"Knotty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little finer, and now, as he sat quietly watching the slender figure on the opposite side of the hearth, it wore a curious, inscrutable expression, as though he were mentally balancing the pros and cons of some knotty point. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... could perform on his farm. The soldiers, having in remembrance the supper and breakfast, accepted the terms. The new "hands" were now led to the garden, where the farmer had half an acre plowed up, and each was furnished with an old, dull hoe, with crooked, knotty handles. The farmer then, with blushes and stammering, explained that he desired to have each particular clod chopped up fine with the hoe. The soldiers—town men—thought this an almost superhuman task and a great waste of time, but, so that the work procured food, they cared not what the work ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... to overcome the vis inertiae of the lower-class dweller along the South Atlantic seaboard; but when he is first knocked in the head with so knotty a club as secession, and then is told to be up and doing, he probably does—nothing. Their leaders had not been among them yet, and the "Goobers" were entirely at sea. They knew that something had gone wrong, that ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... his nephew sadly perplexed as to the knotty question from which their talk on the future had diverged—viz., should he write to the Parson; and assure the fears of his mother? How do so without Richard's consent, when Richard had on a former occasion so imperiously declared that, if he did, it would lose his mother all that Richard intended ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... sad sight to look upon the corpse of a laborer, cut down in the midst of a toilsome life; his hard, knotty hands clasped upon the still breast, and the strong limbs laid in serene repose. And yet how happy the change! No longer does he ask leave to toil; no longer is he at war with poverty, for death has made it a drawn ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... other difficulties, to fight against proneness to good-nature. Good-nature out of place in the Chair. COURTNEY knew that, and successfully overcame his natural tendencies. MELLOR too anxious to oblige. Must get over that. Above all, should never explain. Suddenly called upon for decision on knotty point, must needs make mistake sometimes. If he does, unless it be very serious, he should stick to it. For Chairman of Committees, better to be in the wrong and uphold authority of Chair, than ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... That the reader may himself judge of the justice of Dryden's censure, I subjoin the argument on this knotty point, as it is stated by Hippolytus and his mistress in the 5th act ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... "human pride Cannot by reason be defied. The point is knotty; tastes may err: Refer it to ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... round a knotted staff is the symbol of AEsculapius. A humorist of the present day has suggested that the knots on the staff indicate the numerous "knotty" questions which a doctor is asked to solve! Tradition states that when AEsculapius was in the house of his patient, Glaucus, and deep in thought, a serpent coiled itself around his staff. AEsculapius killed it, and then another serpent appeared with a herb leaf in its ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... arsenals. These proceedings were carried out with the connivance of the Colonial Bond authorities, and though known to the British Governor, it was all winked at rather than hazard the momentous objects of peace by the introduction of another knotty subject. To sum up the situation, it was a diplomatic contest on the part of Great Britain aiming at peace and to safeguard her possessions and prestige, while the Afrikaner Bond, on the other part, continued active in the work of sedition and preparing for a war ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... at home, so a sheaf of cards were left, and the carriage sped on another mile to Number 2, where the family were discovered superintending the arrangements of bedding-out plants round the front lawn. They greeted the visitors with easy cordiality, consulted them on the knotty question of geraniums versus begonias, escorted them round the gardens, and were vociferously reproachful when they refused to stay another half- hour to ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the young stranger appeared much better disposed to partake of the good cheer, with which he had been so providentially provided, than to take up the cudgels of argument on this, or on any other of the knotty points which are so apt to furnish the lovers of science with the materials of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... read hard all through Hilary term with Mr. Stansfield of the Inner Temple; he had passed examinations brilliantly; he had solved knotty problems in the legal line for Fraser and Warren, and as already related he had begun to go out into Society. Indeed, starting from the Rossiters' Thursdays and Praed's studio suppers, he was being taken up by persons of influence who were pleased to find him witty, possessed ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... sundown when the two young men took a car back to Islington. "Another day we'll see Newsham Park, and the country around Knotty Ash way. Then again, there is some beautiful country up the Mersey and across to Birkenhead." The visitor was grateful ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... mountain live-oak, or goldcup oak (Quercus chrysolepis), a sturdy mountaineer of a tree, growing mostly on the earthquake taluses and benches of the sunny north wall of the Valley. In tough, unwedgeable, knotty strength, it is the oak of ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... little clutch at his heart which always told him, in the plainest manner possible, when he had hit upon the knotty point of a mystery. That grip of truth, that feeling of ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... centuries, great or small; and whether "antiquity" is to comprise the Council of Trent, or to stop a little beyond that of Nicaea, or to come to an end in the time of Irenaeus, or in that of Justin Martyr, are knotty questions which can be decided, if at all, only by those critical methods which the signatories treat so cavalierly. And yet the decision of these questions is fundamental, for as the limits of the canonical scriptures vary, so may the dogmas deduced from them require modification. Christianity ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... again! Just a moment the round, gray back darted above the bushes, and then plunging into deeper undergrowth, bounded on and on. But the slim, knotty brown legs plunged on and on too, till at last a swift, cruel stone felled the unlucky little woodlander, for Steve ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... rejected when he popped the question: the diabolical suitor was jailed as a punishment. Champlain relates how a pugnacious parson was dealt with by a pugnacious clergyman of a different persuasion respecting some knotty controversial points. The arguments, however irresistible they may have been, Champlain observes, were not edifying either to the savages or to the French: "J'ay veu le ministre et nostre cure s'entre battre ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... by S. from their position would land her right under the castle foot. As both stubbornly maintained they were right, it was agreed to come to a compromise by steering W. by N. one watch and W. by S. the next, and so on until the land was made. After this knotty question was settled an incident almost incredible in its awful gruesomeness took place. Ralph became smitten by a revengeful mania. He went below, took his deceased commander's clothes off, put his body on the table and commenced to lash at it with a piece of rope, exclaiming at every stroke, "You ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... throbbing messages of a great city. Business propositions, political deals, scientific talks, and words of comfort to the troubled, cross and recross each other over the black switchboard. The wonder is that each message reaches the ear it was meant for, and that all complications, no matter how knotty, ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... touched his heart. He permitted her to send for me. I obeyed the summons joyfully, for I well knew what a triumph over Satan his conversion would be, and his own wish or consent to see me made me hopeful. We conversed by the hour on knotty theological questions, he talking well and seeming at times half persuaded to be a Christian, but as if too proud to humble himself. The blessed saints made intercession for him, for our prayers were heard; and I had the great triumph of baptising and administering to him the ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... of that bird in the tropic forests which the terrified Spaniards called the alma perdida. After many days of listening and trembling, I found that it proceeded from a wretched, sun- burnt girl, who carried about some dozens of knotty pears, and whose hair hung disheveled round her eyes, bloodshot with the strain of ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... blue-veined knotty hands with the expression of one who is contemplating a phenomenon that is threatening to become a nuisance, and then dropping them quickly out of sight again, she glanced eagerly round the room as if she wished to forget all about them. She ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... anything about it, he refused to worry about it. James Holden turned his thoughts forward and began to plan how he was going to face the culmination of this romance next September Fifteenth. He even suspected that there would probably be a number of knotty little problems that he now knew nothing about; he resolved to allow some thinking-time to cope with them ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... come at any conclusion on this knotty subject the door opened and Martin Rattler entered the room, followed ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... high and 9 in. across, young plants being broader than high; the sides split up into about twenty ridges, which are again divided into knotty tubercles or waves. The spines are remarkable for their size and strength, those on large plants being 4 in. long by 1/2 in. broad at the base, gradually narrowing to a stiff point; there are four central spines of this size, the others, of which there ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... fast by the cross; in the other was a sharp knife, with which he was probably cutting out his name. He did not observe Otto. Near the man lay a box covered with green oil-cloth; and in the grass lay a knapsack, a pair of boots, and a knotty stick. It must be a wandering journeyman, or else ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... hunger, our thoughts were directed to taking rest, of which we stood in great need; but it was no longer on knotty and rough pieces of timber, that we were going to repose,—it was on the soft sand, which the shore offered to us, warmed as it was by the last rays of the setting sun. It was almost night when we stretched ourselves on this bed, which to us was ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... for a man to look through it from outside. Aristarchi laid his knotty hands on the stone sill and pulled himself up till his face was against the grating. He now looked in and saw the porter ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... number of works that are offered to them. It is not supposed that in the majority of cases, the publisher himself decides the question upon the strength of his own judgment. He has his minister, or ministers of state, to decide these knotty questions for him. A great deal has been written at different times, about the baneful influence of this middleman, or "reader"—but we can see no more justice in the complaint than if it were raised against the system which places a middleman or minister between the sovereign and his people. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... course growing wilder and wilder as we proceeded. For a considerable distance there was a causeway, built long ago of logs, to drag lumber upon; it was now decayed and rotten, a red decay, sometimes sunken down in the midst, here and there a knotty trunk stretching across, apparently sound. The sun being now low towards the west, a pleasant gloom and brightness were diffused through the forest, spots of brightness scattered upon the branches, or thrown down in gold upon the last year's leaves among the trees. At last we came to where a dam ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... they are more indigenous to this kind of soil. In these places those are the favorite trees, the trees admired above all others, because of the fruit they bear. Why the virtuous and the vulgar are so fond of the same fruit, I shall not try to explain. I must leave this knotty, ugly problem to be solved by wiser and more experienced heads than mine. I asked the proprietors and proprietresses of these last-mentioned places where they procured the sprouts from which all these great trees had grown; these trees that have grown so tall and strong, ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn
... I said, happen it wur, an' happen it wurn't. I wur na so friendly and familiar wi' th' Lord as he seemed to be, so I could na tell foak aw he meant, and aw he did na mean. Sithee here, lads," making a fist of his knotty old hand and laying it upon the table, "that theer's what stirs me up wi' th' parson kind. They're allus settin down to explain what th' Lordamoigty's up to, as if he wur a confidential friend o' theirs as they wur bound to back up i' some road; ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... after he had retired to bed, which he did—pleading fatigue as an excuse—at an early hour. The first ostensible circumstance connected with their guest of the night, which the family divan, with the father of it at their head, took into consideration when discussing the knotty points of the stranger's character and calling, was his apparel. But of this they could make nothing. His habiliments were in no ways remarkable for anything; they being neither good, bad, nor indifferent, but of that indefinite description called respectable. So far as these ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... dreary the woods seemed without the little troop! The wind sighed in the pines, and the moonlight cast fearful shadows from the gnarled and knotty boughs. ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... at a loss to conjecture what could have become of his niece. Wonder, rather than pain, possessed him; and when he suffered his ample chin to repose on the finger and thumb of one hand, it was with the air of a man that revolved, in his mind, all the plausible points of some knotty question. ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... returned slowly to his office, and, sinking into his chair, buried his face in his great, knotty hands and bent his head upon the table. A ray of sunshine, filtering through the heavy Venetian blinds, touched the white hair and turned ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... to the value of $60,000 in his hands, and by the end of July nine hundred "contrabands," men, women, and children, of all ages. What was their legal status, and how should they be disposed of? It was a knotty problem, for upon its solution might depend the sensitive public opinion and balancing, undecided loyalty and political action of the border slave States of Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. In solving the problem, President Lincoln kept ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... stump of a man, lean and knotty, all whose joints formed protuberances, proceeded at an easy pace down the ravine, searching at every opening through which a passage could be effected with the cautiousness of a fox. Then, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... twisted into a long string; trousers of blue drilling worn and threadbare, and an old gray tattered blouse, patched on one of the elbows with a bit of green cotton cloth, sewed on with a twine string. On his back, a soldier's knapsack, well buckled and perfectly new; in his hand, an enormous knotty stick. Iron-shod shoes enveloped ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... getting to be knotty, the Englishman retired to the apartment in which the ladies had assembled; and, seated by the side of Sarah, he found a more pleasing employment in relating the events of fashionable life in the metropolis, and ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... it. Feodora's recovery was uninterrupted, and she had gained many pounds of flesh. All apprehensions concerning her health had about disappeared. The Count continued his medical studies and investigations with unabated zeal and interest. The action of the infinitesimal dose was a knotty question. He could not deny the fact that they exhibited marvelous power over disease, but their immateriality staggered his faith at times, in spite of all that he had seen and experienced. But there came a time when ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... persuade the world to think more about him than they do about themselves, he is got into a track where he will find nothing but briars and thorns, vexation and disappointment. I can speak a little to this point. For many years of my life I did nothing but think. I had nothing else to do but solve some knotty point, or dip in some abstruse author, or look at the sky, or wander by the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... although such a yarn is not in common use. When combing is dispensed with, the gills, in connection with the draught of the rollers, make the fibers straight, and produce a worsted yarn, although such a yarn has a tendency to be uneven and knotty. ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... when the matter to be treated was unyielding, it became necessary to dwell on side issues, or fill up gaps and replace obscurities by legends and hypotheses. The object in view being a book popular in character and accessible to all, technical discussions had to be eschewed. Many knotty points had to be brushed aside lightly, and the most debatable points passed over in silence. These are the sacrifices to which one must resign himself, though it requires self-restraint to do it consistently. The reader may, ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... Union N. Bethell, now in Cutler's place at the head of the New York Company, has been the operating chief for eighteen years. He is a man of shrewdness and sympathy, with a rare sagacity in solving knotty problems, a president of the new type, who regards his work as a sort of obligation he owes to the public. And just as foreigners go to Pittsburg to see the steel business at its best; just as they go to Iowa and Kansas to see the New Farmer, so they make pilgrimages ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... tied it around his waist with a great handkerchief, and attired thus, with a fur cap pulled down over his ears, and with heavy mittens on his hands, ploughed through the deep snow to the church, and in the same dress preached his long, knotty sermon in his pulpit, while fierce wintry blasts rattled the windows and shook the turret, and the eight godly, shivering souls wished profoundly that one of their number had "lain at home in a slothfull, ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... enlarged veins which are more commonly present on the legs, but are also seen in other parts of the body. They stand out from the skin as bluish, knotty, and winding cords which flatten out when pressure is made upon them, and shrink in size in most cases upon lying down. Sometimes bluish, small, soft, rounded lumps, or a fine, branching network of veins may be seen. Oftentimes varicose veins may exist for years—if not extensive—without either ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... there reigns an awful silence throughout the galley. The Turk who is appointed the executioner, and who thinks the sacrifice acceptable to his prophet Mahomet, most cruelly beats the wretched victim with a rough cudgel, or knotty rope's end, till the skin is flayed off his bones, and he is near the point of expiring; then they apply a most tormenting mixture of vinegar and salt, and consign him to that most intolerable hospital where thousands under ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... captain, mate, and passenger looked at each other in a bewildered fashion, as if each were endeavouring to solve some knotty conundrum, and had ultimately come to the conclusion ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... Smallbones, who received them with all humility. The lieutenant was about to step into the boat, when a doubt arose, and he stopped in his advance, perplexed. It was one of no small importance—was Snarleyyow to accompany him or not? That was the knotty question, and it really was a case which required some deliberation. If he left him on board after the conspiracy which had been formed against him, the dog would probably be overboard before he returned; that is, if Smallbones were also left on board; for Mr Vanslyperken knew that it had ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... prominent symptoms of glanders may be mentioned a discharge of purulent matter from one or both nostrils; one or both glands on the inside of the lower jaw bones are more or less swollen, hard and knotty. One or both nostrils are sometimes swollen and glued up by a sticky, unhealthy looking pus, sometimes streaked with blood. On opening the nostrils, pustules and ulcers are seen on the inner surface. ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... belonged to the bar, Mr. K——, a member of a most respectable family, called on O'Connell during the Assizes, to pay him a friendly visit. He found O'Connell engaged with a shrewd-looking farmer, who was consulting him on a knotty case. Heartily glad to see his old friend, O'Connell sprang forward, saying, "My dear K——, I'm delighted to see you." The farmer, seeing the visitor come in, cunningly took the opportunity of sneaking away. He had got what he wanted—the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... Noyan could form no clearer conception of such an issue than a babe unborn. He swung as the wind blew, and in all his pampered life had probably never dreamed of denying himself a liberty. Saint Andrew! it was a knotty problem for such a head as mine to solve. I believe I chose the better course in assuming the role of a neutral, as I sat staring at the fellow while he twisted his moustaches into their old-time ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... Moonshee struggles to get you to disgorge the sound ghain and leads you through the enchanted mazes of the Bagh-o-Bahar; the Pundit distinguishes between the kurmunnee and the kurturree prayog, and has many knotty points of mythology to expound, in order that you may rightly understand his idioms and appreciate his proverbial sayings. Of Pundits there are three species, quite distinct from each other. The first I would recommend ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... stimulating the new plant and technology that can make our goods more competitive, is also the key to the international balance of payments problem. Laying aside all alarmist talk and panicky solutions, let us put that knotty problem in ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... bitterly, and combed one auburn whisker with knotty fingers. "Haven't been able to get a man that was any good since. It's nothing but worry, worry, worry in business. And where might you have come across him, captain, if it's ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... go to sleep, and you will feel better in the morning," was all the re- ply he could make to her knotty queries. It was a long time before she fell asleep; and a number of days before James felt in a mood to visit and entertain old ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... ever finds out—" Spike cowered down into a chair and clasping his head between his hands sat thus a long while, staring moodily at the floor, striving for a way out of the difficulty. He was yet wrestling with this knotty problem when he heard muffled knocks at the front door, which, being opened, disclosed the object of ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... and to-morrow I may be as bad. "'Sinking, sinking, sinking!' I feel that I am 'sinking'." My medical attendant says that it is irregular gout, with nephritic symptoms. 'Gout', in a young man of twenty-nine!! Swollen knees, and knotty fingers, a loathing stomach, and a dizzy head. Trust me, friend, I am at times an object of moral disgust to my own mind! But that this long illness has impoverished me, I should immediately go to St. Miguels, one of the Azores—the baths and the delicious climate might restore me—and if ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... would have me, a tenderfoot, adjust those things that are too knotty for these men who have spent their lives along ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... call the New Testament, and thence received the name of Protestants. He continued to ask several other theological questions, until Clapperton was obliged to confess himself not sufficiently versed in religious subtleties, to resolve these knotty points, having always left that task to ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... its wild grandeur: here are caverns, abrupt rocks, a torrent, a cascade, islands. The trees, dwarfed by a Japanese process of which we have not the secret, have tiny little leaves on their decrepit and knotty branches. A pervading hue of the mossy green of antiquity harmonizes all this medley, which is ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... for several minutes, each one tugging at the knotty problem. Then Cameron rose, reached out for the phial of medicine, drove his slouch-hat down over his forehead, and ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... in his flesh. The Italian still sitting on the edge of his bed watched him narrowly, not knowing what to make of his preoccupation and agitated by a vague fear lest he might refuse to fulfil his promise. At length Monte-Cristo appeared to have solved the knotty problem that had perplexed him and to have arrived at a decision. He came in front of the Italian, halted and, gazing steadfastly ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... was, as has been observed, in the Tower for his practices against the present order of things, he being an advocate of extreme democratic principles; and he was there instructed in knotty points of law by Judge Jenkins, to enable him to torment and baffle the party in power. It was Jenkins who said of Lilburne that "If the world were emptied of all but John Lilburne, Lilburne would quarrel with John, and John with Lilburne." - ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... the negroes; for you must be aware that their present owners, having bought them in good faith, will not relinquish them without a struggle, which would involve you in a long lawsuit, the issue of which would be very doubtful; for you must be aware that there are many knotty points in this case. Now, I put the question to you, whether you can, with safety to Lady Vincent, remain here for weeks or months, either as prosecutor in the criminal trial of the smugglers or as plaintiff in a civil suit with the purchasers of ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the "tough," folding his huge knotty arms across his partially bared breast; "ho! ho! whoa up thar, pilgrims! Don' ye go ter bein' so fast. Fo'kes harn't so much in a hurry now-'days as they uster war. Ter be sure ther Lord manyfactered this futstool in seven days; sum times I think ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... his eyes sparkled. "The witch has just returned," he muttered between his teeth. "See here, Petro: a beauty will stand before you in a moment; do whatever she commands; if not—you are lost for ever." Then he parted the thorn-bush with a knotty stick, and before him stood a tiny izba, on chicken's legs, as they say. Basavriuk smote it with his fist, and the wall trembled. A large black dog ran out to meet them, and with a whine, transforming itself into a cat, flew straight at his ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... such an acute perception of the enormous difficulty of 'tying up' money with any approach to tightness, and contrariwise of the remarkable ease with which it got loose, that through a series of years he regularly propounded this knotty point to every new insolvent agent and other professional gentleman who passed in ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... points, viz., perseverance and a sense of duty; I found she was really capable of applying to study, of contending with difficulties. At first I offered her the same help which I had always found it necessary to confer on the others; I began with unloosing for her each knotty point, but I soon discovered that such help was regarded by my new pupil as degrading; she recoiled from it with a certain proud impatience. Hereupon I appointed her long lessons, and left her to solve alone any perplexities they might present. She set to the task with serious ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... Yorkshire, which was some trifling distance from Finsbury Square; and to be at Mr. Witherington's dinner-table at 6 P.M., with the necessity of appearing at parade every morning at 9 A.M., was a dilemma not to be got out of. Several letters were interchanged upon this knotty subject; and at last it was agreed that Mr. Templemore should sell out, and come up to Mr. Witherington with his pretty wife. He did so, and found that it was much more comfortable to turn out at nine o'clock ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... then with Persons who are extreamly learned and knotty in Expounding clear Cases. Tully [1] tells us of an Author that spent some Pages to prove that Generals could not perform the great Enterprizes which have made them so illustrious, if they had not had Men. He asserted also, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... instead of descending inside, and came to the corner where the fire was burning. One reason for the permanence of the blaze was now manifest: the fuel consisted of hard pieces of wood, cleft and sawn—the knotty boles of old thorn trees which grew in twos and threes about the hillsides. A yet unconsumed pile of these lay in the inner angle of the bank; and from this corner the upturned face of a little boy ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... surrounded by colossal evergreen oaks; a snug-looking house of greenish-white colour stands in the middle of the plantation, with orange gardens—that are to be—laid out and enclosed in front of it; one enormous live oak, that looks as if it had stood there since the flood, spreading its knotty limbs over the eastern side of the habitation. The windows on the balconies are open, the Venetian blinds drawn up, the sinking sun throws its mellow rays over the whole peaceful and pleasant scene. And see there! We ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... it won't do to put the Redskin on his own horse, or he may be giving us the slip. He shall have mine," said Long Sam, "and old 'Knotty' will stick by us, even if Mr Black Eagle should ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... children, the girls working or pretending to work with their needles. Three or four of the men were helping the cooks, some were mending their shoes, others were tailoring, a few of both sexes were reading, a greater number arguing some knotty point, or smoking their pipes, and several were sitting listlessly with their hands between their knees, already wishing that the voyage was over, and that they were once more engaged in the occupations to ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... back to the sweet mysterious places, The crook in the creek-bed nobody knew but me, Where the roots in the bank thrust out strange knotty faces, Scaring the squirrels who stole ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... sanctioned by our English ladies, any more than it would be resorted to by English gentlemen, from motives of kindly and very proper feeling. Here, in a retired spot, is the duelling ground, which has attained no little notoriety in that latitude, as the spot where many a knotty point has been quietly solved by the aid of a pair of pistols or Colt's rifles; although, for the credit of the citizens of New York and its neighbourhood, it must be recorded that they are not so ready to fly to this disgraceful ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... at present, there are six species, all of which inhabit Africa and India, including Java and Sumatra; they have three toes on each foot covered with a hoof. The sides of their body project in a remarkable degree; their skin is enormously thick, knotty in its surface, and has but a few hairs scattered over it. The Indian rhinoceroses have enormous folds of this skin, hanging upon the shoulders, haunches, neck and thighs, looking as if each fold covered a thick rope; the ears ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... no means uncommon for the revolutionists to avoid as far as possible the discussion of knotty problems relative to the working details of their contemplated state. They often do this by telling us that the people of the future will be the ones to solve the problem in question. In illustration two examples will be given, the ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... more than fifteen miles from Washington, and he could make the remaining distance under the cover of darkness. He followed a narrow road between two fields, in one of which he saw a farmer ploughing, an old man, gnarled and knotty, whose mind seemed bent wholly upon his work. He was ploughing young corn, and although he could not keep from seeing Harry, he took no apparent notice ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the student when the latter is much bothered by a consideration of some knotty and perplexing philosophical subject. He bids the student relax every muscle,—take the tension from every nerve—throw aside all mental strain, and then wait a few moments. Then the student is instructed to grasp the subject which he has had before ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... involuntarily from his lips as the keen blade buried itself under the knotty scales deep in the monster's throat. The mighty jaws relaxed and dropped ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... wood now," said the youngster, who drove the axe into the fir block, and forced the wedge in; but the twisted, knotty block would not split, although the youngster worked as hard as ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... a splendid, comprehensive gesture that took in all the points of the compass impartially. "One of us must take a few days off and go and hunt up a nice, inexpensive little Eldorado for us. There!—there, my friends, you have the solution of your knotty little problem in a nutshell. I gladly ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... Charing Cross, then suddenly stopping in the middle of the pavement, wrapt in thought as to whether he should cowhide the insulting minister, or give him a chance at twenty yards with a revolving carbine. Ere the knotty point is settled in his mind, a voice from beneath a hat with an oilskin top sounds in his ear, "Move on, sir, don't stop the pathway!" Imagine the sensations of a sovereign citizen of a sovereign state, being subject to such indignities ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the top, disclosed a round, sinewy neck, ruddy and corded like the bark of the fir. Thick, muscular arms, covered with a reddish down, protruded from the wide sleeves of his habit, while his white shirt, looped up upon one side, gave a glimpse of a huge knotty leg, scarred and torn with the scratches of brambles. With a bow to the Abbot, which had in it perhaps more pleasantry than reverence, the novice strode across to the carved prie-dieu which had been set apart for him, and stood silent and erect with ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... phenomena is made to bring into the domain of tone vague and shifting fancies and pictures. How much further music can be made to assimilate to the other arts in directness of mental suggestion, by wedding to it the noblest forms of poetry, and making each the complement of the other, is the knotty problem which underlies the great art-controversy about which this article concerns itself. On the one side we have the claim that music is the all-sufficient law unto itself; that its appeal to sympathy is through the intrinsic sweetness of harmony ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... classes; the French by carreaux, squares or lozenges—importing, perhaps, unity of interest, equality of condition, regularity of manners, and the indispensable duty of this class of men to deal with one another 'on the square.' The Spaniards made bastos, or knotty clubs, the emblem of the 'bold peasantry,' taken probably from the custom that the plebeians were permitted to challenge or fight each other with sticks and quarter-staves only, but not with the sword, or any arms carried by a gentleman; while the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... slight active figure arrayed in the blue kirtle and scarlet bodice, on which the warm rays of the late sun fell with so much amorous tenderness. Poor little Lilla! A penknife would have made as much impression as her valorous blows produced on the inflexible, gnarled, knotty old stump she essayed to split in twain. Flushed and breathless with her efforts, she looked prettier than ever, and at last, baffled, she resigned her ax to Vincenzo, laughing gayly at her incapacity for wood-cutting, and daintily shaking her apron free from the chips and dust, till ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... to settle this knotty point, just hand the felon up here a moment,' said the Judge. 'I don't suppose you've got a knife about ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... fellow on board, an Irish-American, for all the world like a beggar in a print by Callot; one-eyed, with great, splay crow's- feet round the sockets; a knotty squab nose coming down over his moustache; a miraculous hat; a shirt that had been white, ay, ages long ago; an alpaca coat in its last sleeves; and, without hyperbole, no buttons to his trousers. Even in these rags and tatters, the man twinkled all over with impudence like ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rabid Protestantism, and show the world, by direct miracle, the necessity of submitting to the decision of their Church and the infallibility of the supreme Pontiff; who, as they truly alleged, could decide all knotty points quite as well without the Word of God as with it. On being reminded that the writings of the Fathers, on which they laid so much stress as the vouchers of their traditions, were mutilated by the same stroke which ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... upon my legs, so long I naught require, Except this knotty staff. Beside, What boots it to abridge a pleasant way? Along the labyrinth of these vales to creep, Then scale these rocks, whence, in eternal spray, Adown the cliffs the silvery fountains leap: Such is the joy that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... swallered down dem biscuit, E't 'em faster dan a shoat. Dey wus a liddle tough an' knotty, But I chawed 'em lak ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... black forehead. She then softly unbolted one of the windows, lifted the sash, and got out. She carefully shut the window as noiselessly as she had opened it. She now found herself on the grassy sward in the neighborhood of the drawing-room. Under the old regime that sward was hard, and knotty tufts of weed as well as grass grew up here and there in profusion; but already, under the English government, it was beginning to assume the velvet-like appearance which a properly kept lawn ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... lies are like the father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts; thou knotty-pated fool! thou whoreson, obscene, ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... wife's casual references to the past, and particularly regarding her parents, had not dove-tailed, but that he had dismissed the impression; attributing it to some lapse in his own attention. He had a bad habit of listening and thinking out a knotty business problem at the same time. And there is a curious inhibition in loyal minds which forbids them to put two and two together until suspicion is ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... its mutual recognition—and action based upon it—would bring order and sweetness and mutual gain in vast numbers of instances in family, in business, in community life. It would solve many of the knotty problems in all lines of human relations and human endeavour, whose solution heretofore has seemed well-nigh impossible. It is the telling oil that will start to running smoothly and effectively many an otherwise clogged and ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... it; so thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy wood about it. Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and passing through them, I found myself at once in the twilight of close-ranked trees. There was a grass-grown track descending the forest aisle, between hoar and knotty shafts and under branched arches. I followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling; but it stretched on and on, it wound far and farther: no sign of habitation or grounds was visible.... At last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... glitter of the theatre or the blaze of the saloon—might be found first, Andy Morrow,* the juryman of the quarter-sessions, sage and important in the consciousness of legal knowledge, and somewhat dictatorial withal in its application to such knotty points as arose out of the subjects of their nocturnal debates. Secondly, Bob Gott, who filled the foreign and military departments, and related the wonderful history of the ghost which appeared to him on the night after the battle of Bunker's-hill. To him succeeded Tom M'Roarkin, the little ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... them; and yet some of those eccentric, half-savage beings could be entrusted with valuable property, and the negotiation of business involving most intricate handling. Sometimes in the settlement of knotty questions they used their own peculiar persuasiveness, and if that was not convincing, they indicated the possibility of physical force—which was usually effectual, especially with Levantines. Here is an instance: one ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... quinces, carefully taking out the parts that are knotty and defective. Cut them into quarters, or into round slices. Put them into a preserving kettle and cover them with the parings and a very little water. Lay a large plate over them to keep in the steam, and boil them till they ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... huge and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick; The knotty forestick laid apart, And filled between with curious art The ragged brush; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... with the peak cocked over his left ear; then came a green shooting-jacket, and flashy silk tartan waistcoat, set off by a gold chain, hung about in innumerable festoons,—while light trousers and knotty Wellington boots completed his costume, and made the wearer look as little like a seaman as need be. It appeared, nevertheless, that the individual in question was Mr. Ebenezer Wyse, my new sailing-master; so I accepted Captain ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... considerable numbers; but almost all of them have given their attention to textual criticism of the Confucian Canon, and few have condescended to examine critically the works of heterodox writers. The foreign student therefore finds himself faced with many knotty points he is ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... the distance. If the Missouri Compromise were repealed, would not the original laws of Louisiana, which legalized slavery, be revived? How then could the people of the Territories be free to legislate against slavery? It was a knotty question, testing the best legal minds in the Senate; and it was dispatched only by an amendment which stated that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise should not revive any antecedent law ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... remember distinctly," said Winter, with a twinkle of humour in the eyes which seemed always to see things that no one else could see. "You told me when I was in the midst of writing a sermon, and had got to a particularly knotty point; so I tangled Dick and his love affairs into the knot, while trying to put them out of my mind. I'm afraid they didn't do my sermon much good. And beautiful as Miss Grant may be, I won't dislocate my neck to look at her in a tram. I advise you not ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... not a handsome person. He was short, shorter than Mr. Polly, with long arms and lean big hands, a thin and wiry neck stuck out of his grey flannel shirt and supported a big head that had something of the snake in the convergent lines of its broad knotty brow, meanly proportioned face and pointed chin. His almost toothless mouth seemed a cavern in the twilight. Some accident had left him with one small and active and one large and expressionless reddish eye, and wisps ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... instance of the Gothic Naturalism; and, indeed, it is almost impossible for the copying of nature to be carried farther than in the fibres of the marble branches, and the careful finishing of the tendrils: note especially the peculiar expression of the knotty joints of the vine in the light branch which rises highest. Yet only half the finish of the work can be seen in the Plate: for, in several cases, the sculptor has shown the under sides of the leaves turned boldly to the light, and has literally carved every ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... go to church; that is, if he had not to go to town, which was sometimes the case even on the great day of rest, through his diplomatic skill being required in Downing Street. This was what he said, pleading his having to adjust some nice and knotty point of difference between the valiant King of Congo and the neighbouring and pugnacious Ja Ja, or else to remonstrate, in firm and equable language, as Officialdom knows so well how to do, against the repeated unjustifiable homicides of the ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the Jewish ritual? It was a momentous question to Mendel, and only his little brother's pinched and miserable countenance could have induced him to violate the law which to his conception was as sacred as life itself. While Mendel debated, Jacob solved the knotty problem by attacking the savory dishes before him, and his brother reluctantly followed ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... the masther, "you had the cow and the daughter thrown on your hands?" "Divil a throw, your honour," was the reply; "mee daughter got another husband in tin minutes, begorra, and we ate the cow, your honour; but Mike is a blackgyard, and should pay his half of the cow, your honour." This was a knotty case, but his "honour" decided that Mike should pay his share, and, to do that fickle bridegroom justice, he paid up with very little demurring. He was clearly three cows and a half the better by his bargain, and, I believe, lives happily to this day. It is needless to say ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... lesson for the coming Sabbath; and though she hovered in their vicinity for some time, she caught only stray words—names of places in the far away Judean land, that seemed to her like a name in the Arabian Nights; or an eager dissertation on the different views of eminent commentators on this or that knotty point; and so engrossed were they in their work that they bestowed on her only the slightest passing glance, and ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... taken, they sent to propose it to the Commandant, who rejected it with a menace to chastise them if they did not obey in a very short time, which he prefixed. {75} The Sun reported this answer to his council, who debated the question, which was knotty. But the policy of the old men was, that they should propose to the Commandant, to be allowed to stay in their village till harvest, and till they had time to dry their corn, and shake out the ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... just now I seem to have some very knotty cases on hand—one, in particular, seems to baffle all my skill with its mystery. Indeed, it bids fair to ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... spite of a soft mud-bank, plenty of green scum, stagnant water, and shady lotus leaves, a fat wife and a numerous family; in short, everything to make a frog happy, his forehead, or rather gullet, was wrinkled with care from long pondering of knotty problems, such ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... the world. I see her asking that this personality may be impressed upon her nation. I see her speaking her soul from platforms, preaching in pulpits of a life of which this is the shadow. I see her pleading before courts, using her brains to solve the knotty questions of the law. Woman's sphere is the wide world, her sceptre the mind that God has given her, her kingdom the largest place that she has the brains to fill and the will to hold. So is woman influencing the world, and as her sphere widens the world grows better. With the freedom she now ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... fronts of brown stone, cracked and blistered, cast-iron balconies and cat-haunted grass-patches behind twisted railings. These houses too had once been private, but now a cheap lunchroom filled the basement of one, while the other announced itself, above the knotty wistaria that clasped its central balcony, as the Mendoza Family Hotel. It was obvious from the chronic cluster of refuse-barrels at its area-gate and the blurred surface of its curtainless windows, that the families frequenting ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... lecture! [145] —if I may judge by your pace, and that volume in your hand. You were thinking hard as you came along, moving your lips and waving your arms. Some fine speech you were pondering, some knotty question, some viewy doctrine—not to be idle for a moment, to be making progress in philosophy, even on your way to the schools. To-day, however, you need go no further. We read a notice at the schools that there would ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... by, what was Anglesea but the like? After Saratoga, what Arnold? To say nothing of Mutius Scaevola minus a hand, General Knox a thumb, and Hannibal an eye; and that old Roman grenadier, Dentatus, nothing more than a bruised and battered trunk, a knotty sort of hemlock of a warrior, hard to hack and hew into chips, though much marred in symmetry by battle-ax blows. Ah! but these warriors, like anvils, will stand a deal of hard hammering. Especially in the old knight-errant times. For at the battle of Brevieux in Flanders, my glorious old gossiping ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... been hired, some at five shillings, some at ten, and the leader, Mrs Duncan, at twenty shillings, and came prepared with their aprons full of stones and other missiles, and Mrs Duncan had in addition a large knotty stick. When Davidson came in sight he saw the trap that was laid for him, and drew up for breath before he came within the enemy's reach. The fearful rush and the unearthly appearance of Davidson took his enemies by surprise; their missiles fell wide ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... could have seen it. Such trees, such loads of flowers, such clusters and streams of light! Oh my! if Eve ever had a paradise like that, she was just the greatest goose that ever lived to be turned out of it for the sake of one little knotty apple. I've no ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... face and head, however, was left in a pitiable condition after such a pummeling with a knotty stick. His face, covered with blood, was so swollen that he could hardly see for some time; but what of that? Did he not belong to Capt. Helm, soul and body; and if his brutal owner chose to destroy his own property, certainly had he not a right to do so, without let ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... Alec snatched the knotty bundle and glanced at the paragraph so eagerly that Philippa looked at him in surprise. She was still more surprised to see a deep flush spread over his face, as he tore the newspaper off the shoes and glanced ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Are you not mov'd, when all the sway of earth Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero, I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds 5 Have riv'd the knotty oaks, and I have seen Th' ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, To be exalted with the threatening clouds; But never till to-night, never till now, Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. 10 Either there is a civil strife in heaven, Or else the ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... Cicero, I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds Have rived the knotty oaks; and I have seen Th' ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, To be exalted with the threatening clouds; But never till to-night, never till now Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. A common slave—you know him well by sight— Held up his left hand, which did ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... of the kind, since the marriage of Giles Dauber to Madge Newsome of the Deercote, in which the discussion of a point so knotty and important had occurred. Giles dreamt not of the vast difference that exists in the nature and docility of divers women. He heard with a sort of incredulous surprise the first incipient grumblings in contravention of his authority; but when these ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... then; I'm as stiff as a board now, and it's no fun sitting here on this knotty old thing," growled ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... conjecture through woods and valleys of doubt, till she was wearied out;' and the exciting sport was given up for the day. At present, however, she confined herself to the practical matter in hand; and the genius for millinery and dress, inherent in both mother and daughter, soon settled a great many knotty points of contrivance and taste, and then they all three set to work to 'gar auld claes look ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... venerable Abbe Piquet overlooking with deep interest the rude pictorial despatches in the hands of La Corne. Two gentlemen of the law, in furred gowns and bands, stood waiting at one end of the room, with books under their arms and budgets of papers in their hands ready to argue before the Council some knotty point of controversy arising out of the concession of certain fiefs and jurisdictions granted under the feudal laws of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... This, say the alchymists, he never could have done, had he not been in possession of the philosopher's stone; by no other means could he have made the powder of gold float upon the water. But we must leave this knotty point for the consideration of the adepts in the art, if any such there be, and come to more modern periods of its history. The Jesuit, Father Martini, in his "Historia Sinica," says, it was practised by the Chinese two thousand five hundred years before the birth ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Lyes are like the Father that begets them, grosse as a Mountaine, open, palpable. Why thou Claybrayn'd Guts, thou Knotty-pated Foole, thou Horson ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... bathed in the morning, and my Turkish towel was spread outside the tent to dry. The Tarjum, who showed great interest in all our things, took a particular fancy to its knotty fabric. He sent for his child to see this wonderful material, and when he arrived the towel was placed on the youth's back as if it were a shawl. I at once offered it to him as a present if he would accept it. There were ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... imbittered against all Americans and as blood-thirsty and treacherous as they were warlike. It may be doubted if there was another man in the west who possessed the daring and resolution, the tact, energy, and executive ability necessary for the solution of so knotty a ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt |
