and much opposed by everybody, but when it came to a vote so many of the girls were afraid of offending Candace that they agreed because there was nobody else's father and mother who would let us picnic in their barn and use their plow, harrow, grindstone, sleigh, carryall, pung, sled, and wheelbarrow, which we did ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... occurrence as took place at the Falls on the 30th of March, 1847. The 'six hundred and twenty thousand tons of water each minute' nearly ceased to flow, and dwindled away into the appearance of a mere milldam. The rapids above the falls disappeared, leaving scarcely enough on the American side to turn a grindstone. Ladies and gentlemen rode in carriages one-third of the way across the river towards the Canada shore, over solid rock as smooth as a kitchen floor. The Iris says: 'Table Rock, with some two hundred yards more, ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Menominee and Winnebago tribes occasionally visited us at our cabin to get a piece of bread or some matches, or to sharpen their knives on our grindstone, and we boys watched them closely to see that they didn't steal Jack. We wondered at their knowledge of animals when we saw them go direct to trees on our farm, chop holes in them with their tomahawks and take out coons, of the existence of which we had never ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... pastor. Nor must it be supposed, because these towered above their fellow-actors, that the latter were puny men. Plenty of ability found its way to the Colony, and under the stress of its early troubles wits were sharpened and faculties brightened. There is nothing like the colonial grindstone for putting an edge on good steel. Grey, Selwyn, and Wakefield, as unlike morally as they were in manner, had this in common, that they were leaders of men, and that they had men to lead. That for thirty years the representatives ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... night, in a distant village, were suddenly called to a case of extensive laceration of the leg, with profuse hemorrhage. The case was urgent, and the patient was sinking. No instruments were at hand. He called for a carving-knife, which he sharpened on a grindstone and finished on a razor-strap, filed a hand-saw, amputated the limb, dressed the stump, left the patient in safety, and drove home with his father to ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... of a square room with a broad fireplace at one end and a small window. It appeared to be used as a storehouse of some kind, for it was half filled with bags, apparently containing potatoes. In one corner stood a grindstone operated by a treadle. Then the door was shut with a bang, and he was left to his own, none-too-pleasant reflections. Outside he could hear the buzz of voices. But he couldn't catch much of what was being said. Once ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... would n't make no difference to her. She'd talk to a pump or a grindstone; she'd talk to ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... THE STARS AND STRIPES reports for active service with the A. E. F. It is your paper, and has but one axe to grind—the axe which our Uncle Samuel is whetting on the grindstone for use upon the august necks of ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... can," cried Nancy Ellen, "when I see you, and the way you act! You have chance after chance, but you seem to think that life requires of you a steady job of holding your nose to the grindstone. It was rather stubby to begin with, go on and grind it clear off your face, if ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... money she's been flamming about with, and that grand house, better than new, with all the latest improvements. Wa'n't we some jays to be took in like we was by a little, white-faced chit like her? Couldn't see through a grindstone with a hole in it! Bolton House.... And an automobile to fetch the old jailbird home in. ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... same Melican," he told Martin, as he industriously turned the grindstone beneath the cleaver's edge. "Me like all same lepublic—me fight like devil all same time when China war. Now Jap he come take China. No good. Me kill um Jap. Velly good. All same ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... and the difficulty he had to make both ends meet. The Senator is a tall, lank, ungainly looking man; thin lipped, with mean, cunning eyes, strained ever for the main chance. A few tufts of reddish hair are flattened on either side of his cranium, and his nose and chin were sharpened on the grindstone of necessity and early hardship into twin beaks. Verily a vulture, battening now on the Trusts, and feared and hated by other birds of smaller body and weaker wing. With him, Selfishness is indeed the main-spring of Ambition! His features are well-known ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... Miss," he said, "and see if we can't pick up some odd fragment of zirconia when it's smashed in the grindstone there. Then we'll ...
— The Beast of Space • F.E. Hardart
... set trash of phrase Ineffably—legitimately vile, That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, Nor foes—all nations—condescend to smile,— Nor even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil, That turns and turns to give the world a notion Of endless torments ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... martinet for training, hereafter," Purcell declared earnestly. "I'm going to be a worse stickler than old coach himself. And I'm going to exercise my right as a senior to watch the other fellows and hold their noses to the training grindstone." ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... who cannot, for long, quit work—those who "have their noses to the grindstone," to borrow one of those picture-sentences of the people. In the far off end to which evolution tends, civilization will doubtless reach the point where every human being may have his solid month of play, repose, ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... the same ease which it showed in possessing itself of that bygone English life whence sprung the Canterbury Tales, or As You Like It. So that his tutor, who was much attached to him, and who made it one of his main objects in life to keep the boy's aspiring nose to the grindstone of grammatical minutiae, began about the time of Sir Mowbray's letter to prophesy very smooth things indeed to his mother as to his future success at college, the possibility of his getting the famous St. Anselm's scholarship, and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... grinder; "now if you could find money in your pocket whenever you put your hand into it, your fortune would be made." "Very true: but how is that to be managed?" "You must turn grinder like me," said the other: "you only want a grindstone; the rest will come of itself. Here is one that is a little the worse for wear: I would not ask more than the value of your goose for it;—will you buy?" "How can you ask such a question?" replied Hans; "I should be the happiest man in the world if I could have money whenever I put ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... . . . What an abominable hand do I scribble! but I have been chopping wood, and turning a grindstone all the forenoon; and such occupations are apt to disturb the equilibrium of the muscles and sinews. It is an endless surprise to me how much work there is to be done in the world; but, thank God, I am able to do my share of it,—and my ability increases ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... several ways. Either you join forces, for instance, and find a grindstone—or make one of the other man's axe. But the last way is too slow, and, as I said, takes too much brain-work—besides, it doesn't pay. It might satisfy your vanity or pride, but I've got none. ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... Gubblum Oglethorpe, leisurely smoking. His pony was tied to the hasp of the gate. The miller, Dick of the Syke, sat on a pile of iron rods. Tom o' Dint, the little bow-legged fiddler and postman, was sharpening at the grindstone a penknife already worn obliquely to a point by ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine |
