"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... apology. Fred is a peculiar and high-strung boy, but I believe his impulses are right in the main. I will add that I believe his account of how he came to be in this strange plight. He took the car early this morning. I am just returning from a spin in our larger automobile. I saw my runabout at the edge of the road and it occurred to me to stop and see if my son were here. Is there anything more to be said about ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... stick is laid horizontally on a knife-blade on the ground; the operator squatting, places his great toes on each end to keep all steady, and taking the other wand which is of very hard wood cut to a blunt point, fits it into the notch at right angles; the upright wand is made to spin rapidly backwards and forwards between the palms of the hands, drill fashion, and at the same time is pressed downwards; the friction, in the course of a minute or so, ignites portions of the pith of the notched stick, which, rolling over like live charcoal on to the knife-blade, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... out and see what she might be like at nearer view. It might amuse him to play the invalid for a day or two and investigate her. Meantime, he must call up that garage and see what could be done for the car. If he could get it patched up by noon he might take the girl out for a spin in the afternoon. One could judge a girl much better getting her off by herself that way. He didn't seem to relish the memory of that father's smile and haughty tone as he said "My daughter." Probably ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... down in New Hampshire, then, and what ever made father come away up here for, is more than I can tell. I had a hard time after we came up here. I helped father and the boys to clear up our farm. I used to burn brush, and make sugar, and plant potatoes and corn, and spin and knit. I kept school twenty-one seasons, off and on. I didn't know much, but a little went a great way in those days. I used to teach six days in the week, and make out a full week's spinning or weaving, as well. I was strong and smart then, ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... would ever be out at all, for the other ball, the full-pitch as we call it, is, with a flat bat, too easy to hit, for our bowlers swerve very rarely: it is the contact with the ground which enables them to give the ball its extra spin or break. Full-pitches are therefore very uncommon. In cricket a bowler who delivered the ball with the action of a pitcher would be disqualified for "throwing": it is one of the laws of cricket that the bowler's elbow must not ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... were out for a final spin over the course before the race, which had been set for the following day. Beside the Uncas and the Highpoint, the Alton, from farther up the river, had also entered. It was not thought, even by their friends, that the Uncas had ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... reasons. For one, after a gun has been fired a few times the inside is affected. The rifling is worn in places, and that gives a slightly different spin to the shell. It doesn't take much of a change in conditions to alter the course of a shell a good deal. And the weather counts, too. Sometimes there is more air resistance; on a day when it is damp and foggy, with low ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... ourselves, with now and then a day's help or a bee,—but a bee's about as broad as it is long,—and we raise just enough to help the year out, but don't sell. We've got a cow and the filly and some sheep; and mother shears and cards, and Lurindy spins,—I can't spin, it makes my head swim,—and I knit, knit socks and sell them. Sometimes I have needles almost as big as a pipe-stem, and choose the coarse, uneven yarn of the thrums, and then the work goes off like machinery. Why, I can knit two pair, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... continues our narrative, "there lived at Smyrna a man named Phemius, a teacher of literature and music, who, not being married, engaged Critheis to manage his household, and spin the flax he received as the price of his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her son, who, he asserted, would become ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... little one, We will spin no more to-day. I prithee go And seek the Lady Gycia. Say to her, By all the memory of our former love I pray that she will come to me at once. Lose ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... sometimes deal in this manner with them. (3.) It is also to the advantage of the righteous, that they be kept and led in that way which will best improve grace already received, and that is, when they spin it out and use it to the utmost; when they do with it as the prophet did with that meal's meat that he ate under the juniper-tree, 'he went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... truer or sadder. These gentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs; they assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on their way to negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the tete-de-pont. * They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that the war is over, that the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with Bonaparte, that they desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... who have no perceptible means of subsistence, and manage to live royally on nothing a year. They hold no government bonds, they possess no real estate (our neighbors did own their house), they toil not, neither do they spin; yet they reap all the numerous soft advantages that usually result from honest toil and skilful spinning. How do they do it? But this is a digression, and I am quite of the opinion of the old lady in "David Copperfield," who says, "Let us have ...
— Our New Neighbors At Ponkapog • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of women better fitted than ever before for worthy occupation, there has never been a time nor a country in which their traditionary sphere has shrunk to so small dimensions. Nowhere else are there so many women of such a station that they are not obliged to toil and spin, nor to sleep all day to make up for nights of dissipation. For all those who do not have to concern themselves with the wherewithal of living, the art of living easily has been brought to a state of great perfection. The general care of the house and of the children is still the duty of the woman, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... a spinning-wheel had their places in another. A farm-house was not considered well furnished in those days without these useful implements, nor was a housewife considered accomplished who could not card, spin, and weave. Angeline carded her own wool, spun her own yarn, and weaved the best homespun made in the settlement; and had enough for their own use and some to sell at the store. In addition to that there was no housewife more expert at the flax-wheel, ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... everlasting snows lay at his feet, and the world in all its beauty was stretched out like a map below him; and he longed to go forth to partake of its abundance, and to make for himself a name among men. Then came the Norns, who spin the thread, and weave the woof, of every man's life; and they held in their hands the web of his own destiny. And Urd, the Past, sat on the tops of the eastern mountains, where the sun begins to ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... have made herself wretched under the circumstances; would have accused herself of boldness, and love of display, and a want of consideration for Edna; for Hatty, who was a self-tormentor by nature, could spin a whole web of worries out of a single thread; but Bessie never troubled herself with morbid after-thoughts. "Edna will be all right with me to-morrow," she said to herself; and she was right in ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... simply as a prisoner toiling at the treadmill because you must: the well in the garden is a pleasanter conception than all these and wholesomer. Foster it while you may. Now that India has wakened up and begun to spin after the rest of the great world down the ringing grooves of change, these tints of dawn will soon fade away, and in the light of noon the instructed Aryan will learn to see and deplore the monstrous inequalities in the distribution of wealth. He will come to understand the essential equality ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... the house was now in flower. The blossoms, with their four curved petals, seemed to spin like tiny white propellers in the bright air. When he saw them fluttering Gissing had a happy sensation of movement. The business of those tremulous petals seemed to be thrusting his whole world forward and forward, through the viewless ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... will make it," Angela almost snapped. She felt as a certain type of woman feels on hearing that the first man who ever proposed to her has married some one else. And when the codfish, whose name was Sealman, asked her where she would go for a trial spin, she said that he might take her to the shop of Barrymore the jeweller. But that was when Kate ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... he said, as Mary Louise hesitated. "Moor your little hulk 'longside o' me an' I'll spin you ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... Agra as one of the beautiful architectural triumphs peculiar to the splendid era of Mohammedan rule in India, and which are not to be matched elsewhere. The day following my arrival I conclude to take a spin out on my bicycle as far as the Kootub, and see something of it, the ruins amid which it stands, and the Hindoos in holiday attire. I choose the comparative coolness of early morning for the ride out; but early though it be, the road thither is already swarming with gayly dressed people ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... thoughts and woes Interpreting by Shapes and outward shews: { Where daily nearer me with magic Ties, { What time and where, (wove close with magic Ties Line over line, and thickning as they rise) The World her spidery threads on all sides spin Side answ'ring side with narrow interspace, My Faith (say I; I and my Faith are one) Hung, as a Mirror, there! And face to face (For nothing else there was between or near) One Sister Mirror hid the dreary Wall, { bright compeer But that is broke! And ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that Death moreover might be much nearer me than I imagined—I wish I was at Abbeville, quoth I, were it only to see how they card and spin—so off we set. ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... more," he said; and they walked on slowly. "I know what presumption this is; but I will not spin phrases about that. Nor do I ask what is impossible; but I will only ask leave to teach you in my ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... into Marlborough. Indeed, the difference was very conspicuous: this was a smart fellow, with a narrow brimmed hat, with gold cording, a cut bob, a decent blue jacket, leather-breaches, and a clean linen shirt, puffed above the waist-band. When we arrived at the Castle, on Spin-hill, where we lay, this new postilion was remarkably assiduous in bringing in the loose parcels; and, at length, displayed the individual countenance of Humphry Clinker, who had metamorphosed himself in this manner, by relieving from pawn part of ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... guessed, Rimrock was hurrying away in order to follow Mary Fortune; and as Rimrock guessed, she had invited him in to keep him from doing just that. She failed, for once, and it hurt her pride; but Rimrock failed as well. After a swift spin through the streets he returned to his hotel and called up his detective in ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... haue mended my haire? To. Past question, for thou seest it will not coole my nature An. But it becoms me wel enough, dost not? To. Excellent, it hangs like flax on a distaffe: & I hope to see a huswife take thee between her legs, & spin it off ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the articles would be exposed amidst cries of wonder and delight, and the house become like a bazaar. Sometimes there would be a mix-up of articles, but the loving messages pinned on to each would clear up the confusion. Mary dearly loved to linger over each gift and spin a little history into it, and she would pray with a full heart, "Lord Jesus thou knowest the giver and the love and the prayers and the self-denial. Bless and accept and use all for Thy glory and for the good of these poor straying ignorant ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... No lilts I spin, their love to win, The viol strings I shun, But lend thine ear and thou shalt hear My ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... hue, Hidest grave thoughts, ripe wit, and wisdom old, More skill than I, in all mine arts untrue, To thee my purpose great I must unfold, This enterprise thy cunning must pursue, Weave thou to end this web which I begin, I will the distaff hold, come thou and spin. ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... each afternoon, of strolling away from the rest, out of sound of their chaff. On the grassy top of one of the reefs, he found a spot where he could lie comfortably and watch the "quiet one." He used to spin long day-dreams there. She looked so remote far up in the boiling blue, and so strange, that he had an ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... made him a "good man on the round stuff" and in spite of his weight he had no trouble running around on the floating logs, even the small ones. It was said that Paul could spin a log till the bark came off and then run ashore on the bubbles. He once threw a peavy handle into the Mississippi at St. Louis and standing on it, poled up to Brainerd, Minnesota. Paul was a "white water bucko" and rode water so rough it would tear an ordinary man in ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... friends whom he had fondled and tended with such constant care. Never again to swing along through the sweet freshness of the morning before the sun was up to find the earliest snowdrops for Mrs. Hawthorne, or take a spin in the moonlight with every nerve a-tingle across the frozen bosom of the lake, or wander in delight along the wood roads when every tree was clad in the witching beauty of a silver thaw, or sweep across the wide stretching country in the very poetry of motion, or hear ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... acting, the water, instead of flying off in every direction, would merely drip down to the ground as if the dog were not shaking himself at all. A cowboy would find that he could no longer throw his lasso by whirling it around his head. A boy trying to spin his top would discover that the top would not stand on its point while spinning, any better than when it was ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... all this turmoil, about which I am to spin my narrative, lay in her education. I hold that a German princess should never be educated save as a German. By this I mean to convey that her education should not go beyond German literature, German history, German veneration ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... and then, the maids to please, At midnight I card up their wooll; And while they sleepe, and take their ease, With wheel to threads their flax I pull. I grind at mill Their malt up still; I dress their hemp, I spin their tow. If any 'wake. And would me take, I wend me, ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... Mme. Sechard will offer to renew your lease; tell her that you are thinking of setting up for yourself. Offer her half the value of the plant and license, and, if she takes the bid, come to me. In any case, spin the matter out. . . ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... out and unhung the pendulum—the striking weight, whose string was broken, was made all right and put for the time being on the table. Then the "moon and stars" which had been fixed for a quarter of a century, were made to spin; the "days of the month" refused to pass in review without a squeak that must be remedied, so I flew into the closet to get some sweet oil which was goose-grease; but shutting the ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... of May Clo's broken ribs had mended. The first day when she was up and dressed, able to go downstairs, and out for a spin in the renovated blue car, she was a very different looking girl from the battered wisp of humanity whose blood had stained the ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... without calling, as it were, and always excited the admiration of Bill Jordan. After dinner that evening Whitey went to the bunk house. Some of the cowpunchers were in from the range, and Whitey loved to hear the yarns they would spin. ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... by people. She had one consolation at least; she was not going away with Glory Goldie because of any desire for ease and comfort, but only because her hands were failing her. What else could she do when her fingers were becoming so useless that she could not spin any more? ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... unlike the others who keep on buzz-buzz-buzz, like mosquitoes! You're not aware, sister-in-law, that I actually dread uttering a word to any of the girls outside the few servant-girls and matrons in my own immediate service; for they invariably spin out, what could be condensed in a single phrase, into a long interminable yarn, and they munch and chew their words; and sticking to a peculiar drawl, they groan and moan; so much so, that they exasperate me till I fly into a regular rage. Yet how are they to know that our P'ing Erh too ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... licence, was found too much for political Athens. I would not ask to have him revived, but that the sharp light of such a spirit as his might be with us to strike now and then on public affairs, public themes, to make them spin along ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... little about the ocean. In fact, there are some things you don't know, and, if they wanted to, some of the old sailors could spin you yarns that would make your hair ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... from some great lady to send her to a charity school: that she went there every day to learn to read and work, but that the mistress of the charity school used her scholars very severely, and often kept them for hours, after they had done their own tasks, to spin for her; and that she beat them if they did not spin as much as she expected. The little girl's grandmother then said, that she knew all this, but that she did not dare to complain, because the schoolmistress was under the ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... facile, sweet, Free from that solemn vice of greatness, pride; I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to abide, Only a learned and a manly soul I purposed her, that should with even powers The rock, the spindle, and the shears control Of destiny, and spin her ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... use hanging around here a minute longer," Jack had finally to tell him. "Get aboard and I'll spin your wheel for you and give you a boost for a start. Then I'll drop out of sight, because some of them may run this way when they hear the ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... spin my peg-top so as it will never tumble down, and will turn an engine for drawing water,' was the prompt answer ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I must say," said Mrs. Jones, "this goes quite beyond me. I thought I could spin some; but I sha'n't never dare ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... perfectly with what I have said, if we will only just remember that we are not beasts, but men. It may seem a strange thing to have to remind people of, but it is just what they are always forgetting. My friends, we are not animals, we are not spiders to do nothing but spin, or birds only to build nests for ourselves, much less swine to do nothing but dig after roots and fruits, and get what we can out of the clods of the ground. We are the children of the Most High God; we have immortal souls within us; nay, more, we are our souls: ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... the Chancellor was at the summit of human success. Jonson had just sung of him as one "whose even thread the Fates spin round and full out of their choicest and their whitest wool" when the storm burst. The Commons charged Bacon with corruption in the exercise of his office. It had been customary among Chancellors to ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... written only about four months before his death. A little later he wrote: "I spin my thread of life from week to week, rather than from year to year." Constant attacks of bleeding from the lungs sapped his little remaining strength, but did not altogether disable him from lecturing. He was amused by one of his friends proposing to put him under trustees for ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... opening like that? "Clyde, what do you know about Edwin Scott?" That let him spin any yarn he chose—if ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... well as chicks, have a strange habit known as 'waltzing.' After running for a few hundred yards they will also stop, and, with raised wings, spin around rapidly for some time after until quite giddy, when a broken leg occasionally occurs.... Vicious cocks 'roll' when challenging to fight or when wooing the hen. The cock will suddenly bump down on to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... am truly glad to see thee alive and well, friend Christison. I have a long yarn to spin into thine ear, but it is as well that our red friends shall not hear it. They might not hold the white skins in quite as much respect ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... remarked the logical superior person in him, 'you don't mean to argue that a spin of the ball is affected by the spins that have preceded it? You don't mean to argue that, because red wins four times, or forty times, running, black is any the more likely to win at the next spin?' 'You shut up!' retorted the ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... more went aboard the boat, seeking the comfortable interior of the cabin, where Maurice could spin his yarn, and a council of war be called to ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... any of the people this brilliant couple had known. I think he wondered extremely, during the term of our intercourse, whom the deuce I DID know. He hadn't a stray sixpence of an idea to fumble for, so we didn't spin it very fine; we confined ourselves to questions of leather and even of liquor- saddlers and breeches-makers and how to get excellent claret cheap- -and matters like "good trains" and the habits of small game. His lore on these last ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... any sane man expect that we should for ever retain our former exceptional position. Other nations move as well as we. They buy the machines which we invent and make; they employ our foremen to teach them the arts we have acquired, and in time they learn to weave and spin for themselves instead of coming to us for every yard of cloth or every pound of yarn. This relative advancement of foreign nations and, too, of our own Colonies and Dependencies was and is inevitable. It is part of the general ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... circulated, the Lieutenant amused us in his own dry way with some early recollections of service; and knowing that the Major had been quartered in the Emerald Isle in "Ninety-eight," I pressed him to give us some memento of that eventful period. "Come F——, spin us a yarn, as our topmen used to say round the galley-fire, during the night-watch," added ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... makes you think of accident and sudden death. Contrast this ill-boding hand with the quick, skilful, quiet hand of a nurse whom I remember with affection because she took the best care of my teacher. I have clasped the hands of some rich people that spin not and toil not, and yet are not beautiful. Beneath their soft, smooth roundness what a chaos of ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... felt as if I had six legs when we were going the pace. We were all one piece, and had a jolly spin, didn't we, my beauty?" and Ben chuckled as he took Lita's head in his lap, while she answered with a gusty sigh that ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... he had said good-bye to her after a luncheon or tea together, he would turn his car southward and find himself driving down the avenue to Washington square and the old house on the south side, to invite Marcia Terroll for a spin beside him. And sometimes he would call her on the telephone and they would meet for ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... met in the gallery, told me that to copy the "Madonna della Seggiola," application must be made five years beforehand, so many are the artists who aspire to copy it. Michael Angelo's Fates are three very grim and pitiless old women, who respectively spin, hold, and cut the thread of human destiny, all in a mood of sombre gloom, but with no more sympathy than if they had nothing to do with us. I remember seeing an etching of this when I was a child, and being struck, even then, with the terrible, stern, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... do, friend. If you hav'nt got beds, we'll sit up all night, and warm our toes at the fire, and spin long yarns, as they tell in the Eastern sea-ports. Anything but turn a fellow out ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... she was thinking of unpaid bills; since human lilies of the field, though they neither toil nor spin, must pay for irreproachable shoes and unlimited ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... in the gardens, under the shade of almond-trees, our slaves are singing. Oh, what calm carissime, and what a forgetfulness of former fear and suffering! But it is not the Parcae as thou writest, who spin out our lives so agreeably; it is Christ who is blessing us, our beloved God and Saviour. We know tears and sorrow, for our religion teaches us to weep over the misfortunes of others; but in these tears is a consolation unknown to thee; for ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... fight, bet your boots about that, If we get a clear course without serious obstruction, Of which I'm not sanguine; the practice of PAT Has proved to possess universal seduction. Our last spin was muffed; never mind whose the fault; Let bygones be bygones! But now comes the crisis! It's now win or lose. Every man worth his salt Will pull like a Titan from Cam ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... miniature man to dance, fire a small gun, go through the sword exercise, play on a small fiddle, smoke a cigar, turn a somersault, bow to the company, and hold out his hat for an unlimited number of kopecks. Herr Batz suggests that such a monkey as that might be taught to spin ropes, and our younger Mechlenberger laughs, and says he once read a story of a monkey that shaved a cat, and then cut off his own or the cat's tail, he could not remember which. This reminds the Russian of a countess in Moscow who owned a beautiful little dog, to which she ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... wonderful close down on her face near the ear that he wanted to touch. And a certain heaviness, the heaviness of a very full ear of corn that dips slightly in the wind, that there was about her, made his brain spin. He seemed to be spinning down ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... her life by spinning wool, she was not therefor of so poor a spirit but that she dared to admit into her heart Love, which,—by means of the pleasing words and fashions of a youth of no greater account than herself, who went giving wool to spin for a master of his, a wool-monger,—had long made a show of wishing to enter there. Having, then, received Him into her bosom with the pleasing aspect of the youth who loved her whose name was Pasquino, she heaved a thousand ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Whether the women may not sew, spin, weave, embroider sufficiently for the embellishment of their persons, and even enough to raise envy in each other, without ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... before Pilate, and "My kingdom is not of this world." We who are made kings after His likeness possess all things, not after this world's fashion but in proportion to our poverty; and when we cease to toil and spin, are arrayed as the lilies, in a glory transcending Solomon's. Bride Poverty—she who climbed the Cross with Christ—stretched out eager hands to free us from our chains, but we flee from her, and lay up treasure against her importunity, ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change." [Footnote: See Tennyson, Memoir by his Son, ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... spin that wheel," he said to the technicians. One of them gave the wheel a spin and dropped the ball. It clattered on its merry way and ...
— ...Or Your Money Back • Gordon Randall Garrett
... with Captain Miles until late in the afternoon; when, the glare of the sun having gone off, we were rowed ashore in the captain's gig. My friend Moggridge took charge of us, and a crew of hardy sailors made the boat spin ashore at a very different rate of speed to that which the heavy old launch displayed on our trip out to the vessel ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of New Mexico, or at least some of them, still manufacture earthen vessels, and spin and weave cotton fabrics in the aboriginal manner, and live in houses of the ancient model. Some of them, as the Mokis and Lagunas, are organized in gentes, and governed by a council of chiefs, each village being independent and self-governing. They observe the same law of hospitality universally ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... more strength in picking Jumbo up bodily from the mat and dropping him all over the place. Jumbo's practice at bridging stood him in excellent stead now, and he got out of many a tight corner by a quick, firm bridge or a sudden spin. ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... the horrors of the scene that ensued. We clewed up the mizzen royal, we lashed the foretop to make it spin upon its heels. The second dog watch barked his shins to the bone, and a tail of men hauled upon the halliards to mast-head the yard. Nothing availed. We had to be wrecked and wrecked we were, and as I clasped ARAMINTA's trustful head to my breast, the pale luminary sailing through the angry ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... Aeroplanes speak to those who love them and understand them. Lots of Pilots know all about it, and can spin you wonderful yarns, much better than this one, if you catch them in a confidential mood—on leave, for instance, and after ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... father, and, without looking up, bade him a good morning. The old man, without any show of feeling, replied "Thank you," and assumed his previous posture. The bride sat down at the other side of the door, put her spinning-wheel in front of her and began to spin industriously, an occupation which custom required her to continue until the moment the bridegroom arrived and conducted her to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... shirts or gowns of the lowest visibility, and well armed with a commodity which is said to be synonymous with yourself—money—they seek to outwit you by crowding a month of merriment into half a dozen hours. Yet their victory is brief and fallacious, for if hours spin too fast by night they will move grindingly on the axle the next morning. None of us can beat you in the end. Even the hat-check boy grows old, becomes gray and dies at last babbling ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... dancing round a punch-bowl. "That woman!" he exclaimed suddenly. "What asses they make of us men! And all these vultures—I'm not carrion yet. But THEY soon will be!" And he laughed and his thoughts began their crazy spin again. ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... that there's no chance for him whatever. Of course, with all that, he has done his best not to let himself go. But there are moments," Mr. Mitchett ruefully added, "when it would relieve him awfully to feel free for a good spin." ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... to Clotho [one of the fates], allowing her to spin thy thread into whatever things ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... and dance, They rustle and murmur and pull at the bough, They shiver, they quiver till they pull themselves loose And are free. Up, up they fly! Little brown specks in the sky. They twist and they spin, They whirl and they twirl, They teeter, they turn somersaults in the air. Then for a moment the wind holds its breath. Down, down, down float the leaves, Still turning and twisting, Still twirling and whirling, The brown leaves float to the earth. Puff! goes ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... chuckled. "Guess he wants to take a spin on the ground," he commented to himself. "Fancy that bird wanting to go to Paris by motor!" Then to show how little he thought of the ground he advanced his throttle rapidly and took off on far less space than should ever be attempted by one who knows, from experience, ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... former aide to the great Frederick, with emphasis, "when you can work in the sun, why cling to the cold corner of a public hearth? Your brain will spin the faster for the fire underneath. You will write great words and be happy besides. Think of that. What a combination! Mein Gott! You will be terribly in love, my son, but your balance is so extraordinary ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... hand, "and will drop in as a friend, I can show you about the largest business in the way of canned provisions and domestic groceries in the State, and give you a look around Battery Street generally. Or if you'll name your day, I've got a pair of 2.35 Blue Grass horses that'll spin you out to the Cliff House to dinner and back. I've had Governor Fiske, and Senator Doolan, and that big English capitalist who was here last year, and they—well, sir,—they were PLEASED! Or if you'd ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... Gipsy lying, it is so peculiar that it would be hard to explain. The American who appreciates the phrase 'to sit down and swap lies' would not be taken in by a Romany chal, nor would an old salt who can spin yarns. They enjoy hugely being lied unto, as do all Arabs or Hindus. Like many naughty children, they like successful efforts of the imagination. The old dyes, or mothers, are 'awful beggars,' as much by habit as anything; but they will give as freely ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... that the priest, the wise people of the village, the captain of Vaucouleurs, doubted and refused to aid her. "I must go to the King," persisted the peasant girl, "even if I wear my limbs to the very knees." "I had far rather rest and spin by my mother's side," she pleaded with a touching pathos, "for this is no work of my choosing, but I must go and do it, for my Lord wills it." "And who," they asked, "is your Lord?" "He is God." Words such as these ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... my four-in-hand to come round here and pick us up," said Franco. "Shall we all go for a spin, and get an appetite ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... they toil not neither do they spin. They make nothing, they produce nothing, they invent nothing. They merely gamble with the savings of others, and find the business infinitely profitable. Yet they, too, must cultivate the language of sentiment. Though the world is spared the incubus of their philanthropy, they must ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... on it, that's all!" said Harry, with a laugh. "If you'd ever played baseball, you'd understand that easily enough. See? You hold the ball like this — so that your fingers give it a spin as ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... they were! There was a great roll of thick, soft blue cloth, so that they could all be warmly clad without waiting for the mother to spin the wool from the sheeps' backs. There were nice little squirrel-fur caps for all the children; there were more yellow gold pieces; and then there was a large package of the most enchanting sweetmeats, such as the Bretons make at ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... Why, in that case Rothschild wouldn't be a circumstance. The Pope might go into banking himself, and control the markets of the world. But no. There's a lot of ministers here, and they haven't any head for it. I wish they'd give me a chance. I'd make things spin. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... appraise the effect of this startling proposition on me. At any other moment I should inevitably have broken loose again, but the fascination of his personality was upon me and I let him spin his webs. Any man, and there are scores adrift, who falls under the spell of Henry H. Rogers, invariably, as did the suitors of Circe, pays the penalty of his indiscretion. Some he uses and contemptuously casts aside useless; ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... curtains on darkness and night! She sat down to spin by the cheery fire-light, While before it, so cozy and warm, Slept the kitten,—a snowy white ball of content— And her wheel, with its humming activity, lent To ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... did not do so. "An Englishman's house is his castle"; an English woman's house is her castle. Atkinson proposed that a woman of full age, living in her own house, should connect her loom or spindles by electric wire to the nearest mill or factory, and then proceed to weave or spin more than the legal limit of nine hours per day. Would the state, under the broadest principles of English constitutional liberty, have the right to come in and tell her not to do so; particularly when the man in the next house remained free? Up to this time there is no doubt that ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... can't—really!" protested Mrs. Fielding. "I shall die if I don't get a little air. I thought perhaps you would like to come for a little spin with me. But I suppose that is out ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... to his old humour: "Young men," began he, "this poetry deceives many; for not only every one that is able to give a verse its numbers, and spin out his feble sence in a long train of words, has the vanity to think himself inspir'd; but pleaders at the bar, when they wou'd give themselves a loose from business, apply themselves to poetry, as an entertainment ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... and dread. And there was puzzlement too. A puzzlement that made his brain spin. Joan had spoken with terror in her voice. Terror that had said somebody was going to kill. And Joan was not a girl to be easily frightened. And she had mentioned Gaddon's name. Gaddon, the man who had shot into the heavens in an experimental ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... going to spin the next stretch of this yarn—and maybe the next after it—in my own way. You will wonder how I happened by certain scraps of information: but you will understand before we come ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that lighted and air-conditioned Rathole, power in the air all around them. If he could only use it! But to turn the platform on its side and let the wind spin the propellers ...
— Wind • Charles Louis Fontenay
... for comes when your hands are tied," says the Turkish proverb. Win had been yearning for a spin. She kept silence and sped on, wondering whether she could surprise the enemy by executing ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... sawdust. (But it ain't strong.) Once, when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get the milk-pot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch him by both his shoulders, and spin him out into ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... it, please do not trouble and we must just hope that Tuesday morning will be early enough to do all. Of course I fear the exam. will spin me; indeed after this bodily and spiritual crisis I should not dream of coming up at all; only that I require it as a pretext for a moment's escape, which I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... World"! O what a world it is— Where full-grown men cut capers in the German, Cotillion, waltz, or what you will, and whizz And spin and hop and sprawl about like mermen! I wonder if our future Grant or Sherman, As these youths pass their time, is passing his— If eagles ever come from painted eggs, Or deeds of arms succeed ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... ponderous memories and regrets. This course is open to you, I mention, but it isn't enjoined, and will doubtless indeed not come up for you at all if it isn't your habit, cherished beyond any other, to spin your impressions to the last tenuity of fineness. Now that I bethink myself I must always have happened to wander here on grey and melancholy days. It remains none the less true that the place contains, thank goodness—or at least thank the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... away from him to spin down the long floor of the sala, hands on hips, whistling a rag-time tune. The Prince and young Breckenridge caught her up, and she spun back with the latter, while Gillow-it was believed to be his sole accomplishment-snapped his fingers in simulation of bones, and ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... hear that what you in England call a mail is to leave camp this evening; so, that you may have no excuse for not writing to me constantly, I am sitting down to spin you such a yarn as I can under the disadvantages circumstances in ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... said, one might do worse than dream of Hortense. But in spite of all your philosophers say about there being no world but the world we spin in our brains, I could not woo my lady back to it. Like the wind that bloweth where it listeth was my love. Try as I might to call up that pretty deceit of a Hortense about me in spirit, my perverse lady came not ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... the Roman Empire, there was never the slightest precedent for this modern detachment from place. It is nothing to us that we go eighty or ninety miles from home to place of business, or take an hour's spin of fifty miles to our week-end golf; every summer it has become a fixed custom to travel wide and far. Only the clumsiness of communications limit us now, and every facilitation of locomotion widens ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... fair than is the sun's bright beams, Or snow-white Alps beneath fair Cynthia! Who would refuse with Hercules to spin, When such fair faces bears us company? Fair Polyxena never was so fair: Nor she that was proud love to Troylus. Great Alexander's love, Queen of Amazons, Was not so fair as is fair Alfrida. But, Perin, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... desire, she observed that it was not necessary for him to be so chary in explaining the basis of the proposed negotiations. It was better to enter into a straightforward path, than by ambiguous words to spin out to great length matters which princes should ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to turn in, no chance to whirl his lariat, even for a side throw. There was no time to spin a loop. But his hand detached the rope, flying fingers found the free end as he pivoted in the saddle, thighs welded to ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... "Sit tight and say your prayers, if it pleases you. This is better, after all, than poison, or the cold muzzle of a revolver at your forehead. Close your eyes if you are afraid; or open them, if you have the courage, and see the world spin by. We ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... easily, looking up at the once more placid old man who sat beside him, "I am just now recalling matters that were puzzling me much before the sickness began to spin my head about so fast on my shoulders. The harder I thought, the faster my head went around, until it sent my mind all to little spatters in a circle about me. One thing I happened to be puzzling over was how the impression ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... instance. He is a sailor all over, to be sure—an "old salt," as he would call himself. But that does not confer upon him any license to spin such yarns as he does, to his young shipmates on the forward deck. He has cruised half a dozen years after whales, in the Pacific ocean, and, of course, has seen some sights that are worth speaking of. But that is no reason why ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... spider to the king. This we poor sensitives do feel and see; For subject to the curse you made us be. Tread not upon me, neither from me go; 'Tis man which has brought all the world to woe, The law of my creation bids me teach thee; I will not for thy pride to God impeach thee. I spin, I weave, and all to let thee see, Thy best performances but cobwebs be. Thy glory now is brought to such an ebb, It doth not much excel the spider's web; My webs becoming snares and traps for flies, Do set the wiles of hell ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Kateen-beug and Maurya Jude To dance in Beg-Innish,[13] And when the lads (they're in Dunquin) Have sold their crabs and fish, Wave fawny shawls and call them in, And call the little girls who spin, And seven weavers from Dunquin, To ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... grunted out "Nakasind," and another "Owkasaaend," while a third murmured "O-a-a-send." All, however, made the bridegroom understand what was the cause of their ugliness; while Habetrot slily hinted that if his wife were allowed to spin, her pretty lips would grow out of shape too, and her pretty face get an ugsome look. So before he left the cave he vowed that his little wife should never touch a spinning-wheel, and he kept his word. She used ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... in and take a ride with me, We'll take a spin for a mile or three, And maybe we'll come where the lollypops grow, Pink and yellow, all in ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... of the aura is very variable—terror, excitement, numbness, tingling, irritability, twitching, a feeling of something passing up from the toes to the head, delusions of sight, smell, taste, or hearing (ringing, or buzzing, etc.), palpitation, throbbing in the head, an impulse to run or spin around—any of these may warn a victim that a fit is at hand. Some patients "lose themselves" and ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... Garrone jumped up and said, "The first person who touches Nelli will get such a box on the ear from me that he will spin ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... rock stood upward from a great clumping of the moss-bushes unto my left; and I went over to the rock, and made a search about it. And I found that there was a hole into the bottom part of the rock, and I thrust the Diskos into the hole, and made the blade to spin a little, so that it sent out a light; but there was no thing in the hole, and it did seem a dry and ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... some land," said Christine; that was the promise, and we thought to raise vegetables and fruits; fowls, too, and perhaps bees; but we can cook, wash the clothes, keep the house clean, spin, and weave, and sew." ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... mother; we'll be rich yet, and I'll make you a queen yourself, and then you need spin no more," said Jim, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... companionable in such company, as he had been accustomed to it from boyhood; and it appears that at this time he was in the habit of composing fables for the entertainment of Julian, not unlike the yarns which sailors often spin to beguile landsmen. [Footnote: ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... at police headquarters the chief was awaiting them. Evidently he was not at all averse to this delightful spin across country on a fine July morning and with nothing to pay. Official business might sometimes ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... inebriating delight of gratified vengeance contended in her eyes with the fire of insanity; and she brandished the distaff which she held in her hand, as if she had been one of the Fatal Sisters, who spin and abridge the thread of human life. Tradition has preserved some wild strophes of the barbarous hymn which she chanted wildly amid that scene of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... magnificently as when I had first landed upon Australian soil, to bid me farewell. And we embarked again upon that same old Sonoma that had brought us to Australia. Again I saw Paga-Paga and the natural folk, who had no need to toil nor spin to live upon the fat of the land and be arrayed in the garments that were always up to ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... the iron wheels go onward, Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... gloom of spirit is a very contagious thing, very difficult to dissimulate. Perhaps the best practical thing for a naturally melancholy person to try and do, is to treat his own low spirits, as Charles Lamb did, ironically and humorously; and if he must spin conversation incessantly, as Dr. Johnson said, out of his own bowels, to make sure that it is the best thread possible, and of a ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ready to be his servants, and give him milk and wool and food. He brought with him to our shores cows and sheep and goats, horses and dogs. Moreover he made pottery, moulding the clay with his hand, and baking it in a fire. He had not discovered the advantages of a kiln. He could spin thread, and weave stuffs, though he usually wore garments ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... three Fates, the one who cut asunder the thread of life; one of her sisters, Clotho, appointed to spin the thread, and the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... with them red whiskers on your face," McGuffey agreed. He refrained from saying more, for instinct told him Mr. Gibney was about to grow reminiscent and spin a yarn, and B. McGuffey had a true seaman's reverence for a goodly tale, whether true, half-true, or ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... evidently cannot say, "I beg your pardon, miss." There were children, who always will go where they ought not to go, running against people, and taking hold of their clothes with sticky, smeared hands, asking commercial gentlemen to spin their tops, and corpulent ladies to play at hide and seek. I saw one stern-visaged gentleman tormented in this way till he looked ready to give the child its "final quietus." [Footnote: American juveniles are, generally speaking, completely destitute of that agreeable shyness which prevents ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... here, in order to save my traveling back and forth, so far, every night and morning. Then this winter I shall have my tools to make,—and to finish the inside of the house, and make the furniture; and if you have any leisure time you can spin. But after all it will not be very comfortable for you, and perhaps you would rather wait ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... to preserve it from slight falls and other trifling accidents. A little practice soon enables the child to take care of itself, and experience acts the part of a nurse. As they advance in life, the girls are taught to spin cotton, and to beat corn, and are instructed in other domestic duties; and the boys are employed in the labours of the field. Both sexes, whether Bushreens or Kafirs, on attaining the age of puberty, are ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... it the statement of the fact that the two straight lines so described go alongside one another, παρ' αλληλας {par' allêlas}, all the way. Similarly a mathematician should know that a rhombus is so called from its resemblance to a form of spinning-top (ῥομβος {rhombos} from ῥεμβω {rhembô}, to spin) and that, just as a parallelogram is a figure formed by two pairs of parallel straight lines, so a parallelepiped is a solid figure bounded by three pairs of parallel planes (παραλληλος {parallêlos}, parallel, and επιπεδος {epipedos}, plane); incidentally, in the latter case, he will ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... kindness of heart which was one of his most pronounced characteristics, took care that I was the hero of the evening, making me spin my yarn in detail to him and his guests; and at the end thereof awarding me a great deal more praise than I was in the least entitled to. Lotta and I slept at the Pen that night, and after all the guests had left, we four, that is to say Sir Timothy, Lady Mary, Lotta, ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood |
