"Pith" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... writing of letters, the reading of newspapers, and desultory conversation. We sat silent for two or three minutes. She was busy with her work, and I was running over the columns of a paper from which I had extracted all the pith some twenty minutes before. It was a moment of painful embarrassment to me, and I thought it must be infinitely more so to her; but it seems I was mistaken. She was the first to speak; and, smiling with the coolest assurance, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... mind the familiar refrain of "Not for Joseph"? What was there that bade him man himself against this discouragement, as true bravery mans itself against the sensation of fear? and why should he be less worthy of approbation than other spirits who venture on "enterprises of great pith and moment" with beating hearts indeed, but with unflinching courage and a dogged ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... their dear rough stems, rough with nice little white hairs, and I knew how easily their poor heads would cut off, there is so much pith inside the stems. ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Kilpatrick's command at Gainesville, but the first faint streak of dawn saw him and his faithful followers in the saddle, booted, spurred, and equipped for some enterprise as yet unexplained to them, but evidently, in their leader's estimation, one of "pith and moment." At the word of command, the force, including the "Harris Light," moved forward at a quick trot, taking the road to Warrenton, and anticipating a brush with Stuart's cavalry who, during the previous ten hours, had thrown out videttes ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... growth appears on the host tree they begin feeding on the tender leaves and stems. Soon they begin laying their eggs in crescent shaped punctures which they cut in the new shoots and nutlets. The larvae hatch in a few days and tunnel through the pith of the shoots seriously injuring and stunting their growth while the infested nuts soon fall from the tree. The eggs may be laid from late May to early August. They hatch in a few days. The larvae complete their growth ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... forget the cross that has to follow. Be always as frank as you can, and never lose command of your temper. These were not his very words. I do not pretend that he expressed himself with such sententious brevity, though he never wasted speech, but they are the pith and marrow of his admonitions. For twenty years or so from then nearly every session saw me in the Committee Rooms, not always on the business of my own company, as other Irish railway companies on several occasions sought my help in their Parliamentary projects. Mr. Findlay's ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... crew that he had carried off with him in that ship, had long ceased to occupy a thought in the public mind. Throughout the whole of that eventful period, the attention of all Europe had been absorbed in the contemplation of 'enterprises of great pith and moment,'—of the revolutions of empires—the bustle and business of warlike preparations—the movements of hostile armies—battles by sea and land, and of all 'the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.' If the subject ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... succour: then Peckham, gallant Peckham, Makes a far cry from her famed Rye. O brethren, shall we check 'em, These brave suburban stalwarts whose home is in the waste Afar from Pall Mall portals, swell Clubs, and homes of taste, But who have Votes, my brethren? Nay, shout ye men of pith, And strike for pining Poplar and hapless Hammersmith!" "Quite so!" cries 'cute MUNDELLA, the corvine chief and conky, "But he who maketh too much noise may show himself a donkey. The Capital seems quiet, Sir, the garrison is still, Suppose we try that old ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various
... puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all;[20] And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment,[21] With this regard, their currents turn away, And lose ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... really nothing to do with rice. It is not made from rice, nor even from the rice plant, but from the pith of a kind of ivy, the Aralia papyrifera, which grows abundantly in the island of Formosa. This Aralia is not much like our English ivy. It is, in fact, a small tree, which may attain a height of twenty or thirty feet, and is crowned with a number of large leaves, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... choked him to death. Before that the usual lances had been laid across his body, and some bubud poured (judiciously, not extravagantly) on him as a libation. This was a head-dance, the taken head being simulated by a ball of fern-tree pith stuck on a ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... College was to found a divinity school. To a mind appreciative, like mine, his preaching was a continual course of education and a continual feast. He was copious and polished in style, though disciplined and logical. There was a pith and power of doctrine there that has not been since ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... staple food of the native inhabitants. For vegetables they had the bulbs of many species of Ixias and Mesembryanthemums, among others the "Hottentot fig" (Mesembryanthemum edule). They had the "Caffir bread"—the inside pith of the stems of a species of Zamia; and the "Caffir chestnut," the fruit of the Brabeium stellatum; and last, not least, the enormous roots of the "elephant's foot" (Testudinaria elephantipes). They had wild onions and garlic too; and in the white flower-tops of a beautiful floating plant ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... giving form to angelic beings, by interpreting Mariolatry in all its charm and pathos, and by rousing deep sympathy with our Lord in His Passion, painting lent efficient aid to piety. Yet painting had to omit the very pith and kernel of Christianity as conceived by devout, uncompromising purists. Nor did it do what the Church would have desired. Instead of riveting the fetters of ecclesiastical authority, instead of enforcing ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... of this group seem to be a very industrious race. They manufacture all sorts of fishing apparatus very cleverly; they are expert in finding their way through the forests; they know how to prepare the pith of the sago-plant, and to make ovens for the cooking of the sago; they can turn pottery ware, weave mats, carpets, baskets, and can also carve idols and figures. In the harbour of Boni on the coast of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... manufacturers of Dublin and Belfast, the leading professional men of Ireland, the most learned scholars of her great University, her great soldiers, White, Wolseley, Roberts, her greatest living authors, the whole of her Protestant clergy of whatever sect, with their congregations, the pith and marrow of everything that is strong, stable, cultured, enlightened, prescient, must be pronounced unpatriotic—if Nationalism is Patriotism. Contrary to all human experience and to the course and constitution of nature, the people of England are asked to ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... "It was the pith and point of my contention! I mentioned the two moments at which I hold that a man's soul may be caught apart, may be cut off from his body by no other medium than a good sound lens in a light-tight camera. You cannot have forgotten them ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... and languidly; the ordinary piercing and dominant English enunciation has fallen to modulation; their eyes, while observant and alert, look tired. It is as though the far countries have sucked something from the pith of them in exchange for great experiences that nevertheless seem of little value; as though these men, having met at last face to face the ultimate of what the earth has to offer in the way of danger, hardship, difficulty, and the things that try ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... mak' a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that, But an honest man's aboon his might— Guid faith, he mauna fa' that! For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that, The pith o' sense and pride o' worth Are higher ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... when found, were still soft and pasty, had a rancid smell and a greasy but pungent flavor. The kernels were less elongated and more bulging than those of the Neapolitan olives; were very hard and still contained some shreds of their pith. In a word, they were perfectly preserved, and although eighteen centuries old, as they were, you would have thought they had been plucked but a ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... (Sir Thomas Overbury His Wife... 1616) had defined the character as "wit's descant on any plain-song," and Brathwaite in his Dedication to Whimzies(1631) had written that character-writers must shun affectation and prefer the "pith before the rind." Wye Saltonstall in the same year in his Dedicatory Epistle to Picturae Loquentes had required of a character "lively and exact Lineaments" and "fast and loose knots which the ingenious Reader may easily ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... Authority has resources,—which ought it not to put forth? If it cannot realise money, the Royal Authority is as good as dead; dead of that surest and miserablest death, inanition. Risk and win; without risk all is already lost! For the rest, as in enterprises of pith, a touch of stratagem often proves furthersome, his Majesty announces a Royal Hunt, for the 19th of November next; and all whom it concerns are ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... merry together: because for those two wanderers it was a great delight to see the faces of the children of men once more after so many months, and to hold converse with them; while for their part the young men marvelled at Ursula's beauty, and the pith and goodliness ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... Danish birth. Theatrical managers drew freely on the dramatic treasures of Danish literature, and occasionally, to replenish the exchequer, reproduced a French comedy or farce, whose epigrammatic pith and vigor were more than half-spoiled in the translation. The drama was as yet an exotic in Norway; it had no root in the national soil, and could accordingly in no respect represent the nation's own ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... And I at the appointed hour Watched them arrive before the muted dwelling And heard some speeches full of pith and power And saw them turn and go with anger swelling; Save only one who, spite his rude dismay, Like a whipped Hun, made traffic of his sorrow And shouted, "Taxi, Sir?" I answered "Nay, I do not need you, jarvey, but I may Be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... fixed star; but then he remembered that the distance to that first solar neighbor was estimated in trillions, not billions, and that our little system, even with its new additions, was a child's handbreadth on the plane of the sky. He had brought along a small book called The Pith of Astronomy—a fascinating little volume—and he read from it about the great tempest of fire in the sun, where the waves of flame roll up two thousand miles high, though the sun itself is such a tiny star in ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... described to her so minutely the changing scene that she was able to bring it vividly before her eyes. She saw him come out of his tent, in heavy boots, buckling on his belt. He wore knee-breeches and a pith helmet, and he was more bronzed than when she had bidden him farewell. He gave the order to the headman of the caravan to take up the loads. At the word there was a rush from all parts of the camp; each porter seized his ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... mother sent me some pretty flower-holders made of bamboos of different lengths, intended evidently to hang against door-jambs or in hallways. The pith was hollowed out here and there, and the hole plugged from beneath to make little water pockets. These did admirably for a season, but when the wood dried, it invariably split, and treacherous dripping followed, most ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... that required of other British subjects. This spread general consternation. Deputies from the Acadian settlements appeared at Halifax, bringing a paper signed with the marks of a thousand persons. The following passage contains the pith of it. "The inhabitants in general, sir, over the whole extent of this country are resolved not to take the oath which your Excellency requires of us; but if your Excellency will grant us our old oath, with an exemption for ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... can't. They would be all Greek and Hebrew to you. Thank your stars that you have got a sharp son, who can take the pith out of these papers, and give it a smack of the right flavor in serving it up. There are not ten men in England who could tell you this woman's story as I can tell it. It's a gift, old gentleman, of the sort that is given to very few people—and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... removing the skin and pith, make a dressing with 3 tablespoonfuls of olive oil, a tablespoonful of lemon juice, and a pinch of ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous
... can aught come That I do not foresee. Our destiny We all must bear as lightly as we may, Since none may wrestle with necessity. And yet to speak or not to speak alike Is miserable. High service done to man— For this I bear the adamantine chain. I to its elemental fountain tracked, In fern-pith stored and bore by stealth away, Fire, source and teacher of all arts to men. Such mine offence, whereof the penalty I pay, thus chained in ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... tell. He played his part in each so well, James Spencer Lidstone, fare thee well! And 'mongst the ancient sons of fame Who says that Dinny Cantlin's name Does not deserve a line or two In these old chronicles most true? Dinny was just four feet in length, Although a man of pith and strength, His arm was always ready, too, All rowdyism to subdue. When special constable one day, He captured in some sudden fray A fellow six feet high, or taller, And held him firmly by the collar; And Dinny, as he upward gazed At the colossus, o'er him raised, Exclaimed, "escape ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... gossamer not to wanton in the idle summer air, or of the moth not to play with the flame that scorches it, as ask of these persons to put off any enjoyment for a single instant, or to gird themselves up to any enterprise of pith or moment. They have been so used to a studied succession of agreeable sensations that the shortest pause is a privation which they can by no means endure—it is like tearing them from their very existence—they have been ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... and we prate, we are nerveless and weak, And we swallow, like Pistol, the odorous leek. We palter with truth, and we flatter our foes, And we cringe, and we crawl, and are led by the nose. We are fools soft of speech, and without any pith, For we smother our feelings to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... in the prime of life, and interrupted in some literary undertakings and projects of great pith and moment. He had written a portion of a treatise on the "Evidences of Christianity," and was meditating some works, such as a "Metrical Version of the Psalms" and a tragedy on the history of Socrates, still more suitable to his cast ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... united together by their common interest. Almost every degree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes, and the infusion of a China plant is sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippic islands give a flavour to our European bowls. The single dress of a woman of quality is often the product of an hundred climates. The muff and the fan come together ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... sitting upon a bench with a level fixed before him, and his empty plate and cup laid by, among a great litter of tools and things. He was looking along the level with one eye shut, and the other most sternly intent; but when I came near he rose and raised his broad pith hat, and made me think that I was not ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... huge volumes printed from time to time, by order of parliament, for the edification—or as some facetious folks say, for the mystification—of M.Ps. Having carefully waded through its voluminous pages, we have jotted down the passages that especially struck us, and propose to present the pith and substance of our labour—for it is nothing less—in a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... suspended in their pods. Stars discovered by Mr. Herschel. Destruction and resuscitation of all things. 351. 2. Seeds within seeds, and bulbs within bulbs. Picture on the retina of the eye. Concentric strata of the earth. The great seed. 381. 3. The root, pith, lobes, plume, calyx, coral, sap, blood, leaves respire and absorb light. The crocodile in its egg. 409. XI. Opening of the flower. The petals, style, anthers, prolific dust. Transmutation of the silkworm. 441. XII. 1. Leaf-buds changed into flower-buds ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... singular reminiscence. There is nothing forced, nothing foisted in or patched up, nothing fragmentary. The rhymes are easy and good, the words choice and proper, the meaning clear and intelligible, the melodies lovely and hearty, and in summa all is so rare and majestic, so full of pith and power, so cheering and comforting, that, in sooth, you will not find his equal, ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... brother's life 65 Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it; And follows close the rigour of the statute, To make him an example. All hope is gone, Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer To soften Angelo: and that's my pith of business 70 'Twixt you and ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... I hope young women will not make such mistakes as these young men have done, who might have been supposed to know something, if they had only kept still. (Laughter). If these papers, to which I have referred, were all in the hands of women, and so destitute of editorial pith and point as they now are, I should counsel against any further efforts for the elevation of the sex, believing the case to be hopeless. (Applause). If I mistake not, women have a peculiar fitness for trade. Mrs. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... progresses and evolves, or only spins upon itself. Take Dryden's Achitophel and Zimri; every line adds to or modifies the character, which is, as it were, a-building up to the very last verse; whereas in Pope's Timon, &c. the first two or three couplets contain all the pith of the character, and the twenty or thirty lines that follow are so much evidence or proof of overt acts of jealousy, or pride, or whatever it may be that is satirized." (Table-Talk, 192.) Some of Dryden's best satirical hits are let fall by seeming accident ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... and Industry. Even atheists reproach me with infidelity and anarchists with nihilism because I cannot endure their moral tirades. And yet, instead of exclaiming "Send this inconceivable Satanist to the stake," the respectable newspapers pith me by announcing "another book by this brilliant and thoughtful writer." And the ordinary citizen, knowing that an author who is well spoken of by a respectable newspaper must be all right, reads me, as he reads Micah, with undisturbed ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... represent sick persons, in order to lure the demons after them, is not uncommon. For example, most of the pagan tribes on the coast of Borneo seek to drive away epidemic disease as follows. They carve one or more rough human images from the pith of the sago palm and place them on a small raft or boat or full-rigged Malay ship together with rice and other food. The boat is decked with blossoms of the areca palm and with ribbons made from its leaves, and thus adorned the little craft is allowed to float out to sea with ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... antelope, prairie dog, prairie badger, magpie, bighorn, and a grizzly-hide or so. They got their four bighorn heads at the Mandans, none very large, though 'two feet long and four inches diameter' seemed big to them. And I shouldn't wonder if those horns could have been pulled off the pith after they got good and dry. The horns of the bighorn will dry out and lose at least ten per cent of their measurement, in a few years' hanging on a wall. I have had a bighorn's curly horn come off the pith in rough handling three or four years after it ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... in the excitement, as they saw an animal like a great long-eared spotted cat dash out of a clump of trees and make for some rocky ground, all joined in the chase; Mr Rogers ran as hard as the rest, forcing his pith hunting-helmet down over his head. Coffee got well in front, waving his arms and shouting; but Chicory trod upon a thorn and began to limp. As for Jack, in his excitement he tripped over a stump, ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... dramatic performance was pronounced in the Massachusetts Assembly, one day in June, 1773, by Mr. John Hancock, who darkly declared that within eight and forty hours a discovery of great pith and moment would be made to the House. On the next day but one, Samuel Adams arose and desired the galleries cleared, as there were matters to lay before the members which the members only had a right to know ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... appeared, what he called "faible"—that is incompetent; he said I had feigned a false incapacity. Again, he would turn suddenly round and accuse me of the most far-fetched imitations and impossible plagiarisms, asserting that I had extracted the pith out of books I had not so much as heard of— and over the perusal of which I should infallibly have fallen down in a sleep as deep as that ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... clairvoyant just as long as he gives us palatable things, and no longer, and nobody knows this better than your genus clairvoyant. When his advice is contrary to our desires, we pronounce him a fraud and go our way. When enterprises of great pith and moment are to be carried through, we give the power into the hands of the worldling infidel, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... boil young tops of a Polypodium with their shrimp curries; and both in Sikkim and Nepal the watery tubers of an Aspidium are abundantly eaten. So also the pulp of one tree-fern affords food, but only in times of scarcity, as does that of another species in New Zealand (Cyathea medullaris): the pith of all is composed of a coarse sago, that is to say, of cellular tissue ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... religious consciousness, to ennoble every heart by moral aspirations, to indoctrinate every individual with an unequivocal theory of life, to inspire every member of the nation with lofty ideals. Their work did not fail to leave its traces. Slowly but deeply idealism entered into the very pith and marrow of the national consciousness. This consciousness gained in strength and amplitude century by century, showing itself particularly in the latter part of the first period, after the crisis known as "the Babylonian Exile." ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... enough to reply, weary as he was, with a stronger kick, which took Master Lancelot in the knee, and discouraged him for any further contest. Bully as he was, the boy had too much of ancient Yordas pith in him to howl, or cry, or even whimper, but sat down on a little ridge to nurse his poor knee, and meditate revenge against the animal with hoofs. Presently pain and wrath combined became too much for the weakness ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... under-ripe oranges of all rind and pith, slice them into a dish, season with a little cayenne pepper, add the rind of one minced, the juice of one lemon and a tablespoonful of oil if desired; decorate ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... could make out. We soon discovered that there was no need of covering at the Equator; but this bolster must have some use, if we could only find it. Upon inquiring next day we ascertained that it is composed of a kind of pith which has the property of keeping cool in the hottest weather, and that it is the greatest relief at night to cultivate the closest possible acquaintance with this strange bed-fellow; in fact, in Singapore, "no family ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... rejoice at all; he grew and grew, and was green both winter and summer. People that saw him said, "What a fine tree!" and toward Christmas he was one of the first that was cut down. The axe struck deep into the very pith; the tree fell to the earth with a sigh: he felt a pang—it was like a swoon; he could not think of happiness, for he was sorrowful at being separated from his home, from the place where he had sprung up. He knew well that he should never see his ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... and the buildings, and, giving the convalescents instructions to arm themselves at once and to stand by to show themselves when called upon, I entered my own quarters and hastily shifted from my uniform into a somewhat soiled suit of "whites" and a pith hat that had doubtless once been the property of one of the former inhabitants of the place—and which I had appropriated in view of some such contingency as the present—and otherwise made such ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... things, and had made a most unbecoming joke about Jupiter and Venus, which outraged Charlotte's "common sense". "The idea of the little man," says Charlotte, "shocks me less. He still sends his little newspaper; and the other day there came a letter of a bulk, volume, pith, judgment and knowledge, fit to have been the product of a giant. You may laugh as much and as wickedly as you please, but the fact is, there is a quiet constancy about this, my diminutive and red-haired friend, which adds a foot ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... unflinching courage and energy. I had come into personal contact with him in the Presidential campaigns of 1860 and 1864, when he seemed to be pleased with my efforts. I had once heard him make a stump speech which was evidently inspired by intense hatred of slavery, and remarkable for argumentative pith and sarcastic wit. But the impression his personality made upon me was not sympathetic: his face, long and pallid, topped with an ample dark-brown wig which was at the first glance recognized as such; beetling brows overhanging keen eyes of uncertain color which sometimes seemed to scintillate ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... words, words—strung of mouldy sentences, scriptural phrases, foolish exclamations, and such-like: yet when necessary, he showed that he could sufficiently command his style, delivering himself with so much energy, pith, propriety, and strength of expression, that it was commonly said of him under such circumstances, "every word he spoke was a thing." But the strongest indication of his vast abilities was, the extraordinary tact with which he entered into, dissected, and scrutinized the nature ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... facts, are generally remembered; the past is known to us more, and exclusively as it becomes remote, by the conceptions of poets and philosophic historians, the myriads of events which occupied a generation being forgotten, and all the pith and meaning of them being transmitted in a stanza or a chapter. Poetry never grows old, and whatsoever masterpieces of thought always win the admiration of the enlightened; but many a novel that has been the lion of a season passes at once away, never more to be heard of here. With few exceptions, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... back, was the first to sight the coming expedition, and to notify its approach with a yell that brought a dozen like him from the sun-baked hovels and, a moment later from the office, a white man in a pith helmet, who stood for a moment looking across the half-ruined wall at the newcomers, and then advanced ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... conveniences, for it cost considerable labor. We had our choice between the candle wood, as the pitch pine is called, or rushlights, which last are made by stripping the outer bark from common rushes, thus leaving the pith bare; then dipping these in tallow, or grease, and allowing them to harden. In such manner did we get makeshifts for candles, neither pleasing to the eye nor affording very much in the way of light; yet they served in a certain degree to dispel the darkness when by ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... of vellum is an indication that the MSS. must be of some antiquity. The word "paper" is derived from papyrus, the most ancient material for writing, if we except the rocks used for runes, or the wood for oghams. Papyrus, the pith of a reed, was used until the discovery of parchment, about 190 B.C. A MS. of the Antiquities of Josephus on papyrus, was among the treasures ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... doing something, Hamish, to get any pith out o' life. This is what I am thinking we will be doing the night. We will tell the Laird that it will be as well that somebody should be giving an eye to the sheep he has wintering at Lamlash and the South End, and then we will make for ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... fact?—and are they to be set aside as naught? Surely not. Myths of this kind generally embody a nucleus of truth, and must be regarded with respect; for they often, after all arguments about them are spent, are found to contain the very pith of the matter. ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... this interesting fragment needs no elaborate explanation: it contains the pith of Agur's practical philosophy in the form of an exhortation to renounce honour, glory, the esteem of men, &c., if we possess legitimate claims to such, and still more if we have none; the acquisition ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... will bring you sugar-canes half as thick as your wrist, looking as innocent as may be; both ends are sealed up with bits of the pith, and when you open one end you find that all the joints have been bored through, and the cane is full of rum. But mind, lads, you are fools if you touch it; it is new and strong and rank, and a bottle of it would knock you silly. And that is not ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... between him and the G. C. Of this the Game-Captain is made aware when the game commences. The partial slacker, scorning to insert his head in the scrum, assumes a commanding position outside and from this point criticises the Game-Captain's decisions with severity and pith. The last end of the partial slacker is generally a sad one. Stung by some pungent home-thrust, the Game-Captain is fain to try chastisement, and by these means ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... pith of the matter," said Mr. Esterworth, who was not above the weakness of liking to be the bearer of a piece of gossip. "I'll give you three guesses, and I'll bet you ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... ordinary men. He had been so hacked and hewed about, so exposed to the gaze of the vulgar, so mauled by the public, that he could never more be anything but the wretched being who had been tried for the murder of his enemy. The pith had been taken out of him, and he was no longer a man fit for use. He could never more enjoy that freedom from self-consciousness, that inner tranquillity of spirit, which are essential to public utility. Then he remembered certain lines ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... specialised impulse. He calmly ignores all phenomena such as those I have described because they do not fit his theory. With the exception of his cheap observation that contrasts attract each other (which is the pith of all his "truths") he does not adduce the smallest evidence for the truth of his myth of "the genius of the species spreading his wings over the coming generation." However much the results of breeders may be applicable to the human species, they have nothing ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... mean discordance but agreement. All methods which concurrently with Grammar, mean practice or induce it, are good. This is the pith and secret of all successful systems: practice with method often, much, and aloud but by all means master the Grammar as quickly and thoroughly as possible, and thus practice strengthens grammar, while grammar ...
— The Aural System • Anonymous
... fish (dragged to its ruin) by the bait of meat. Like unto the body that is made up of different limbs and organs, all mortal creatures exist depending upon one another. They are as destitute of vigour as the pith of the banana plant. (Left to themselves) they sink in the world's ocean like a boat (made of weak materials). There is no fixed time for the acquisition of righteousness. Death waits for no man. When man is constantly ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... D'Artagnan, who had no sooner beheld him than he perceived that something extraordinary had taken place. Imposing silence, Grimaud put out the little night lamp, then knelt down and poured into the lieutenant's ear a recital melodramatic enough not to require play of feature to give it pith. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he shall in short time attaine to the perfection of it. His lecture shall be somtimes by way of talke and sometimes by booke: his tutor may now and then supply him with the same Author, as an end and motive of his institution: sometimes giving him the pith and substance of it ready chewed. And if of himselfe he be not so throughly acquainted with bookes, that hee may readily find so many notable discourses as are in them to effect his purpose, it shall not be amisse that some learned man bee appointed to keepe him, company, who ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... ground the waster weel! Haud him down! Ye haena the pith o' a cat!' were the cries of advice, encouragement, and expostulation from those who were on the bank to the sportsman engaged with the salmon, who stood up to his middle in water, jingling among broken ice, struggling against the force of the fish and the strength of the current, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... more than this, but this is the pith of it. I knelt down, and swore that I would strive, to the utmost in my power, to do as he bade me; and he put his hands on my head, and bade me go in peace; and I tell you, I mean to prove to him that his words have not ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... Alister; "you get astride my shoulders, and I'll carry you home. I believe you're hungry, and that takes the pith out of you!—Come," he went on, perceiving some sign of reluctance in the youth, "you'll break down if you walk much farther!—Here, Ian! you take the bag; you can manage ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... to fear him most. It was in the quiet, tired reserve, the dullness, even, that kept him company between these outbursts that she found that exhausting drain upon her sympathies which was the very pith and substance of their alliance. It was the tacit admission of disappointment under all this glamour of success—the helplessness of the enchanter to at all enchant himself—that awoke in her an illogical, womanish desire to in some way compensate, ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... Master. "If I were to take a raft, and drift about on the sea, would Tsz-lu, I wonder, be my follower there?" That disciple was delighted at hearing the suggestion; whereupon the Master continued, "He surpasses me in his love of deeds of daring. But he does not in the least grasp the pith of my remark." ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... "the germ, as it were, of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and mankind." The assertion that they desired to invert this order, to destroy every social link in so far as it tended to produce inequalities, was the pith of his great indictment against the French "metaphysical" revolutionists. They had perverted the general logical precept of the sufficient reason for all inequalities by converting it into an assuming of the equality of concrete units. They fell into the fallacy of which I have ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... and polemical spirit, of asking you quite frankly what good you think can be done by resolutions of this character? I am not now referring to the resolution against myself. That is a matter of very minor importance. The pith of the whole business is in resolution number one, a resolution evidently framed with great care by the clever men who are engineering the present agitation in the Colony. Now, that resolution asks for two things—a termination of the war, and the restoration of the independence ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... of Douglass extracts are given from letters of distinguished contemporaries who knew the orator. Colonel T.W. Higginson writes thus: "I have hardly heard his equal, in grasp upon an audience, in dramatic presentation, in striking at the pith of an ethical question, and in single [signal] illustrations and examples." Another writes, in reference to the impromptu speech delivered at the meeting at Rochester on the death of Lincoln: "I have heard Webster and Clay in their best ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... he, Doe, and I, and watched the new arrivals. Troop-trains were rolling right up to the quay and disgorging hundreds of men, spruce in their tropical kit of new yellow drill and pith helmets. Unattached officers arrived singly or in pairs; in carriages or on foot. Many of them were doctors, who were being drafted to the East in large numbers. A still greater proportion consisted of young Second Lieutenants, who, like ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... in the South it was held in universal honour. Jasmin, he continued, is what Burns was to the Scottish peasantry; only he received his honours in his lifetime. The comparison with Burns, however, was not appropriate. Burns had more pith, vigour, variety, and passion, than Jasmin who was more of a descriptive writer. In some respects Jasmin resembled Allan Ramsay, a barber and periwig-maker, like himself, whose Gentle Shepherd met with as great a success as Jasmin's Franconnette. Jasmin, however, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... whatever holy object of Shinto worship be placed upon the kamidana, are set two quaintly shaped jars for the offerings of sake; two small vases, to contain sprays of the sacred plant sakaki, or offerings of flowers; and a small lamp, shaped like a tiny saucer, where a wick of rush-pith floats in rape-seed oil. Strictly speaking, all these utensils, except the flower-vases, should be made of unglazed red earthenware, such as we find described in the early chapters of the Kojiki: and still at Shinto festivals ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that; The pith o' sense and pride o' worth Are higher ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... upon all the officers that a quiet rest during the heat of the day was the one thing needful to make them bear the exertion of the journey; and then, as soon as he saw every one following his advice, he arranged his puggaree around his pith helmet, put some cartridges in his pocket, and went off into the jungle to shoot specimens, with ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... the slightest acquaintance with the House of Commons would have soon perceived that matter of much greater pith and moment was at stake. The Senior Ministerial Whip is the danger-signal of the House of Commons; and the danger-signal was very much in evidence. Mr. Marjoribanks—of all Whips the most genial, ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... is like raw turnip-shavings and tastes like green almonds; is very delicate and good. Costs the life of a palm tree 12 to 20 years old—for it is the pith. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the occasional grossness or harshness of sentiment which contrasts so strongly with the superficial polish. A genuine report of even the best conversation would be intolerably prosy and unimaginative. But imagine the very pith and essence of such talk brought to a focus, concentrated into the smallest possible space with the infinite dexterity of a thoroughly trained hand, and you have the kind of writing in which Pope is unrivalled; ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... with his jacket cut in the latest fashion, with his cockle-shell of a boat, which he managed as well on salt water as on fresh, sculling with his arms bare, a cigarette in his mouth, a monocle in his eye, and a pith-helmet, such as is worn in India. The young ladies used to gather on the sands to watch him as he struck the water with the broad blade of his scull, near enough for them to see and to admire his nautical ability. They thought all his jokes amusing, and they delighted in his way of seizing his partner ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... a smiling, peaceful spot of great tropical beauty; it is one of the fairest places in the West Indies. At every hour of the year the harbor of Port of Spain holds open its arms to vessels of every draught. A governor in a pith helmet, a cricket club, a bishop in gaiters, and a botanical garden go to make it a prosperous and contented colony. But the little derelict Trinidad, in latitude 20 degrees 30 minutes south, and longitude 29 degrees 22 minutes west, seven hundred miles from ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... fault (see notes passim, cf. also, Monboddo's critique on the style of Tacitus). "The work," says La Bletterie, "is brief without being superficial. Within the compass of a few pages, it comprises more of ethics and politics, more fine delineations of character, more substance and pith (suc), than can be collected from many a ponderous volume. It is not one of those barely agreeable descriptions, which gradually diffuse their influence over the soul, and leave it in undisturbed tranquillity. It is a picture in strong light, ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... flies." He says further: "If a steel mill were to start in a Mississippi swamp paying wages of $2 a day, the news would hum through foreign lands in a month, and that swamp would become a beehive of humanity and industry in an incredibly short space of time." Dr. A. F. Schauffler says, with equal pith, that "the great cause of immigration is, after all, that the immigrants propose to better themselves in this country. They come here not because they love us, or because we love them. They come here because they can do themselves good, not because they can do us good."[6] That ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... is at the mouth of the Liuche, which is very wide; the river oozes out through a forest of eschinomenae (pith tree). This was a rendezvous agreed upon between shore and lake parties, that the canoes might all cross to the other side, distant a mile and a half. The mouth of the Liuche forms the Bay of Ukaranga, so named because on the other side, whither we were about to ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... is his answer. "I've known a derelict up-end and sift her engines out of herself and flicker round the Lower Lanes for three weeks on her forward tanks only. We'll run no risks. Pith her, George, and look sharp. There's ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... export from Brunai is sago flour. The sago palm is known to the natives under the name of rumbiah, the pith, after its first preliminary washing, is called lamantah (i.e., raw), and after its preparation for export by the Chinese, sagu. The botanical name is Metroxylon, M. Laevis being that of the variety the trunk of which is unprotected, and M. Rumphii ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... I.iv.22 (178,5) The pith and marrow of our attribute] The best and most valuable part of the praise that would be otherwise attributed ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... of the choir, where there were one or two modern monuments; and I was appalled to find that a sermon was being preached by the ecclesiastic of the day, nor were there any signs of an imminent termination. I am not aware that there was much pith in the discourse, but there was certainly a good deal of labor and earnestness in the preacher's mode of delivery; although, when he came to a close, it appeared that the audience was not more ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the pith of the theme of the story, very briefly put, for, as she is introduced to us in the opening chapters, she is, with all her beauty, as hopeless a termagant as can well be conceived, and when she bids us farewell at the end of the book, the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... less piteous than revolting. But Helwyse felt no pity,—only ugly, hateful, unrelenting anger, needing not much stirring to blaze forth in fearful passion. Where now were his wise saws,—his philosophic indifference? Self-respect is the pith of such supports; which being gone, the ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the votaries of the divine right of kings to tell us so, albeit we are ready enough to admit the imperfections of universal suffrage, too often committing affairs of pith and moment, even of life and death, to the arbitrament of the mob, and costing more in cash outlay than ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... the natives of that island, and return during the first part of the brisas. They enter the river of Manila and sell their cargoes in their vessels. These consist of fine and well-made palm-mats, a few slaves for the natives, sago—a certain food of theirs prepared from the pith of palms—and tibors; large and small jars, glazed black and very fine, which are of great service and use; and excellent camphor, which is produced on that island. Although beautiful diamonds are found on the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... whenever business did not prevent. Mr. Davis' manner was unvarying in its quiet and courtesy, drawing out all that one had to tell, and indicating by brief answer, or criticism, that he had extracted the pith from it. At that moment he was the very idol of the people; the grand embodiment to them of their grand cause; and they gave him their hands unquestioning, to applaud any move soever he might make. And equally unthinking as this popular manifestation of early hero-worship, was ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... often be, how unbridled and recalcitrant beyond all bounds; but I can easily pardon him, for the same bold blood flows in my own veins, and at the root of all his excesses lies power, genuine and vigorous power. And this innate pith and power are just the very thing we most admire in men, for it is the one gift which the gods have dealt out to us with a less liberal hand than to men. Life indeed generally dams its overflowing current, but I doubt whether this will be the case with the stormy torrent of his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Chinese rice paper plant. The stems are filled with pith of very fine texture and white as snow, from which is derived the article known as rice paper, much used ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... sat in the service o' foreign commanders, Selling a sword for a beggar man's fee, Learning the trade o' the warrior who wanders, To mak' ilka stranger a sworn enemie; There was ae thought that nerved roe, and brawly it served me. With pith to the claymore wherever I won,— 'Twas the auld sodger's story, that, gallows or glory, The Hielan's, the Hielan's were ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... around the wall, he trimmed it with his knife into the desired shape and size. Laying the piece, thus prepared, upon a large stone, he pounded one side of it lustily with a piece of rock. A few minutes sufficed to pound out the pith and leave the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Middle Ages" and the late Mr. Serjeant Pulling's "Order of the Coif," though widely differing in scope, are both extremely useful publications. Mr. Pollard's introduction to the Clarendon Press selection of miracle plays contains the pith of that interesting subject, and Miss Toulmin Smith's "York Plays" and Miss Katherine Bates's "English Religious Drama" will be found valuable guides. Perhaps the most realistic description of a miracle play is that presented in a few pages of Morley's "English Writers," where ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... be to turn his verse-narratives into prose, and less would be lost in the transfer. In Multitude and Solitude, the author has given us more of the results of his own thinking than can be found in most of the poems. Whole pages are filled with the pith of meditative thought. In Captain Margaret, we have a remarkable combination of the love of romance and the ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... loudly with his fist and the butt of his pistol; but no answer was returned. On the ground, near the sill, had fallen an instrument, similar in outward form to the classic Cornucopiae, about five feet in length, and which appeared to be cut from some tree and made hollow by the pith being scooped out. The Norwegian taking it from the ground and applying the smaller end to his mouth, blew in it, and produced a blast that rang through the valley from one extremity to the other, and rattled among the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... not altogether peculiar to it, were the papyrus and the lotus—the Cyperus papyrus and Nymphaea lotus of botanists. The papyrus was a tall smooth reed, with a large triangular stalk containing a delicate pith, out of which the Egyptians manufactured their paper. The fabric was excellent, as is shown by its continuance to the present day, and by the fact that the Greeks and Romans, after long trial, preferred it to parchment. The lotus was a large white ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... the apostrophes to Barto left it one of the ironical, veiled Republican, semi-socialistic ballads of the time, which were sung about the streets for the sharpness and pith of the couplets, and not from a perception of the double edge ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... many-leaved tablets, are they then, that are tumbled out upon us here, glowing with 'all saws, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there.' And if aphorisms are made out of the pith and heart of sciences, if 'no man can write good aphorisms who is not sound and grounded,' what Wittenberg, what ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... a fibrous or cellular tissue, allied in composition to starch. It is the most abundant constituent of plants, and forms the very ground-work of the vegetable mechanism. Linen, cotton, and the pith of the elder and other trees are nearly pure forms of cellulose. Ligneous, or woody tissue (lignin) is indurated cellulose, hardened by age. It is almost identical in composition with cellulose. Pure cellulose is white, ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... clause in vermiform articulations until the thought found final expression in a mob of participles and infinitives. Metaphors abound in the speeches, some of them slightly far-fetched, but others of uncommon beauty, appropriateness, and pith. There is no brilliant employment of words, but not seldom one comes across such terse and happy phrases as the famous "We stand under the star of commerce," "Our future lies on the water," "We demand a place ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... these stories is a tonic for the mind; the stories are gems, and for pith and vigor of description they are unequalled."—N.Y. ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... the story much resembles Cinderella's famous adventures, and I need not repeat it here. The pith of the story turns upon the fact that a father purposes to marry his own daughter, or, in some versions, his daughter-in-law; and the daughter, naturally, as we say, objecting to this arrangement, runs away, and hence her many adventures. This famous story, told by English nurses ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... acquired some show of a belly, and his face was round, and his cheeks both red and sleeky. He was, however, in his personalities, chiefly remarkable for two queer and twinkling little eyes, and for a habitual custom of licking his lips whenever he said any thing of pith or jocosity, or thought that he had done so, which was very often the case. In his apparel, as befitted his trade, he wore a suit of snuff-coloured cloth, and a brown round-eared wig, that curled close in ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... baldric covered with gold plates hung the straight pointless British sword that had been carried by his father in battle. Even those most suspicious of him could not deny that he was a stalwart and well built youth, with a full share of pith and muscle, and that his residence among the Romans had not given him any airs of effeminacy. The only subject of criticism was that his hair was shorter than that of his countrymen, for although he had permitted it ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... pith, and, like the tender mother she is, sits on top of the nest waiting for her babies to grow up. This is a most unusual thing for a bee mother to do. The egg at the very bottom of the tube hatches first, but it has to wait until the others hatch. By-and-by Mrs. Carpenter-Bee takes ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... his feet on a treadle, from which a rope is passed over, and works to and fro a cylindrical block, in the end of which is fixed an iron scraper. He picks up the half-nuts one at a time, and on applying them to the scraper in motion, the white fruit, or pith, falls out into a vessel underneath. These scrapings are then pressed between huge blocks of wood to express the oil, and the mass is afterwards put into cast-iron cauldrons, of Chinese make, with water, which ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... to words in more or less current use. Among such words are carpos fruit, pericarpion seed vessel pericarp, and metra, the word used by him for the central core of any stem whether formed of wood, pith, or other substance. It is from the usage of Theophrastus that the exact definition of fruit and pericarp has come down to us.[18] We may easily discern also the purpose for which he introduces into botany the term metra, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... fire is this. They take a reed and shave one side of the surface flat. In this they make a small incision to reach the pith, and introducing a stick, purposely blunted at the end, into it, turn it round between the hands (as chocolate is milled) as swiftly as possible, until flame be produced. As this operation is not only laborious, but the ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... and munched his cookies, with his head on one side and the air of a thievish jackdaw; and proceeded, after his wont, to extract such pith as the ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... with the microscope thin slices of elder pith, potato, and the stems of growing plants. Make drawings of the cells ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... If a small pith ball is suspended from a non-conducting support, it forms a simple and ready means of testing the electricity in a stone. According to whether the ball is repelled or attracted, so is the electricity in the stone made evident, though the electroscope gives the better ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... Osmiae. One stacks her cells in the spiral staircase of an empty snail-shell; another, attacking the pith of a dry bit of bramble, obtains for her grubs a cylindrical lodging and divides it into floors by means of partition-walls; a third employs the natural channel of a cut reed; a fourth is a rent-free tenant of the vacant ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... more pith in him than ever poor old Raymond had," said Phil. "Poor old Poynsett, I used to think he wanted to be spoony on you, Joan, if he had only known his own mind. If he had, I suppose he ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from the town are heavily wooded, and the timber is being sawed at mills along the shore road. On the streets are seen men of several nationalities, Chinese, Malays, Moros, East Indians, and occasionally a Caucasian in his customary white suit and pith helmet; but of all these the most dignified and stately is the Indian policeman. He is tall and slender, with frequently a fine black beard; his head is covered with the usual white turban, set off with a touch of red. His gray ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... collected on the quay as the steamer warps up, above which rise sunshades coloured and coquettish, pith helmets and sweeping puggarees, and more orthodox white "stove-pipes." Then in the background, yellow-skinned Malays in gaudy Oriental attire, parchment-faced Hottentots, Mozambique blacks, and lighter-hued Kaffirs from the Eastern frontier. The docks are ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... lesser ills, Than fly to those of greater magnitude. Thus error does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied over with undue clemency, And pedagogues of great pith and spirit, With this regard their firmness turn away, And ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... out each hole many times, until you are sure every hole is clean, by pegging both sides, and then with a soft dust brush dust thoroughly by striking the brush into the holes on both sides. Of course, remove all end stones, and clean out with soft pith, holding the jewels in a pair of hook nose tweezers, mentioned. Should the plates and wheels be very much soiled and oily, a covered dish of alcohol is indispensable, and I have had a glass stopper bottle, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... uniformly agreed that, on returning home, they sorely missed the water of the Mississippi. "I'll tell you, sir," said one very intelligent fellow, within whose hut I walked to light my cigar; "there's no pith in any other water after one's bin' used to drink o' this; it seems as though a man couldn't work on ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... opened his mouth, and gave the young man a scientific lecture on mining, the pith of ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... old methods of the explorer are still the best. Simply equipped with an elephant-rifle and a pith helmet, let him plunge into the bush and be lost to sight for a few years. Whereas the Missing Link may be relied on to remain resolutely beneath his rock at the sight of a sort of a Lord Mayor's Show wandering among ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... partaken of this delicacy, were lying stretched out full length under a shady tree, their pith helmets brought well forward over their eyes, their grey serge jumpers thrown open, and pipes in their mouths. To see them now, with their tattered nether garments, stubbly chins, and sunburnt ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... cocoa-nuts, what is it that you say? "Come try yer luck, roll, bowl, or pitch; the lydies stand' alf-way." One youth I saw who took his stand, a clerk of pith was he, He shut one eye and aimed with care, then let the ball fly free. Twice, thrice, nay, thirty times he flung, his BETSY standing by, And scornfully advising him to close his other eye. Yet, when at last he had to own he could not do the trick, No solitary cocoa-nut had toppled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... freedom of banishment. We were going to say (but it might sound vainglorious), where do things read so well as in notes? but we will put the question in another form:—Where do you so well test an author's learning and knowledge of his subject?—where do you find the pith of his most elaborate researches?—where do his most original suggestions escape?—where do you meet with the details that fix your attention at the time and cling to your memory for ever?—where do both writer ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... youngster of excellent pith,— Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,— Just read on his medal, "My ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... grown, and some, they say, well towards forty years old. Methinks this is characteristic of American life,—these rough, weather-beaten, hard-handed, farmer-bred students. In nine cases out of ten they are incapable of any effectual cultivation; for men of ripe years, if they have any pith in them, will have long ago got beyond academy or even college instruction. I suspect nothing better than a very wretched smattering is to be ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... laugh at the grave manner in which this good old woman entered her protest. Her idea of freedom was two or more old shifts every year. Northern readers may not fully recognize the pith of the joke. On the Southern plantation, the mistress, according to established custom, every year made a present of certain under-garments to her slaves, which articles were always anxiously looked forward to, and thankfully received. ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... a joke for the ages; Full of intricate meaning and pith; A feast for your scholars and sages - How it would have rejoiced Sidney Smith! 'Tis such thoughts that ennoble a mortal; And, singing him out from the herd, Fling wide immortality's portal - But what ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... have given them wherewith to find lodgings in the city. Here go the ladies with their bundles under their arms, and the lord high-steward has a broom sweeping after them as they go. This charming individual in the corner with a hunting-whip, is myself. And here is the pith of the joke. 'Rooms to let here. Inquire of the proprietor on the first floor.' [Footnote: Hubner, i., p. 190.] What do you think ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... produces something peculiar to it. The Food often grows in one Country, and the Sauce in another. The Fruits of Portugal are corrected by the Products of Barbadoes: The Infusion of a China Plant sweetned with the Pith of an Indian Cane. The Philippick Islands give a Flavour to our European Bowls. The single Dress of a Woman of Quality is often the Product of a hundred Climates. The Muff and the Fan come together from the different Ends of the Earth. The Scarf is sent from the Torrid Zone, and the Tippet ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... an article of food. Glucose, a cheap but wholesome substitute for sugar, is made from it; from the oil a substitute for rubber is prepared; smokeless powder and other explosives are made from the pith of the stalk; while a very large part of the product is used in ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... extracts, most of them of rather slight texture, and some of them, you perhaps thought, whimsical. But I meant, if I thought you were in the right mood for listening to it, to read you some paragraphs which give in small compass the pith, the marrow, of all that my experience has taught me. Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one. I took it early, as we all do, and have treated it all along with the best palliatives I could get hold of, inasmuch as ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... came, watching the raft, which remained stationary. There were about a hundred of them armed with blow-tubes formed of a reed peculiar to these parts, and which is strengthened outside by the stem of a dwarf palm from which the pith has been extracted. ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... gave pith and power to the Irish demands was the enrolment and arming of a numerous volunteer force, rendered absolutely necessary by the defenceless state of the kingdom. Mr. Flood had long before proposed a national militia, but ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... to be the Judge of all men, it is, I believe, impossible to doubt. The passage just quoted is by no means our only evidence. In the Sermon on the Mount, which foolish persons who love to depreciate theology sometimes speak of as though it were the pith and marrow of the Christian gospel, Christ says, "Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name, and by Thy name cast out devils, and by Thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... the first Napoleon, as in the conversation between himself, an English and a Florentine visitor, he gives expression to a generous indignation, which may well be inserted here, as it contains the pith of what Landor repeated in many a social talk. "This Holy Alliance will soon appear unholy to every nation in Europe. I despised Napoleon in the plenitude of his power no less than others despise him in the solitude of his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... i.e. 'though it be only a rush-candle'; a rush light, obtained from the pith of a rush ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... throughout the islands of the Malayan Archipelago; while the little arrows, only eight inches long, he obtained from the medium of the leaflets of the nibong palms, many of which were found near the spot where they had encamped. The pith of the same palm served him for the swell of the arrow, which, being compressible like cork, fills up the tube of the sumpitan, and renders the shaft subject to propulsion from the quick puff of breath ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... hungry," said the woman apologetically. "Their fathers are gone to the war, and the mothers have nothing for their children but papyrus-pith and lotus-seeds." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the chivalry of continental Europe, all eager to save their souls by fighting at the Pope's bidding, ardent to signalise their valour in so great an enterprise, and longing also for the pay and the plunder which William liberally promised. But the Normans themselves were the pith and the flower of the army; and William himself was the strongest, the sagest, and fiercest spirit ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... evidence, intent on seeing all the sights as well as securing the best bargains from the shopkeepers. All these foreigners have modified their garb to suit the climate. They wear suits of white linen or pongee with soft shirts, and the solar topi, or pith helmet, which is a necessity in summer and a great comfort at other seasons. The helmet keeps the head cool and shelters the nape of the neck, which cannot be exposed safely to the sun's rays. Instead ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... it rouses loyal spunk To think of that old tree! Its stately stem, its spacious trunk By Nature robbed of pith and punk To ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the discovery of the electro-magnet (about 1800), or even the Galvanic battery, and it was seriously proposed to have as many wires as there were letters; each wire to have a frictional battery for generating electricity at one end of the circuit, and a pith-ball electroscope at the other. The modern reader may smile at the idea of the hurried sender of a message taking a piece of cat-skin, or his silk handkerchief, and rubbing up the successive letter-balls of glass or sulphur until he had spelled out ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... Lewis's wonder at the stranger's raiment. A pith helmet, Norfolk jacket, moleskin riding-breeches, leather puttees, and stout, pigskin ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... themselves cramped in a bare, clean cell, lighted by a European lamp, but smelling of soy and Asiatics. Stiff black-wood chairs lined the walls. A distorted landscape on rice-paper, narrow scarlet panels inscribed with black cursive characters, pith flowers from Amoy, made ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... spot, to rest the serpent-bearing head, Lest the bare sand should harm it. Twigs marine He likewise strews, and rests Medusa there. The fresh green twigs as though with life endow'd, Felt the dire Gorgon's power; their spongy pith Hard to the touch became, the stiffness spread Through every twig and leaf. The Nereid nymphs More branches bring, and try the wonderous change On all, and joy to see the change succeed: Spreading the transformation from the seeds, With them throughout the waves. This nature still Retains ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... her, confiding: "I know a spell my master mountebank taught me. A Greek fellow made it, a Roman rogue stole it, an Italian rascal gave a new twist to it; here is the pith of it. Oh, it sounds simple enough, but it will win a matron from her allegiance, a nun from her orisons, a maid from her modesty. See, now, how she will trip to my whistle. Mistress Modesty, Mistress Modesty, follow me home, follow me ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy |
