"Smear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... began again. They seemed to have no relation to the regularly spaced bursts of smoke along a little smear in the desert earth two thousand yards away—no connection at all with the strong voices overhead coming and going. It was as impersonal as the drive of ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... hut, where a Basuto woman, with her infant hanging in a cloth on her back, was grinding corn between two stones. She went on with her work, and presently addressed my wife, asking (as was explained to us) for a piece of soap wherewith to smear her face, presumably as a more fragrant substitute for the clay or ochre with which the Basuto ladies cover their bodies. The hut was clean and sweet, and, indeed, all through Basutoland we were struck by the neat finish of the ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... but still jerking blood from beneath his ear; and there in my arms, as I kneeled on the stones, lay Dolly, her head fallen back and out of her hood, as white as a lily, dead too in an instant, for she was stabbed through her heart, with her life-blood in a great smear down her side, and all over my ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... fat little arms deep in the soft, yielding mass and plucked handfuls of it, to smear upon each other's faces and curls; and what remained in the raiser had been plentifully dotted with bits of coal from the near-by hod. They looked so funny, and were themselves so hilarious with glee over their own mischief, that there was nothing left for their elders to do except ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... rascal," said the captain, when I told him I never drank ... "I think it would do you good if you got a little smear of beer-froth on your mouth once in a while ... you'd stop looking leathery like a mummy ... you've already got some wrinkles on your face ... a few good drinks would plump you out, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... interfered in anything, welcomed guests cordially, and readily paid visits herself, though being powdered, she used to declare, would be the death of her. "They put," she used to say in her old age, "a fox's brush on your head, comb all the hair up over it, smear it with grease, and dust it over with flour, and stick it up with iron pins,—there's no washing it off afterwards; but to pay visits without powder was quite impossible—people would be offended. Ah, it was ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... it rushing at her, she saw the end of the patch of gravel. The road ahead was a wet black smear, criss-crossed with ruts. The car shot into a morass of prairie gumbo—which is mud mixed with tar, fly-paper, fish glue, and well-chewed, chocolate-covered caramels. When cattle get into gumbo, the farmers send for ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... at last, spent and dusty. There was looking at him only the little red-eyed maid whom he had tried to comfort at some far-off hour in his life. Her face was all contorted with weeping, and she had a great smear ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... world on a raft! A King is here, The record of his grandeur but a smear. Is it his deacon-beard, or old bald pate That makes the band upon his whims to wait? Loot and mud-honey have his soul defiled. Quack, pig, and priest, he drives camp-meetings wild Until they shower their pennies like spring rain That he may preach upon the Spanish main. What ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... tuft of hair very tight on the top of the head, rising towards the skies. At other times some allow a long tress of hair to fall over their face: it interferes with their eating, but it has to be put up with. They smear their ears with a white substance, or their face with blue, vermillion and black. They are more elaborate in their war-toilette than a coquette would be in dressing—in order to conceal the paleness which fear might engender. They are profuse of gold and silver brocade, porcelain necklaces, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... this letter at once. I was in a dug-out at the time, and I remember a lump of mud falling on the writing-pad and making a huge smear, and explaining to her what the smear meant. As it happened, too, I was able to send her Paul Edgecumbe's photograph. It was not a very good one; it had been produced by one of his comrades who was an amateur photographer. But it gave a fair idea of him. I obtained it from him the last evening ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... some of the male friends of the boy about to be operated upon, go behind him to seize him, upon which he sets off running as hard as he can, as if to escape; but being followed by his pursuers is soon captured and thrown down; he is then raised up and surrounded by several natives, who hold him and smear him from head to foot, with red ochre and grease; during this part of the ceremony, a band of elderly women, generally the mother and other near relatives, surround the group, crying or lamenting, and lacerating their thighs and backs with shells or flints, until the blood streams down. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Nogales started forward. Halfway to the next conduit port, there was a smear of lubricating oil on the concrete, and in it, and away from it in the direction of the store, they found footprints. It was Ramon Nogales who noticed the oil on the ladder to the next ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... lines, that are perpetually threatening to meet, which you know is quite contrary to Euclid [here Lamb has ruled lines grossly unparallel]. Her very blots are not bold like this [here a bold blot], but poor smears [here a poor smear] half left in and half scratched out with another smear left in their place. I like a clean letter. A bold free hand, and a fearless flourish. Then she has always to go thro' them (a second operation) to dot her i s, and cross her t s. I don't think she can make a cork screw, if ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... torn, and made quite a desperate little attempt 'to be good', as she called it. But the figures had the old obstinate propensity—they WOULD NOT add up. When she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink; and I think that was ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... he will this time, thought the Collector grimly, with a glance down at a smear across the knuckle of his right-hand glove. The sight of it cheered him and steadied his temper. "Possibly," said he aloud. "But your worships may not be aware—and as merciful men may be glad to ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... hit mortal bad!' The hand clung desperately, and Jim peered into Canty's face, and saw a smear of blood about his mouth. He was shot through the breast. 'Mate,' he said eagerly, 'kill wan fer me! Kill wan—if ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... stopped, for at sight of him the lady shrank closer to me, viewing him with terrified eyes, as indeed well she might, for now, in addition to the woeful misery of his garments and stubble of beard, his wild and desperate appearance was heightened by a smear of blood across his pallid cheek. "Ah!" said he, beholding her instinctive gesture of aversion. "Pray assure madam that in spite of my looks she has nothing to fear!" and with one of his grand obeisances he turned to go, but in that moment I had him ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... thankful for them. Those lights sufficed us. There was something companionable even in the street lamp. But what is it now? You see it, when you are accustomed to the midnight gloom of war, shrouded, a funeral smear of purple in a black world. No bearing can be got from it now. What one looks into is the lightless unknown. I peer into the night and rain for some familiar and reasonable shape to loom—I am permitted to do this, for so far the police do not object ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... a drop of ink. Repeat with each sheet to be tested, and compare the height in each to which the ink has been absorbed. A well-made blotting paper should have little or no free fibre dust to fill with ink and smear ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... gambling in New York, and the officer had to do his duty. The others scuttled away, but Jimmy was so absorbed in the game that he didn't see the "cop" until he was right on him, so he was "pinched." He blubbered a little and wiped his grimy face with his grimier sleeve until it was one long, brown smear. You know this was Jimmy's ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... balance and to check his own momentum. Brice scrambled awkwardly forward. One stamping heel landed full on the fallen meerschaum, flattening and crumbling the beautiful pipe into a smear ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... expending great efforts on the production of a letter to Joe. I think it must have been a full year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet on the hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print and smear this epistle:— ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... undecided, wavering, not to be depended on. It sounds like it. If the labourer gets his clothes soaked, he says they are "sobbled." The sound of boots or dress saturated with rain very nearly approximates to sobbled. But "gaamze" is the queerest word, perhaps, of all—it is to smear as with grease. Beans are said to be "cherky," which means dry. Doubtless the obese old gentleman in Boccaccio who was cured of his pains—the result of luxurious living—by a diet which forced him to devour beans for very hunger, did think them dry and cherky. ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... frequent quick dips into the ink-bottle; a few words would be written swiftly; then a pause, with suspended pen, while the next sentence was forming in the writer's mind. When he miswrote, instead of crossing out the word, he would smear it out with his finger, and rewrite over the smear; so that his page had a mottled appearance. The writing was accompanied by intermittent nods of the head, as one would say, "Sic cogito!" So far as he is concerned, the shadows close in ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... followed by a three-yard gain off Holt. Then Claflin fumbled and recovered for a two-yard loss and, with eight to go on fourth down, decided that a goal from field was the best try. And, although Brimfield tried hard to get through to the nimble-footed Cox, and did smear the Blue's line pretty fairly, the ball went well and true across the bar, and the 0 on the score-board was changed to ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... claim, Who merited the first rewards and fame? In falling, both an equal fortune tried; Would fortune for my fall so well provide!" With this he pointed to his face, and show'd His hand and all his habit smear'd with blood. Th' indulgent father of the people smil'd, And caus'd to be produc'd an ample shield, Of wondrous art, by Didymaon wrought, Long since from Neptune's bars in triumph brought. This giv'n to Nisus, he divides the rest, And equal ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... rejoicing. Food was exchanged between the two groups of houses and people were in a very joyful mood, eating pork, running about, and playing tricks on each other. Both men and women carried charcoal mixed with the fat of pork, with which they tried to smear the face and upper body of all whom they met. All were privileged to engage in this sport but the women were especially active, pursuing the men, who tried to avoid them, some taking refuge behind my tent. The women followed one man through the enclosure surrounding the tent, at my invitation, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... summit reaching, stood To view another gap, within the round Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs. Marvellous darkness shadow'd o'er the place. In the Venetian arsenal as boils Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear Their unbound vessels ... So not by force of fire but art divine Boiled here a glutinous thick mass, that ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... such a base creature. I'm capable of gratitude, I'm capable of affection. One may live in paint and tinsel, but one isn't absolutely without a soul. Yes, I've got one," the girl went on, "though I do smear my face and grin at myself in the glass and practise my intonations. If what you're going to do is good for you I'm very glad. If it leads to good things, to honour and fortune and greatness, I'm enchanted. If it means your being away always, for ever and ever, of ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... lying just outside the lip of a shell-crater, blind, helpless, his face a shredded smear when he felt it with groping fingers. He remembered that he lay there wondering, because of the darkness and the strange silence and the pain, if he were dead and burning in hell for ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and on the pyre are thrown. Of nine large dogs, domestic at his board, Fall two, selected to attend their lord, Then last of all, and horrible to tell, Sad sacrifice! twelve Trojan captives fell.(289) On these the rage of fire victorious preys, Involves and joins them in one common blaze. Smear'd with the bloody rites, he stands on high, And calls the spirit with ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... second smear was covered there was a drawn out moment of fear when he couldn't find the third and last. His fingers touched it finally, much farther on than he had expected. Time had certainly run out. Yet he forced himself to do as good a job here as he had with the other ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... shabby hat was gone, and there was a smear of blood upon his cheek, also he laboured in his breathing, but his ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... irritating soap rubbed into his skin, had swollen until the boots held them in a vise-like grip of torture. At each step he lifted pounds of glue-like mud which clung to the legs of his leather chaps in a thick grey smear. And each step was a separate, conscious, painful effort, that required a concentration of will ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... a song which was said to be composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids with whom he was in love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... twelve hours a positive diagnosis can be made by examining this growth with a microscope. Often, just smearing the mucus swabbed out of the throat over the surface of a glass slide, staining this smear, and putting it under a microscope, will enable us to decide within an hour. These tubes are now provided by all progressive city boards of health, and can be had free of charge at depots scattered all ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... conspicuously in all the rumors, it appeared that suspicion had monstrously exaggerated the facts. Instead of a waistcoat plashed with blood—as popular imagination pictured it—it was a gray waistcoat, with one spot and a slight smear of blood, which admitted of a very simple explanation. Three days before, Franz had cut his left hand in cutting some bread; and to this the maid testified, because she was present when the accident occurred. He had not noticed that his waistcoat was marked by it until the next day, and had forgotten ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... spinning and received their new clothes, while she had nothing to show. Then her father-in-law scolded her and told her that it was too late to make other arrangements and as she could not get any new clothes the best thing for her to do would be to smear her body with Gur and stick raw cotton all over it. A parrab soon came round and all the other women got out their new clothes and went to see the fun. The clumsy bride had no new clothes and she took her father-in-law's advice and smeared her body ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... pulled down the neat mission house, and they had pounded and ground the bright red bricks into the finest powder, which mixed with grease formed a paint to smear their naked bodies. Thus the only results of many years' teaching were the death of many noble men, the loss of money, the failure of the attempt; and instead of the enterprise leaving a legacy of inward spiritual grace to these "men and brethren," the missionary establishment ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Auseans come Libyans who are tillers of the soil, and whose custom it is to possess fixed habitations; and they are called Maxyans. They grow their hair long on the right side of their heads and cut it short upon the left, and smear their bodies over with red ochre. These say that they are of the men who ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... standards of the mob. They were molders of public opinion and they were always the creatures of public opinion. They wrote for the masses. Their columns were filled with their own peculiar brand of propaganda, illusions, dreams, assertions, prejudices, sensations, with always a cheap smear of moral platitude. Our people had grown too busy to do their own thinking. The daily newspapers now did it for them. There was as little originality in them as in the machines which printed the editions. Yet they were repeated by the ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... rot, putrefy, ferment, fester, rankle, reek; stink &c 401; mold, molder; go bad &c adj.. render unclean &c adj.; dirt, dirty; daub, blot, blur, smudge, smutch^, soil, smoke, tarnish, slaver, spot, smear; smirch; begrease^; dabble, drabble^, draggle, daggle^; spatter, slubber; besmear &c, bemire, beslime^, begrime, befoul; splash, stain, distain^, maculate, sully, pollute, defile, debase, contaminate, taint, leaven; corrupt &c (injure) 659; cover with dust &c n.; drabble in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... said I, "is to trap several dozen crows, smear their feet with glue, tie a ball of Indian twine to the ankle of every bird, then liberate them. Some are certain to fly into the crater and try to scrape the glue off in the sand. Then," I added, triumphantly, "all we have to do is to haul in our birds and detach the wealth ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... would have reduced almost any life-form which moved into its field to a rather thin smear, but there wasn't even that left of the yellow demon-shape. Something, presumably something it was carrying, had turned it into a small blaze of incandescent energy as the mine flattened it out. Which explained the sound like a cloudburst. That had been the ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... and turned her eyes away from her child. Flora had smear on her face; her hands were grimed with the floor. One of her stockings was down: her little white knee was going to scrape on the floor, be black before it was bloody. So—A long shining table under a cold gas spurt. A store with ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was on the floor, and he was dead. They led us into the shell of the place, the stone walls being still staunchly erect; but the roof was gone, and in the cinders and dust on the planks of an inner room they showed us a big dull-brown smear. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... Midmore's first word, and 'No—I'm only winded—dear,' was Miss Sperrit's, as he lifted her out of her corner, her hat over one eye and her right cheek a smear of mud. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Prince had already received a remarkable warning from old Landgrave Philip of Hesse, who had not forgotten the insidious manner in which his own memorable captivity had been brought about by the arts of Granvelle and of Alva. "Let them not smear your mouths with honey," said the Landgrave. "If the three seigniors, of whom the Duchess Margaret has had so much to say, are invited to court by Alva, under pretext of friendly consultation, let them be wary, and think twice ere they accept. I know the Duke of Alva and the Spaniards, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... cleaves to them after shearing done, And rough thorns rend their bodies. Hence it is Shepherds their whole flock steep in running streams, While, plunged beneath the flood, with drenched fell, The ram, launched free, goes drifting down the tide. Else, having shorn, they smear their bodies o'er With acrid oil-lees, and mix silver-scum And native sulphur and Idaean pitch, Wax mollified with ointment, and therewith Sea-leek, strong hellebores, bitumen black. Yet ne'er doth kindlier fortune ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... bridge binoculars diligently swept the sharp blue line of horizon. Presently the Third Officer put his glass down. "There she is," said he, "two points on the starboard bow." We all looked, and we saw the tiny smear of smoke on the line. How strange it was; both of us coming up from nowhere and meeting on this roadless waste! In a quarter of an hour we raised her masts and funnel, and then we perceived it was not the Dunottar. Our course was altered two points, and the ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... it on a morning with sunshine and soft winds. Standing together in the bow, they looked at the smear upon the horizon, and their eyes filled with tears. They forgot the long road to Bobruisk, the rocking journey to Libau, the mad buckjumping boat in whose timbers the sea devils of the Baltic had bored holes. Everything unpleasant was forgotten, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... you have begun on my punctuation. Don't you realize that you ought not to intrude your help in a delicate art like that with your limitations? And do you think that you have added just the right smear of polish to the closing clause ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... terrible grimace, it gave me a great fright and I thought it was a most important thing,[15] but I warrant that you frightened even Schott's men,[16] you with your fierce look and your holiday hopping step. But it is very improper for such folk to smear themselves with civet. You want to become a real silk-tail and you think that, if only you manage to please the girls, the thing is done. If you were only as taking a fellow as I am, it would not provoke me so. You have so many loves ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... had paid his respects and turned his back, Old Mother Nature saw something red on the tail of his coat. It was nothing but a little smear of red clay, but that was enough for Old Mother Nature. You see, she knew that Mrs. Quack's home was right at the foot of a red claybank. She didn't say a word until everybody had paid their respects ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... always cleaned with water so boiling hot that the heat of the barrel dried it. When occasionally flakes of metal fouling became visible a Marble brush always sufficed to remove enough of it. It was my habit to smear the bullets with mobilubricant before placing them in the magazine. This was not as much of a nuisance as it sounds. A small tin box about the size of a pill box lasted me the whole trip; and only once did I completely empty the magazine at one time. On my return I tested ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... the cliff when I heard the clash of steel, and presently coming where I might look down into the cove I saw this: with his back to a rock and a smear of blood on his cheek stood Don Federigo, armed with my cut-and-thrust, defending himself against Joanna; and as I watched the flash of their whirling, clashing blades, it did not take me long to see that the Don was no match for her devilish skill ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... taken up, examined, and then smelt the arrow-head, ending by moistening a paper which he drew from his pocket and rubbing the arrow-point thereon, with the result that the paper received a brownish smear and ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... the eyelashes and eyebrows. Use Leichner's No. 60 black mascaro; dark brown for light blondes. The lower lashes are better left without the treatment, since they are almost certain to smear the face if treated, and the shadow you have already placed there takes care of the lower lashes all that is necessary. Apply the mascaro to the upper lashes with the brush that comes with the mascaro, or any ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... experience with distressed brows. All his talking and thinking became to him like the open page of a monthly magazine. Across it this bloody smear, this thing of red and black, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... but not because he had heard the comments of his friends. He was standing on the wind-swept verandah, peering through the mist toward a distant splash of light across the ravine to the right of the club grounds. The fog and mist combined to run the many lights of the Thursdale windows into a single smear of colour a few shades brighter than the darkness from which it protruded. Dauntless's heart was inside that vague, impressionistic circle of colour, but his brain was very much in evidence on the distant outside. What were the workings of that eager brain ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... front of them. His face had a look of foolish ecstasy. He stared at Mr. Parsons, and as he stared he panted. There was a red smear on his white breast; his open jaws still dripped a pink slaver. It sprayed the ground in front of them, ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... use. After he had been shown all this, the stranger led him into another large chamber, filled with gold and precious stones, all of which he offered him if he would kneel down and worship him, and consent to smear the doors and houses of Milan with a pestiferous salve which he held out to him. tie now knew him to be the Devil, and in that moment of temptation, prayed to God to give him strength to resist. His prayer was heard - he refused the bribe. The stranger scowled horribly upon him ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... degree benefit me by making your paper less deadly dull, I will tell you. Your first and second fingers are smeared with ink, which shows that you write a great deal. This smeared class embraces two sub-classes, clerks or accountants, and journalists. Clerks have to be neat in their work. The ink-smear is slight in their case. Your fingers are badly and carelessly smeared; therefore, you are a journalist. You have an evening paper in your pocket. Anyone might have any evening paper, but yours is a Special Edition, which will not be on the streets for half-an-hour ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... her words; a sort of unnatural parallel lines, that are perpetually threatening to meet,—which, you know, is quite contrary to Euclid. Her very blots are not bold, like this [here a large blot is inserted], but poor smears, half left in and half scratched out, with another smear left in their place. I like a clear letter; a bold, free hand and a fearless flourish. Then she has always to go through them (a second operation) to dot her i's and cross her t's. I don't think she could make a corkscrew if she tried,—which ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... shouts; But the temple was full "inside and out," And a buzz kept buzzing all round about Like bees when the day is sunny— A buzz universal that interfered With the right that ought to have been revered, As if the couple already were smear'd With Wedlock's treacle ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... me out any hectic language, for I am a lady. I might forget myself and smear one all over you. Wilbur, are you going to sit up there and see your near-bride insulted by a woman? If you don't come back here and make her stop abusing me I'll take and bump your two hearts ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... noticed before. The walls were hung with at least five score Of swords and daggers of every size Which nations of militant men could devise. Poisoned spears from tropic seas, That natives, under banana trees, Smear with the juice of some deadly snake. Blood-dipped arrows, which savages make And tip with feathers, orange and green, A quivering death, in harlequin sheen. High up, a fan of glancing steel Was formed of claymores in a wheel. ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... become accustomed to smear needles with poison and then to prick with them whomsoever they would. Many persons thus attacked died without even knowing the cause, and many of the murderers were informed against and punished. And this went on not only in Rome but over practically ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... flanked by a towering water-tank. A pump rattled under it, and the smell of creosote was everywhere. Cattle corrals ran back from the track, and beyond them sun-rent frame houses roofed with cedar shingles straggled away on the one hand, paintless, crude, and square. On the other, a smear of trail led the dazzled vision back across the parched levels to the glancing refraction on the horizon, and the figure of a single horseman showing dimly through a dust cloud emphasized their loneliness. The town was hot and dusty, its one green fringe of willows defiled by the garbage ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... and hurling itself upon its prey. The Patagonians are a barbarous people in the main and, like all barbarous people, are vengeful, cunning, and subtle. A favourite revenge of theirs upon unsuspecting enemies is to get within touch of them and secretly to smear a mixture of coriander and oil of sassafras upon some part of their bodies, and then either to lure or drive them into the forest; for by a peculiar arrangement of Mother Nature this mixture has ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Apaches was horrible to look at. He was naked save for a breechcloth and boot moccasins and his face was daubed with ocher and vermilion. Across his lean chest, too, was a smear of paint just under the necklace of bear claws that gave him his name. He was armed with a .50-caliber Sharps single-shot rifle and with the only revolver in the tribe—an old-fashioned cap-and-ball six-shooter, ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... make you that answer. Apply to the jesuit theologian, Juan Mariana de Talavera, who will also explain to you in what circumstances you may lawfully Kill your king and whether you had better hand him his poison in a goblet or smear it for him upon his robe or his saddlebow. Ask me rather would I suffer others to rob me, or if they did, would I call down upon them what I believe is called the chastisement of the ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... single person, but if one enters he will find himself in a spacious natural chamber. The inhabitants of these depths, like all their kind, prefer to sally forth by night rather than by day. In the day-time they are not seen because they smear themselves with a magic ointment which renders them invisible; but at night they ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... a mistress as queen, out of whom a posterity may be propagated; and for her they build a sort of a palace over themselves with guards around it; and when her time of bringing forth is at hand, she goes attended by her guards from cell to cell, and lays her eggs, which the crowd of followers smear over to protect them from the air, from which a new progeny springs forth for them. When this progeny becomes mature enough to do the same, it is driven from the hive. The expelled swarm first collects, and then in a close body, to preserve its integrity, flies ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... sound of blows. A moment later there came, to my horror, a rush of footsteps coming in my direction, with the loud breathing of a running man. I turned my lantern down the long, straight passage, and there was the fat man, running like the wind, with a smear of blood across his face, and close at his heels, bounding like a tiger, the great black-bearded Sikh, with a knife flashing in his hand. I have never seen a man run so fast as that little merchant. He was gaining ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been nibbling at marshmallows as she talked; as she wiped her eyes now she left a smear of powdered sugar ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... more necessary are the services of an architect when building or remodeling a house. Trying to be your own architect is as foolish as drawing a sketch of little Jerry on canvas and then calling in a house painter to smear on a daub of blue for his coat, a bit of yellow for his hair, white for his collar, and just anything for the background. At worst, though, this futuristic result can be taken to the attic, turned face to the wall and forgotten; but a botched house ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... from the young man's lips brought a diabolical grin to the mutineer's face. Even the satisfaction of changing that grin to a bloody smear, as he did the very next moment by giving a fearful blow to the mouth, did not ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... father's craft and cunning, backed up by the lightning precision of Natty Bell. In all his many hard-fought battles John Barty had ever been accounted most dangerous when he smiled, and he was smiling now. Twice Barnabas staggered back to the wall, and there was an ugly smear upon his cheek, yet as they struck and parried, and feinted, Barnabas, this quick-eyed, swift-footed Barnabas, was smiling also. Thus, while they smiled upon and smote each other, the likeness between them was more apparent than ever, only the smile of ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... veins, giving rise to a copiously-branched reticulated or frill-like expansion, which covers surfaces varying in extent from a few to several centimeters. They are chiefly composed of a soft protoplasm of the consistence of cream, which may be readily spread out into a shapeless smear, and is usually colorless, but sometimes exhibits brilliant colors of yellow, orange, rose, purple, etc. The development of the plasmodium ceases with the formation of the spores ...
— The Myxomycetes of the Miami Valley, Ohio • A. P. Morgan
... "foxing the profs." Opinions differed. One man usually insisted that notes in the palm of the left hand were safe from detection, only to be met by the objection that they had to be written in ink, and if one's hand perspired, "and it was sure as hell to," nothing was left but an inky smear. Another held that a fellow could fasten a rubber band on his forearm and attach the notes to those, pulling them down when needed and then letting them snap back out of sight into safety. "But," one of the conspirators was sure to object, "what th' hell are you going ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... studied by wise men who tell us it contains no sugar and is probably used as a means of defence, as aphides have been seen to smear the faces of insect enemies with ...
— The Insect Folk • Margaret Warner Morley
... is best of eatin', though not very much fer style! Shuck an arm-full fer yer dinner, sot 'em on en let 'em bile; Salt 'em well, en smear some butter on the juicy cobs ez sweet Ez the lips of maple-suger thet yer sweet-heart has to eat! Talk about ole Mount Olympus en the stuff them roosters spread On theyr tables when they feasted,—nectar ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... propped his rifle against the trestles and stood there, groping in his pocket. A dirty handkerchief, dragged up by his fumbling, hung out by its corner. All along the sharp crease there was a slender smear of blood. He looked down at it and pushed it back out ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... undeceived her. "Fraulein Timea, you need not regret this coiffure. It would suit you much better if you wore your hair quite plain; you have such lovely hair, that it is a sin to burn it with irons and smear it with pomade. Do not allow it; it is a shame to lose any of your magnificent hair, and it is soon ruined by the ill-treatment which ladies call hairdressing—it loses its brilliancy, splits at the points, breaks easily, and falls early. You do not ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... otter skin or dressed buffalo entrails. This tail is frequently increased in thickness and length by adding false hair, but others allow it to flow loose naturally. Combs are seldom used by the men, and they never smear the hair with grease, but red earth is sometimes put upon it. White earth daubed over the hair generally denotes mourning. The young men sometimes have a bunch of hair on the crown, about the size of a small teacup, and nearly in the shape of that vessel upside down, to which ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... the wave swept us. We were fairly swamped for the moment and all nohow. One evening, retreating on my own line, I came upon some little village—can't remember the name just now, but you know the sort of thing—typical Somme hamlet, a smear of brick-dust with a big notice-board on top, saying, 'THIS IS LE SARS,' or 'POZIERES,' or whatever its name was. Anyway, in this village I found a Divisional H.Q., four Brigade H.Q.'s, and oddities ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... his continuing firm, they attributed all sorts of base motives to him. He was often sorely provoked, but he acted upon the advice of that holy man who tells us that, when people throw mud at us, our wisdom is to leave it to dry, when it will fall off of itself, and not to smear our clothes by trying of ourselves to wipe it off. He had hearty helpers in Ned Brierley and his family; Ned himself being a special support, for the persecutors were all afraid of him. But his chief earthly comforter was Betty. Oh, how she rejoiced in her father's conversion and in his signing ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... 'Geschlechter-Vertheilung bei den Pflanzen' 1867 page 20.) The anthers, which are large, stand at first transversely with respect to the tubular corolla, and if they were to dehisce in this position they would, as Dr. Ogle also remarks, smear with pollen the whole back and sides of an entering humble-bee in a useless manner; but the anthers twist round and place themselves longitudinally before they dehisce. The lower and inner side of the mouth of the corolla is thickly clothed ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... means employed in snaring birds; one of the most common is to smear pieces of bamboo with the gum of the jack-tree, the former being tied to the branches of some wild fruit tree, upon which, when the fruit is ripe, the birds light and are caught by the bird lime. This is called ka riam thit. Another is a ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... here as sadly as a funeral," said Captain Hahn. "A fresh and joyous war—that's what it ought to be! Now, in Flanders, we'd have had that girl in with us at the mess." He laughed his rich, throaty laugh that seemed to lay a smear of himself over the subject of his mirth. "That at ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... by a drawn string. Its general tint is grey; longitudinal bands of scarlet, green, violet, and purple radiate from the posterior and converge at the mouth, the hues blending rainbow-like. The brighter colours seem to have been carelessly and profusely applied, for they run when touched and smear the fingers. Among a family generally sad-hued and shrinking so conspicuous an example is quite prodigal and invites one to ponder upon the sportfulness of Nature. What special office in her processes does this fop of the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... it would be more amusing to smear his face with ink and then send some one to see how his wife takes it when he comes home in ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... Down with that hand! Aroint thee to thy rite Nor smear on me thy foul contagion! [Turning upon TEIRESIAS.] This Thy folly's head and prompter shall not miss The justice that he needs!—Go, half my guard Forth to the rock-seat where he dwells in ward O'er birds and wonders; rend the stone with crown ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... the stage. "Your health is going," Boileau would say to him, "because the duties of a comedian exhaust you. Why not give it up?" "Alas!" replied Moliere, with a sigh, "it is a point of honor that prevents me." "A what?" rejoined Boileau; "what! to smear your face with a mustache as Sganarelle, and come on the stage to be thrashed with a stick? That is a pretty point of honor for a philosopher ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... autumn leaf fall in that room. Mamma put on her glasses and puzzled over the smear on the envelope, and Peggy drew a long breath and jumped up and walked over to mamma and held out her hand. Mamma didn't hesitate a minute. "Certainly it must be for you, my dear," she said, and then she added, in a very cold, positive way, "For whom else could ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... saturation would have done this? Or, if you are not ready to agree to that, that a shoe so covered with blood could have failed to leave behind it some hint of its shape, some imprint, however faint, of heel or toe? But nowhere did it do this. We see a smear—and that is all." ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... fact—that we use the right hand alone in writing—made the letters run the opposite way in the end; and the change was due to the use of ink and other pigments for staining papyrus, parchment, or paper. If the hand in this case moved from right to left it would of course smear what it had already written; and to prevent such untidy smudging of the words, the order of writing was reversed from left rightward. The use of wax tablets also, no doubt, helped forward the revolution, for in this case, too, the hand would cover ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... freshly planked, turned bottom upwards, caulked and tarred, and then bound together side by side after Cossack fashion, with long strands of reeds, so that the swell of the waves might not sink them. Far along the shore they built fires and heated tar in copper cauldrons to smear the boats. The old and the experienced instructed the young. The blows and shouts of the workers rose all over the neighbourhood; the ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... "Oh, you're in 'ere are yer, Easton," 'e ses—just like that, quite affable like. So I ses, "Yes, sir." "Well," 'e ses, "get it slobbered over as quick as you can," 'e ses, "'cos we ain't got much for this job: don't spend a lot of time puttying up. Just smear it over an' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Church, as far as possible from Reginald) was at the end of the seat, between her papa and the wall. This morning, as she put her arm on the book-board, while rising from kneeling, she felt a sudden thrill of sharp pain smear her left elbow, which made her start violently, and would have caused a scream, had she not been in church. She saw a wasp fall on the ground, and was just about to put her foot on it, when she recollected where she was. She had never in her life intentionally killed anything, and this was ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... meant. Every other part of the door glistened with freshly applied varnish; but the octagonal region remained dull, as though no liquid had ever touched it. Johnson dipped his brush into the can, and applied a liberal smear of the fluid to the place. Instantly ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... way up a staircase to the flat roof, where Dick ran to the parapet. Looking across the town, he saw in the distance a dim white light and a long smear of smoke that trailed across the glittering sea. He frowned as he watched it, for the ship was English and he felt himself responsible for the safety of all on board her. He had done his best, when there was no time to pause and think, but perhaps he had blundered. ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... with oil and wrap it up in wool on feast-days. All Greek temples had their fetich-stones, and each stone had its legend. This was the story of the Delphian stone, and of the fetichism which survived the early years of Christianity. A very pretty story it is. Savages more frequently smear their fetich-stones with red paint than daub them with oil, but the latter, as we learn from Theophrastus's account of the 'superstitious man,' was ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... sprang at the prisoner and in a trice had stripped him to the skin from the waist up. They tore his shirt to ribbons. A jerk of McIvor's hand brought a third man on the run, carrying a tin can. He began to smear the contents over the back and chest and arms of the shrieking prisoner. While the onlookers rocked with drunken laughter Red McIvor peeled bill after bill from the roll of stage money in his hand and plastered them to the prisoner's naked body with ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... in two glandular sacs near the root of the tail, is "castoreum," more generally known as "bark stone" among the trappers. The odor is powerful and is so attractive to the animals themselves, that the trapper has only to smear some of it near the trap which is hidden under water. Any beaver which catches the scent, is sure to hasten to the spot and is almost certain to be caught in ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... down into a ravine where blanched vegetation betokened complete seclusion from the sun, we clambered up the opposing steep emerging from an entanglement of jungle on a high and open ridge which commanded an unimpeded view to the west—a scene of theatrical clarity with a single theatrical smear. From a hollow far below slothful smoke filtered through the matted, sombre, dew-bespangled foliage, rose a few feet, and drifted abruptly, dissolving from diaphanous blue to nothingness. The resonant whooping of a swamp pheasant, antiphonal to a bell-voiced, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... revealed, for Cyril and Robert suddenly burst into the room, and on each brow were the traces of deep emotion. On Cyril's pale brow stood beads of agitation and perspiration, and on the scarlet brow of Robert was a large black smear. ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... Shield." It is said that wasps and bees will not sting a person whose skin is covered with honey. And so those who are exposed to the sting of these venomous little creatures smear their hands and faces over with honey, and this, we are told, proves the best shield they can have to keep them from getting stung. And the honey here very well represents the kindness which Jesus teaches us to practise. If kindness, gentleness, and forbearance ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... opinions widely differed from those supposed to be entertained by a Protestant clergyman, and particularly so on the efficacy of a death-bed repentance. Could it then be expected that I was thus to smear myself over with hypocrisy, and to a poor broken-spirited fellow-creature, looking imploringly for religious aid and comfort, utter to his confiding ears such doctrines as, at that time, I unhappily and foolishly thought to ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... Over the sea perhaps!—I have heard tell That 'tis some thousand miles, almost at the end Of the world, where witches go to meet the Devil. They used to ride on broomsticks, and to smear Some ointment over them and then away Out of the window! but 'tis worse than all To worry the poor beasts so. Shame upon it That in a Christian country they should let ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... for an instant looking at the faint smear of smoke above the curve in the track. Then, without another word, he strode off in the direction of Z. Snow and ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... old friend with Barnaby's mother. He knew the Maypole story of the widow Rudge—how her husband, employed at Chigwell, and his master had been murdered; and how her son, born upon the very day the deed was known, bore upon his wrist a smear of blood but ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... represents Babylon or the Babylonian king triumphing over the country's enemies. The Arabs regard the figure as an evil spirit, and it is pitted with the marks of bullets shot at it. They also smear it with filth when they can do so unobserved; in the photograph some newly smeared filth may be seen adhering to the side ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... and reservoirs, only just disclosing the long, flat lines of embankment, water, and ice; the barges floating down with the tide were powdered with frost and snow-flakes, and the only colour was the long, red smear across the ice of the western reservoir, beyond which the winter sun was setting into a bank of snow clouds. It was four o'clock, and nothing apparently was moving, either on the ice or the water, not even a gull. In the centre of the north-eastern reservoir was what ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... heart that he would be avenged on this man that had slain him. Whereupon he said to the woman, "Behold I die. But first I would give thee a gift. Take of the blood that cometh from this wound, and it shall come to pass that if the love of thy husband fail thee, thou shalt take of this blood and smear it on a garment, and give him the garment to wear, and he shall love thee again as at ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... compound (not too hot). Wipe off the bottom of the spoon, Fig. 235, and pour a small stream of compound evenly in all the cracks around the edges of the covers until they are full, as in Fig. 236. Do not hold the spoon too high, and do not smear or drop any compound on top of battery or on the posts. No harm is done if a little runs over the outside of the case, except that it requires a little time to clean it off. A small teapot may be used instead of the spoon. If you have the compound ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... he said to the next lower. "Strike at whatever shows itself," and thrust blindly upwards. It was their first sight of bare steel, and Ursula de Vesc drew in her breath with a shiver as she saw the red smear upon its flat. "Oh! Hugues, Hugues," she moaned, and the Dauphin, catching at her hand ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... can say about it is that this particular shoe ought to be sent to the cobbler's. There's a small hole in the middle of the sole," I said, "and it should also have this smear of red clay wiped off," I added, as I pointed to the stain along the outer side ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... clutch that idol, treachery Sundered him from the thing he loved. Shame on the coward, caitiff hands That smote their Lord or with a kiss Betrayed him to the rabble-rout Of fawning priests—no friends of his. May everlasting shame consume The memory of those who tried To befoul and smear the exalted name Of one who spurned them in his pride. He fell as fall the mighty ones, Nobly undaunted to the last, And death has now united him With Erin's heroes of the past. No sound of strife disturb his sleep! Calmly he rests: no human pain Or high ambition spurs him now The peaks of glory ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... what this meant, by pulling out his oily handkerchief rolled up in the form of a ball, and giving himself an elaborate smear, from behind the right ear, up the cheek, across the forehead, and down the other cheek to behind his left ear. After ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... hot coffee for her, and some warm milk, with the fish and good bread and butter, and a few slices of crisp pork which I had fried, and browned warmed-up potatoes. There was smear-case too, milk gravy and sauce made of English currants. She began picking at the food, saying that she could not eat; and I noticed that her lips were pale, while her face was crimson as if with fever. She had had nothing to eat for twenty-four ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... petticoat breeches and cased in great leathern sea-boots pulled up to his knees, stood planted wide apart as though to brace against the slant of the deck. The face our hero beheld to be as white as dough, with fishy eyes and a bony forehead, on the side of which was a great smear ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... CYRANO: Or smear myself with marrow from a bull, Since, at the lowest point of Zodiac, Phoebus well loves ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... well-founded, could not endure long in a disposition so essentially scornful of all danger. Before morning the senses of Anne must return to her. So gentle a bosom could be surely reasoned out of resentment, or daunted, at least, from betraying to her stern father a secret that, if told, would smear the sward of England with the gore of thousands. What woman will provoke war and bloodshed? And for an evil not wrought, for a purpose not fulfilled? The king was grateful that his victim had escaped him. He would see Anne before the earl could, and appease her anger, obtain ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... desert lies on your hair and your feet are scratched with thorns and your body is scorched by the sun. Come with me, Honorius, and I will clothe you in a tunic of silk. I will smear your body with myrrh and pour spikenard on your hair. I will clothe you in hyacinth and put honey in your mouth. ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... I might have thought it was mother come to the dance if I hadn't caught a whiff of cedar woodsiness when I turned my nose into a miniature brier-patch of blue-berried cedar in the buttonhole of the coat against which my face was pressed as my feet caught step with a pair of smart shoes bearing a smear of moss loam ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... face, as is mentioned in the first account, is a custom known to have existed among many tribes throughout the world, but in some cases different earths and pigments are used as signs of mourning. The natives of Guinea smear a chalky substance over their bodies as an outward expression of grief, and it is well known that the ancient Israelites threw ashes on their heads and garments. Placing food with the corpse or in its mouth, and money in the hand, finds its analogue in ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... it may be sufficient to answer, that the antient Grecians oiled themselves all over; that some nations have painted themselves all over, as the Picts of this island; that the Hottentots smear themselves all over with grease. And lastly, that many of our own heads at this day are covered with the flour of wheat and the fat of hogs, according to the tyranny of a filthy and wasteful fashion, and all this without inconvenience. To this must ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... all the hubbub in the valley was unheard on the mountain peak, and the great trees that waved their giant branches below and shut out the sky from our eyes while we were among them would dwindle to a green smear on the plain, and all the foes 'show scarce so gross as beetles,' from the height from which we look down upon them? Get up beside God's promise, if you would take the true dimensions of cares and tasks, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the canvas scenes of what were supposed to be magnificent castles, the chambers of the kings of operetta, gorgeous landscapes and beheld at close view a cheap smear of colors which could satisfy only the grossest of senses and then only from a distance. In the storeroom she saw cardboard crowns; the satin robes were poor imitations, the velvets were cheap taffeta, ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... of our own race to present herself so scantily attired. The native lady in question was tall, finely shaped, and would have been not a little attractive, but for the white clay with which she had seen fit to smear her face and bosom. Around her ankles were many rows of blue beads, which also encircled her leg below the knee, thus supplying the place of garters, although stockings were dispensed with. Her smile was pleasant, and her disposition seemed agreeable; and, certainly, if ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... and broken blades of the coarse grass, and ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. And once the leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste girl may have trod. And at that under his breath he cursed ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... signified primarily that specially oriental weapon which we call a bow, but the word in the earliest authors included in its meaning the arrow shot from the bow. Dioscorides in the first century A.D. uses the word [Greek: to toxikon] to signify the poison to smear arrows with. Thus, by giving an enlarged sense to the word—for words ever strive to keep pace, if possible, with scientific progress, we get our modern and significant expression toxicology as the science of poisons and of poisoning. A certain ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... travels he parted from one of the yellow or white water streams, to enter one of the "rios negros." Many Indian tribes settled upon the banks of the latter solely to get clear of the "plaga de mosquitos." The Indians who reside in the mosquito districts habitually paint their bodies, and smear themselves with oil, as a protection against their bites; and it is a common thing among the natives, when speaking of any place, to inquire into ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... eyes. Then he deliberately stood up on the pine root, with his back to the tree, and put his mark away up, a head at least above that of Wahb. He rubbed his back long and hard, and he sought some mud to smear his head and shoulders, then came back and made the mark so big, so strong, and so high, and emphasized it with such claw-gashes in the bark, that it could be read only in one way—a challenge to the present claimant from some monstrous ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... please! Nothing has happened here, absolutely nothing! We begin again with an absolutely clean slate, without a smear upon it! ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... to Scotland Yard, but in China it is a very ancient practice. I have seen illiterate men smear their thumbs with ink and make impressions at the foot of documents, such thumb-marks being accepted as in every ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... shawl with a steady hand. There was an old white straw bonnet flattened down over the forehead; a wisp of blue ribbon string was blown across the face and over the red smear between the eyebrow and the hair; the eyes stared wide and glassy. But it was the same soft brown hair. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... lives only upon pollen, lays her eggs in an underground cell, and with each one of them she deposits three beetles, which she has lain in wait for and captured when they were still weak through having only just left off being chrysalides. She kills these beetles, and appears to smear them with a fluid whereby she preserves them fresh and suitable for food. Many kinds of wasps open the cells in which their larvae are confined when these must have consumed the provision that was left with them. They supply them with more food, and again close the cell. Ants, again, ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... sleeve La Boulaye rubbed part of the disfiguring smear from his face as he stood up and made ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... sunshades or fan, or the lace handkerchief with which they love to toy; and nothing in the way of crowd could be nicer than these daintily-dressed and usually prepossessing men and women. Fashion, however, has always some drawback. The ladies in many cases smear their faces with a paste called "thannakah," which has the effect of whitening the skin. The result is very unfortunate, for it is not always put on evenly, and only serves to make the ugly more forbidding, while it destroys the soft warmth of colour and skin texture which so often makes these ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... consciousness and died on the day following the crime. Three considerable wounds sufficient to cause death had been inflicted on the unfortunate woman's head, and five of a similar character on that of her husband. At the head of the bed, which stood in the corner of the room, there was a large smear of blood on the wall just above the door; there were spots of blood all over the top of the bed, and some smaller ones that had to all appearances spurted on to the panel of the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... That hush'd the stormy main; Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: Mountains! ye moan in vain Modrid, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp'd head. On dreary Arvon's shore[4] they lie, Smear'd with gore and ghastly pale; Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail; The famish'd eagle screams and passes by. Dear lost companions of my tuneful art! Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart, Ye ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... and beautiful in a silver network, with a black clump or two to southward, where the line of Bagley trees ran below the hill. I pulled out the letter that Anthony had given me. In the moonlight the brown smear of his blood was plain to ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... said, laughing. "I mean sugar the trees. Smear them with thick sugar and water or treacle, and then go round at night with a lantern; that's the way to catch ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... samely, wearily. There have been flying thunder-storms—lightning-flashes past the windows. I hide my face in my dusty gloves to avoid seeing the quick red forks, and leave a smear on each grimy cheek. Every moment, I am a rape-field—a corn-field, a bean-field, farther from Barbara, farther from the Brat, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton |
