"Spin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for shelter amongst the dangerous islands off Cape Sable, and was lost in the fog. Rumor had it that she ran on the rocks off that perilous coast, and sank with all on board. As time went by, and there was no more sign of the corsair, the rumor was accepted as proven. Men began to spin yarns in the forecastle about Mogul Mackenzie, with an interest that was tinged with its former fear. Skippers were beginning to feel at ease again on the grim waters, when suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... may be the opinion of fair ladies who dwell in ceiled houses in our older Eastern States and cities, who like lilies, neither toil nor spin, whose fair hands would gather close their silken apparel at the thought of touching the homelier garments of many a heroine of Kansas—whatever they may say in reference to this question, we, the women of the Spartan State, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... supposed to wander about the houses of the peasants on her holy day, and to be offended if she finds certain kinds of work going on, they are (or at least they used to be) frequently suspended on Fridays. It is a sin, says a time-honored tradition, for a woman to sew, or spin, or weave, or buck linen on a Friday, and similarly for a man to plait bast shoes, twine cord, and the like. Spinning and weaving are especially obnoxious to "Mother Friday," for the dust and refuse thus produced ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... way in which man learned how to make pottery, how to weave and spin, and how to conquer ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... "Let him spin what yarn he pleases, I care not. All I ask is to put eyes on the lad again. It seems, when I think of it in cold blood, that it can scarce be true, Tayoga. You're sure you made no ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tops with which the Chinese amuse themselves are as large as barrels. It takes three men to spin one, and it gives off a sound that may be heard several hundred ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... time the Devas, or gods, and their opponents, the Asuras, made a truce, and joined together in churning the ocean to procure amrita, the drink of immortality. They took Mount Mandara for a churning-stick, and, wrapping the great serpent Sesha round it for a rope, they made the mountain spin round to and fro, the Devas pulling at the serpent's tail, and the Asuras at its head." [56] In this myth the churning-stick, with its flying serpent-cords, is the lightning, and the armrita, or drink of immortality, is simply the rain-water, which in Aryan folk-lore possesses the same ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... 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 human side of him crossly. ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... miniature tracks, which connected all the rooms on the ground floor of the house and considerably interfered with the parlourmaid's duties. It was known to the family as the Great Auckland Railway. Another favourite hobby of the young engineer was to lie on his back and watch the spider spin her web, comparing the results with a railway map of Great Britain. It was seldom that he went to bed without having learnt at least a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... In a pinky paper all folded neat; And they fastened it down with a pin. And they passed the night in a crockery jar; And each of them said, "How wise we are! Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long, Yet we never can think we are rash or wrong. While round in our sieve we spin." Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live: Their heads are green, and their hands are blue: And they went to sea ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... main road is, it happens, an old Stane Street, along which Roman legions marched to clean up the councils and clerks of the British tribal system two thousand years ago, and no doubt an historian could spin delightful consequences; this does not alter the fact that these quaint complications in English affairs mean in the aggregate enormous obstruction and waste of human energy. It does not alter the much graver fact, the fact that darkens all my outlook upon the future, that we have never yet produced ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... spin will be on your own axis. We are to act as escort for a convoy train of fifty wagons and ten times fifty mules. We shall make six miles a day, and our tongues will be wholly corrupted by the language of the mule-drivers. And, in the end, we ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... it," her companion reminded. "He would be very angry if he came home and found that you had left Glen West. Why not take a spin on the lake this evening? You once were very fond ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... art of romance, and how to spin it to the last drop without getting to the dregs, have already peopled this new land of theirs with colour, but I doubt me if it will last, which is their affair, not mine, or yours. King Louis himself is indulgent ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... the same brightness that made Dorothy's so attractive, except that years had tarnished that of Mrs. White, while her niece had seen only sunshine in life to polish the golden warp that beauty loves to spin. There were many features in both that marked relationship, and it was always declared that Dorothy was a Dale both ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... therein is; who keepeth truth for ever; who helpeth them to right that suffer wrong; who feedeth the hungry; a God who feeds the birds of the air, though they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and who clothes the grass of the field, which toils not, neither doth it spin; and who will much much more clothe and feed you, to whom he has given reason, understanding, and the power of learning his laws, the rules by which this world of his is made and works, and of turning them to your own profit in rational and ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... burdened with spare time. It certainly did not seem as if things were fairly divided, he thought. And then he thought no more just then, for one of the queer spells in his head came on. He had experienced them at intervals during the last three days. Something seemed to break loose in his head and spin wildly round and round, while houses and people and trees danced and wobbled all about him. Chester vaguely wondered if this could be what Aunt Harriet had been wont to call a "judgement." But then, he had done nothing very ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... your pigs, and be giving your young time to improbable sculpture and stagnant water, when there is such a fine adventure awaiting you, and when the Norns are foretelling such high things about you as they spin the thread of ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... sat at his ease and looked until he was tired of looking, and then he gave the order for a home-bound spin. Right here was where chanced stepped in and diverted him from his appointed paths. For the car, now turned cityward, had rolled but a few rods when a smell of overheated metals assailed the air, and ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... rebel lines, thinking that the Yankees were coming, blazed away at random. The Yankee pickets, thinking that the rebels were advancing, became uneasy and fired in return. Paul could hear the bullets spin through the air and strike into the trees. His first thought was to get back to his comrades as soon as possible; then he reflected that it would be dangerous to attempt it just then. The firing woke up all the sleepers in the two armies. The drums were beating the long roll, the bugles ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Miss Laura and I were in the wagon. Then Mr. Wood jumped in, took up the reins, and off we went. How the two black horses did spin along! I sat on the seat beside Mr. Wood, and sniffed in the delicious air, and the lovely smell of flowers and grass. How glad I was to be in the country! What long races I should have in the green fields. ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... great institution in Finland, and as the hills in the South are not steep enough for a really good spin, the Finlanders put up a Klkbacke or Skrinnbacke, in imitation of their Russian friends, and enjoy rattling spins, and moments of intense excitement, gliding down these dangerous routes. They are really switchbacks ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... I sit to spin; My Love passed by, and he didn't come in; He passes by me, both day and night, And carries off my poor ...
— Sixteen Poems • William Allingham
... revealed in the insulting mandate of the empress Sophia, "that he should leave to men the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the hand of the eunuch." "I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily unravel!" is said to have been the reply which indignation and conscious virtue extorted from the hero. Instead of attending, a slave and a victim, at the gate of the Byzantine palace, he retired to Naples, from whence (if ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... wouldn't be so bad. Among other things, he thought it would be a good idea not to motor in the direction of Grandby Tavern. And he also thought it was not worth while resenting the fact that his wife and daughter took something over an hour to prepare for the little spin. ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... uncommon pleasant man—for there was nothin' a'most he didn't know—except when he got his dander up, and then he did spin out his yarns ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... make an Englishman awkward sits gracefully on the Italian. He knows how to "do nothing" with dignity. Be assured, if Hercules had been of Anglo-Saxon blood, Omphale would never have set him down to spin; but being what he was, I could swear he went ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... knights of old, 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. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... wouldn't be anywhere if you didn't go, of course," and Tom laughed. "But I'd like to take you for a little spin in this machine, Rad. I want you to get used to them. Sometime I may need you to help me. Come, now. Suppose you get up on this seat here, and I promise not to go too high until you get used to it. Come on, it will do you good, and ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... Smith returned was the London of Shakespeare. We should be thankful for one glimpse of him in this interesting town. Did he frequent the theatre? Did he perhaps see Shakespeare himself at the Globe? Did he loaf in the coffee-houses, and spin the fine thread of his adventures to the idlers and gallants who resorted to them? If he dropped in at any theatre of an afternoon he was quite likely to hear some allusion to Virginia, for the plays of the hour were full of chaff, not always of the choicest, about the attractions of the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... things into his head, and who, thank goodness, had been sick too. Soames knew all about it, having heard the tale fifty times at least from one or other of them. He went up to the globe, and gave it a spin; it emitted a faint creak and moved about an inch, bringing into his purview a daddy-long-legs which had died on it ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and clash of all its steeples, pouring into his ears, again and again, in a tuneless, grating, discordant jerking, hideous vibration that made his ideas spin round and round till they lost themselves in a whirl of vexation and giddiness, and dropped down dead.... Only two days later came a letter in which not a syllable was written but 'We have heard ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... nurse now; and see how that will work. We have a week's more business here; and, by bad luck, a dead fortnight, all along of Dublin falling through unexpectedly. He is as artful as Old Nick; he will spin out that broken head of his and make it last all the three weeks; and she will nurse him, and he will be weak, and grateful, and cry, and beg her pardon six times a day, and she is only a woman, after all: and they are man and ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... ostriches, adults as 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 his knees (the ankle-joint), open his wings, and then swing ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the Summer stay? In distant sunny places, 'Midst palms and dusky faces, Where they spin the cocoa thread, Where the generous trees drop bread, Where the lemon-groves give alms, And Nature works her daily charms, Among the rice-fields, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... Polly's voice was triumphant. "If I don't make Marc Scott apologize to me——" Then, calming herself, she continued: "I'm going to spin you a yarn, Mr. Penhallow, and then you've ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... meet old Garner, you must meet him on the square, For he is the biggest cow-thief that ever tramped out there. But if you want to hear him roar and spin a lively tale, Just ask him about the time we all went ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... first loop Schwab went sick, and after that he had no wish except to die. Whether the Thunder Bird rode head down or tail down he neither knew nor cared. Nor did Johnny. As he yelled he looped and he dived, he did tail spins and every other spin that occurred to him. For the time being he was "riding straight up and fanning her ears," and his aerial bronk was pulling off stunts he would never ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Dan'l. "'For,' sez he, 'Mr. Borem,' sez he, 'you're a quaint morril character. You've got protracted humor,' sez he. 'You've bin an hour tellin' that yarn o' yours! Ef ye could spin it out to fill two chapters of a book—yer fortune's made! For you'll show that a successful hoss trade involves the highest nash'nul characteristics. That what common folk calls "selfishness," ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... squirrels, but there are no special children's games. The father makes bows and arrows for the boys, and instructs them in hunting and agricultural work. As the girls grow up, the mother teaches them how to spin yarn and weave blankets, "for," she tells them, "otherwise they will become men." She also warns them not to have children too rapidly in succession, for there is no one to carry them for her. Women cannot eat the tenderloin ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the family. The journeyman shoemaker dropped in and fitted out the family with boots. The great city industries were then unknown. The farmer's wife in those days was perhaps the most expert master of trades ever known. She could spin and weave, make a carpet or a rug, dye yarns and clothes, and make a straw hat or a birch broom. Butter, cheese, and maple sugar were products of her skill, as well as bread, soap, canned fruits, and home-made wine. In those days the farm was a miniature factory or combination ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James
... woman brooding over her ripe fruit. A buzzing like the sound of an organ; the hive all alive with the hum of the bees.... Such somber, golden music, like an autumn honeycomb, slowly gives forth the rhythm which shall mark its path: the round of the planets is made plain: it begins to spin.... ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... with their playhouse stuff? The player in mimic piety may storm, Deplore the Comb, and bid her heroes arm: The arbitrary mob, in paltry rage, May curse the belles and chintzes of the age: Yet still the artist worm her silk shall share, And spin her thread of life in service of the fair. The cotton plant, whom satire cannot blast, Shall bloom the favourite of these realms, and last; Like yours, ye fair, her fame from censure grows, Prevails in charms, and glares above her foes: Your injured plant shall meet a loud ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... pipes the mechanic all of a sudden. "That's a hot one, ain't it?" he grins at Sampson. "Sure, old top, we'll give you a spin!" he says, jabbin' the floor board with his feet. "That's if this boiler will roll. Some of you guys will have to give the motor a little spin, if you want to go away from here. She's gone cold on me again! ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... to this, we find in the conversation of most men that their thoughts are cut up as small as chaff, making it impossible for them to spin out the thread of their discourse to any length. If this world were peopled by really thinking beings, noise of every kind would not be so universally tolerated, as indeed the most horrible and aimless form of it is.[12] If Nature had intended ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... generally kept us upon the quarter-deck with him, and many were the cozy confabs we used to hold, many the choice cigars we used to smoke upon that handy loafing-place, the booby-hatch, many the pleasant yarns we used to spin while pacing up and down the deck, or leaning against the rail of the companion. As I have said, Mr. Stewart was a delightful watch-mate—and Bill Langley and I used to love him dearly, and none the worse that he made ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... uncertainly over there between two of the aeros of the Zar. The concentration of beams of vibrations was too much for the sturdy craft. It was red hot and its occupants burned alive where they sat. Suddenly it slipped into a spin and went slithering down into the city, leaving a gaping opening where it fell. This sobered him somewhat, but he went into the battle ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... stolidly told any one who asked him. "Cold, unhealthy place." He seemed to enter upon his duties with the casual interest of the amateur, and, in a way, exactly embodied the attitude of his country towards Europe, of which the many wheels within wheels may spin and whir or halt and grind without in any degree affecting the great republic. America can afford to content herself with the knowledge of what has happened or is happening. Countries nearer to the field of action must know what is ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... high eddying flame, and like moths consumed. In the burning of the world-Phoenix, destruction and creation proceed together; and as the ashes of the old are blown about do new forces mysteriously spin themselves, and melodious death-songs are ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... o'clock, and Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall have not come. It is Lestock's last day, and he and Fanny and Lucy are so busy and so happy putting the transit instrument to rights, and setting black spotted and yellow backed spinning spiders at work to spin for the meridian lines. I have just succeeded in catching the right sort by descending to the infernal regions, and setting kitchenmaid and housemaid at work. I was glad Mr. and Mrs. Hall did not arrive just at the crisis of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... thi own livin when young, An when tha grew up tha'd to spin; An if labor like that wornt wrong, Tha con hardly call wayvin ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... determined to make the process of informing her a very long one: he would spin it out, and so secure many a sweet interview with her: and, who knows? he might fascinate her as she had him, and ripen gratitude into love, as ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... of these two young women, born on the one hand of hard experience, on the other of a gentle existence, fused, and burned with a white light whose power is beginning to touch the lives of the women who toil and spin ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... single cow That charges for her milk, And though they are not paid a sou, The silkworms still spin silk. ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... blue and white cockades, Put on their shields, unsheathe their blades, And conquest fell begin; And let the word be Scotland's heir: And when their swords can do nae mair, Lang bowstrings o' their yellow hair Let Hieland lasses spin, laddie. Charlie's bonnet's down, laddie, Kilt yer plaid and scour the heather; Charlie's bonnet's down, laddie, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... detested the law and he loved letters, and before he was twenty he had helped to edit a paper, had written essays, a story, and a play,—none of which, fortunately for him, survive,—and had gone to London, ostensibly to read in a lawyer's office, and really to spin his web of fiction whenever opportunity offered. Chance connected the fortunes of young Ainsworth with periodical literature, where most of his early work appeared. His first important tale was 'Rookwood,' published in 1834. This ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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; ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... of curiosity; though a million times had it been done in the past ages, set the compass before us, having it from the Great Museum. But, as ever in that age, it did spin if we but stirred the needle, and would stop nowheres with surety, for the flow of the Earth-Current from the "Crack" beneath the Pyramid had a power to affect it away from the North, and to set it wandering. And this may seem very strange to ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... protraction of time, prolongation of time, extension of time; delay &c. (lateness) 133. V. last, endure, stand, remain, abide, continue, brave a thousand years. tarry &c. (be late) 133; drag on, drag its slow length along, drag a lengthening chain; protract, prolong; spin out, eke out, draw out, lengthen out; temporize; gain time, make time, talk against time. outlast, outlive; survive; live to fight again. Adj. durable; lasting &c. v.; of long duration, of long-standing; permanent, endless, chronic, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... bit fed up with 'in-laws,'" returned Nan a trifle wearily. "I'll go out and walk it off. Or, better still, lend me your bike, Kitty, and I'll just do a spin to Tintagel. By the time I've climbed up to King Arthur's Castle, I'll feel different. It always makes me feel good to get to ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... my chief musician, Weave quiet songs within, That my soul in the circles of a great glamour May float and spin. ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... true "leisure class" (for even the tramps are sometimes compelled to engage in such simple industries as are possible within the "precincts" of the county jail) and we are justly proud of them. They toil not, neither spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not a dog. Instead of making them hewers of wood and drawers of water, it would be more consonant with the Anglomaniacal and general Old World spirit, now so dominant in ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... acquaintance, Time, drops in, And while the running sands Their golden thread unheeded spin, ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... American popular successes ("On the Banks of the Wabash," "Just Tell Them That You Saw Me," and various others), as a third owner of one of the most successful popular music publishing houses in the city and as an actor and playwright of some small repute, he was wont to spin like a moth in the white light of Broadway. By reason of a little luck and some talent he had come so far, done so much for himself. In his day he had been by turn a novitiate in a Western seminary which trained aspirants for the Catholic priesthood; a singer ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... was something more miserable still—it was the clutch of solitude at her heart, the sense of being swept like a stray uprooted growth down the heedless current of the years. That was the feeling which possessed her now—the feeling of being something rootless and ephemeral, mere spin-drift of the whirling surface of existence, without anything to which the poor little tentacles of self could cling before the awful flood submerged them. And as she looked back she saw that there had never been a time when she had had any real ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... one must work, one cannot think of marrying. We are four sisters, and we have only the buonamano from hiring these mules, and we must spin and cook. ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... some sweet oblivious antidote which shall drug us against memory, and after time shall elapse for the reconstruction of a new home in place of the old, shall repossess us of ourselves as unchanged as the things with which we shall again array it? Here is a pretty idea for some dreamer to spin into the filmy fabric of a romance, and I handsomely make a present of it to the first comer. If the dreamer is of the right quality he will know how to make the reader feel that with the universal longing ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sow not, neither do you reap; and God feedeth you, and giveth you the streams and fountains for your drink; the mountains and the valleys for your refuge and the high trees whereon to make your nests; and because ye know not how to spin or sew, God clotheth you, you and your children; wherefore your Creator loveth you much, seeing that He hath bestowed on you so many benefits; and therefore, my little sisters, beware of the sin of ingratitude, and study always to give praises unto God." Whenas St. Francis ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... spinning from morning till night, to keep herself and her granddaughter, while Snowflower gathered sticks for the fire, looked after the hens and the cat, and did whatever else her grandmother bade her. There was nobody in that part of the country could spin such fine yarn as Dame Frostyface, but she spun very slowly. Her wheel was as old as herself, and far more worn-out. Indeed, the wonder was that it did not fall to pieces. So what the dame earned was very little, and their living was scanty. ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... man-o'-war's-man, "you must spin us the yarn of all your cruising since you've been here. We've seen somethin' o' the elephant since we've been cast ashore, and that's not long. I don't wonder at you sayin' you 'ave been aboard ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... about the grounds another hour or so, the party from Fairfield was ready to go, and they all found it restful to lean back in the comfortable car and spin ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... cotton industry, no mention being made of weavers of silk. The spinning of Eri silk thread, and weaving it into cloths is, however, a fairly considerable industry amongst the Khyrwang and Nongtung villages of the Jaintia Hills. The Nongtungs and Khyrwangs rear their own Eri worms, and spin the silk from the cocoons. The late Mr. Stack, in his admirable note on silk in Assam, says, "Throughout the whole range of the southern hills, from the Mikir country, Eri thread is in great request for weaving those striped cloths, in which the mountaineers delight," but ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... strenuous efforts of ambitious executives to "make good," he had leisure for living. He and Letty were fond of visiting the various American and European watering-places. He gambled a little, for he found that there was considerable diversion in risking interesting sums on the spin of a wheel or the fortuitous roll of a ball; and he took more and more to drinking, not in the sense that a drunkard takes to it, but as a high liver, socially, and with all his friends. He was inclined to drink the rich drinks ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... enough to be sheared," she explained, "I shall help to do that myself. Then my mother will help me to card its nice black wool, and we will spin it into long threads. I shall then weave a thick cloth, which will make me a ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... seemed familiar with the mechanism, turned a lever, whereupon the disc commenced to spin like a pie plate on a dance floor. Faster and faster it spun, silently gathering speed each second while a low humming sound filled the chamber. Gradually the outline of the whirling disk commenced to brighten, tinting ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... occasion—knowing with whom he had to deal—could allow ordinary prudence to go by the board. There are men, and excellent men too, from whose minds the cares of life never banish themselves, who never seem to remember that provision is made for the young ravens. They toil and spin always, thinking sternly of the worst and rarely hoping for the best. They are ever making provision for rainy days, as though there were to be no more sunshine. So anxious are they for their children ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... of irreparable calamity, so 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 ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the novelist calls local color, often containing in the name alone a comprehensive suggestiveness as great as that of an Homeric epithet. Thus our familiar Cat and Mouse appears in modern Greece as Lamb and Wolf; and the French version of Spin the Platter is My Lady's Toilet, concerned with laces, jewels, and other ballroom accessories instead of our prosaic numbering of players. These changes that a game takes on in different environments are of the very essence of folklore, and some amusing examples are to be found ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... you be there at eight tomorrow morning? If it's fine, take your bicycle, as if you were going for a spin before breakfast. Miss Bride never goes out before breakfast, and no one else is likely to ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... the matter deeply, but I am as yet far from a solution. Why is a mouse that spins? And if so, what does it spin? Patently the query is incomplete. And what possible bearing can comparative altitude as contrasted with the comparative infrequency of a species have upon the peculiarities of ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... lovely," said Nan, as they all started out for a little spin, to try it. "I've had so much trouble of late with taxicabs, that it's a genuine comfort to have my own car at my beck and call. It's a lovely car, Fred, and Patty and I shall just ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... dangers ahead, giving direction, and the watchful steersman acting sympathetically with his long oar or sweep, so that should the bowman with his pole thrust the head of the boat violently to the right the steersman sweeps its stern sharply to the left, thus causing the craft to spin round and shoot aside from the danger, whatever it may be. Of course the general flow and turmoil of a rapid indicates pretty clearly to skilled eyes where the deepest water lies; nevertheless, in spite of knowledge, skill, and experience, ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... remembered that in their pasturage no trees or "rubbing posts" are to be found, and in the absence of these they are compelled to resort to wallowing. They fling themselves upon their sides, and using their hunch and shoulder as a pivot, spin round and round for hours at a time. In this rotatory motion they aid themselves by using the legs freely. The earth becomes hollowed out and worn into a circular basin, often of considerable depth, and this is ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... toy-shop in the store next Cuyler's, just for the holidays, I suppose. Bob got a Teddy bear, and I bought this box of fascinating little Japanese tops for my baby sister. They're all like different kinds of fruit and you spin them like pennies, without a string. ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... common sense, being rather weakened by a long course of romance writing, did not come to the rescue. As usual Beth lay on the sofa and Laurie sat in a low chair close by, amusing her with all sorts of gossip, for she depended on her weekly 'spin', and he never disappointed her. But that evening Jo fancied that Beth's eyes rested on the lively, dark face beside her with peculiar pleasure, and that she listened with intense interest to an account of some exciting cricket match, though the phrases, 'caught off a tice', 'stumped off his ground', ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... pleased to see us, are you not?" they said. "We have heard of the fame of your spinning-evenings, and have come from a far country to take part in them. You shall see how we can spin." ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... pouring a huge jar of water over one's head. Tents in India have always a small side tent with a ditch dug to drain off the water from the copious ablutions of the inmate. I emerged into the room feeling better. It was now quite light, and I proceeded to dress leisurely to spin out the time. As I was drawing on my boots, Isaacs sauntered in quietly and laid his gun on the table. He was pale, and his Karkee clothes were covered with mud and leaves and bits of creeper, but his movements showed ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... very 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 ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... released from having the intolerable burdens imposed by the rule of Spain. The consciousness of the Spaniards, that the shadow of the United States lowered over the misgovernment of Cuba, and that there was a thunder-cloud in the north that must burst—with more than the force of the hurricanes that spin on their dizzy way of destruction from the Caribbean Sea—aroused the fury of passion, of jealous hatred and thirst for revenge, in anticipation of the inevitable, that caused the catastrophe of the blowing up of the Maine, and kindled with the flame ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... and most sincerely do I hope it will not be in vain. I cannot endure the idea of her giving away her own wheel, and have told her no more than the truth, in saying that I could never use it with comfort. I had a great mind to add that, if she persisted in giving it, I would spin nothing with it but a rope to hang myself, but I was afraid of making it appear a less serious matter of ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... hope of escape seemed by retreating. Speke ordered his fleet to keep together, promising ammunition to his men if they would fight. The people in one boat, however, were so frightened that they allowed her to spin round and round in the current. The Wanyoro were stealing on them, as they could hear, though nothing could be seen. One of the boats kept in-shore, close to the reeds, when suddenly she was caught by grappling-hooks. The men cried out: "Help, Bana! ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... after it was too dark for work in the field, the men were frequently employed in burning brush and in other labors until late at night. The women after toiling in the field by day, were compelled to card, spin, and weave cotton for their clothing, in the evening. Even on Sundays there was little or no respite from toil. Those who had not been able to work out all their tasks during the week were allowed by the overseer ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... sometimes blocked by gigantic snowdrifts! This, of course, is ridiculous; what really happens is that the rails become so greasy from the crushed bodies of the locusts that the wheels can secure no grip on the metals and spin round to no purpose. ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... ... required her master to teach her, not only how to sew and 'such things as were fitt for women to know,' but also how to read and apparently also how to write." ... "In 1691 a girl was bound out to Captain William Crafford ... under indentures which required him to teach her how to spin, sew ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... sorry that they could not go together, but said that perhaps when Mr. Farrington was ready he and his friends would come over again for another spin. ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... and flatten again to the semblance of circles. The Poles slowly nod once every many thousand years, there is a libration to the moon; and in all this vast harmonious process of come and go the units of it twirl and spin, and, as they spin, run more gravely in ordered procession round their central star: that star moves also to a beat, and all the stars of heaven move each in times of its own as well, and their movement is one thing altogether. Whoever should ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... Washington as "Bath" is still a scene of fashionable revel: the over-dressed children romp, the old maids flirt, the youthful romancers spin in each other's arms to music from the band, and dowagers carefully drink at the well from the old-fashioned mug decorated with Poor Richard's maxims; but the festivities have a decorous and domestic look that would meet the pity of one of the regular ante-rebellion bloods. After the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... threads as white as snow, Which handled with a happy touch change colour as they go, Not common wool, but golden wire; the Sisters wondering gaze, As age by age the pretty thread runs down the golden days. World without end they spin away, the happy fleeces pull; What joy they take to fill their hands with that delightful wool! Indeed, the task performs itself: no toil the spinners know: Down drops the soft and silken thread as round the spindles go; Fewer than these are Tithon's years, ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... air, Flying this way or that from shore to shore; Nor other labor did this holy pair, 20 Clothed and supported from the lavish store Which crowds lanigerous brought with daily care; They toiled not, neither did they spin; their bias Was tow'rd the harder ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... mortal hands. On questioning the Mambari they were answered that English manufactures came out of the sea, and beads were gathered on its shore. To Africans our cotton mills are fairy dreams. "How can the irons spin, weave, and print so beautifully?" Our country is like what Taprobane was to our ancestors—a strange realm of light, whence came the diamond, muslin, and peacocks; an attempt at explanation of our manufactures usually elicits the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... shut. Two bodies may, however, be alike in weight and outward appearance and yet behave differently when otherwise mechanically tested, and, consequently, when they are handled. For example, take two eggs, one raw and the other hard boiled, and spin them on the table; press the finger for a moment upon either of them whilst it is still spinning: if it be the hard-boiled egg it will stop as dead as a stone: if it be the raw egg, after a little apparent hesitation, it will begin again to rotate. The motion of its shell had alone ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... Mrs. Vanderpool—she toiled not, neither did she spin, and yet! If all these folk were like poor, stupid, docile Jennie it would be simpler, but what earthly sense was there in trying do to anything with a girl like Zora, so stupid in some matters, so startlingly bright in others, and so stubborn ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... and began a spin that terminated only when the biggest Plymouth Rock in Duncan's coop saluted a new day, and long lines of light reddened the east. As he rode he sang, while he sang he worshiped, but the god he tried to glorify ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... why we can't give you a ticket and let you proclaim yourself an adult. You can't carry the weight. But this isn't all. Your muscles and your bones aren't yet in equilibrium. I could find a man of age thirty who weighed one-oh-three and stood four-eleven. He could pick you up and spin you like a top on his forefinger just because his bones match his muscles nicely, and his nervous system and brain have had experience in driving the ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... fainter, and the moon's silver brightened, the passengers became quieter. The Piper went below and listened to the Ancient Mariner spin a yarn, and let the birds along the shore furnish music. The babies fell asleep in the arms of Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, lovers drifted away in pairs to retired nooks. In a quiet corner J. P. Thornton and Lawyer Ed sat and laid once more their final plans for a trip to the Holy Land, certain ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... nearer to each other, the princes began to spin the web of their treason; and for this purpose a messenger was sent by them to Tarik, informing him how Roderic, who had been a mere menial and servant to their father, had, after his death, usurped the throne; that the princes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... was laid As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin; And was arrayed or rather disarrayed, All in a veil of silk and silver thin, That hid no whit her alabaster skin, But rather shewed more white, if more might be: More subtle web Arachne cannot spin; Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see Of scorched dew, do not in the air ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... is in spin, but not in weave; My second in part, but not in leave; My third is in rain, but not in storm; My fourth in chilly, but not in warm; My fifth in hen, but not in coop; My whole is ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... comes to life just as the oak is coming into leaf, and feeds upon the leaves. It attacks no other tree; the beech, chesnut, &c., stand in full verdure surrounded by the brown and leafless oaks. They envelop the tree in a web they spin about the end of May; they enclose themselves in a leaf curled up, and remain in a chrysalis state until the middle of June or July, when they change into a pale greenish small moth that flies about the trees in myriads, and lay their eggs in the bark ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... most like rats than anything. I have for necessity, in the wilderness, eaten of them. Their flesh is very white and well-tasted, but their ugly tails put me out of conceit with that fare. They climb trees as the racoons do. Their fur is not esteemed or used, save that the Indians spin it ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... Taffy learnt for the first time what could be done with a few ropes and pulleys. The seamen seemed to spin ropes out of themselves like spiders. By three o'clock the beam was hoisted and fixed; and they broke off their work to attend their shipmates' funeral. After the funeral they fell to again, though more silently, and before nightfall the beam shone with a new coat ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... she could properly focus what she saw, everything began to whirl and to spin around her, to dance a wild and idiotic saraband, which caused her to laugh, and to laugh, until her throat felt choked and her eyes hot; after ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... draw the latch, Sit by the fire and spin; Take a cup, and drink it up, Then call your ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies - Without Addition or Abridgement • Munroe and Francis
... spin and hachell it, and the English tarre it in threed and lay the cable. And one cable of those is woorth two of Danzick, because the Danzickers put in old cable and rotten stuffe, which in fowle weather is found ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... been a trouble to you. You sew for me, cook for me, make the garden for me, spin and weave for me, and worry about me. Uncle has to work for ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... distance. But from the Liteiny—just over the bridge—came a confused jumble of shouts, cries, and then the sharp, unmistakable rattle of a machine-gun. It was funny to see the casual life in front of one suddenly pause at that sound. The doll-like skaters seemed to spin for a moment and then freeze; one figure began to run across the ice. A small boy came racing down our street shouting. Several men ran out from doorways and stood looking up into the sky, as though they thought the noise had come from there. The sun was ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... pictures, specifically, or of the general principles of literature and painting; of people, of sunsets, of Italy, of the high seas, of the Paris streets—of what, in fine, you pleased. Or he would spin you yarns, sober, farcical, veridical, or invented. And, with transitions infinitely rapid, he would be serious, jocose—solemn, ribald—earnest, flippant—logical, whimsical, turn and turn about. ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... No sigh? No smile? Is all forgot? Then spin my shroud out of that golden skein Thou callst thy tresses! I shall stay thee not— My struggles were ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... I fancy it covers a far wider range, and embraces a much ampler truth. Yes, I doubt if any man ever yet sought without finding. When I was a boy I lost my peg-top. It was a somewhat expensive one, owing partly to the fact that it would really spin. I noticed this peculiarity about it whilst it was still the property of its previous possessor. I had several tops; indeed, my pockets bulged out with my ample store, but none of them would spin. After pointing out to the owner of the coveted top the frightful unsightliness ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... and the stirring life of a farmer's daughter in a new country, fell to her lot. To spin the garments she wore, to make cheese and butter, were parts of her education, while to lend a hand at out-door labor, perhaps helped her to acquire that vigor of body and brain for which ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... addressing to him a few curt words in a decidedly ungracious tone of voice; whereupon the headman, taking the precaution first to conciliate his Majesty by prostrating himself and rubbing his nose in the dust in token of abject submission, rose to his feet and proceeded to spin a long yarn, of which I was evidently the subject, since he repeatedly pointed to me. He must have included in his narrative the incident of the snake-bite, for at one point he seized my right hand and, turning the palm upward, pointed out the spot where the two ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... I got a piece of the chair that floated by, found the end cracked and sharp, and tried to spin towards Grundy, but I couldn't see him. I heard Eve's voice yell over the other shouts. I spotted the plate coming for me, but I was still in midair. It came on steadily, edge on, and I felt it break against my ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... many of them, as suffering drivers will testify. Casey Ryan, known wherever men of the open travel and spin their yarns, famous for his recklessly efficient driving of lurching stagecoaches in the old days, and for his soft heart and his happy-go-lucky ways; famous too as the man who invented ungodly predicaments from which ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... but she held back her discovery, so to speak, of the baby, and the episode of Marna's wistful tears when she heard the music, and her amazing volte-face at remembering the baby's feeding-time. She would have loved to spin out the story to him—she could have deepened the colors just enough to make it all very telling. But she wasn't willing to give away the reason for her changed mood. It was enough, after all, that he was aware of it, and that when he drew her hand within his arm he held it in a clasp ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... the lamps, we're just in time—spin down the hill, my boy—let me get in as they're at supper, and 'faith they'll want it, after coming off a coach such a night as this, to say nothing of some of them being aldermen in expectancy perhaps, and of ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... has observed, not those of which he has dreamt; and he delivers his facts in the fewest possible words, and in the plainest possible way. He does not cultivate flowers of rhetoric; he does not unduly spin out his narrative. It is plain that he is especially bent on making his meaning clear, and he ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... much fraternizing will stimulate the awakening of the proletariat of Europe." In other words, Kamenev was in the position of a desperate gambler who stakes his life and his all upon one throw of the dice or one spin of the wheel. ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... borrowed the pan, and when she returned said to her husband: "Here is the pan, but you must carry it back." So they cooked the fritters, and after they had eaten, the husband said: "Now let us go to work, both of us, and the one who speaks first shall carry back the pan." Then she began to spin and he to draw his thread,—for he was a shoemaker,—and all the time keeping silence, except that when he drew his thread he said: "Leulero, leulero;" and she, spinning, answered: "Picici, picici, picicio." And they said not ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... camaraderie. There was even a touch of bravado in the attitude of these people toward each other,—as of courage kept up by scoffing. Even Death, on his sombre visits, was regarded with a strange derision by those who continued to spin. They had cheated him not once but many times, and they ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... weights, which were hung to the wheel-work by strong cords. The cords were wound round some of the wheels, and as they slowly descended by their weight, they made the wheels go round. There was a contrivance inside the clock to make the wheels go slowly and regularly, and not spin round too fast, as they would have done if the weights had been left to themselves. This is the way that ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... into the low nook under the slanting roof but found nothing more exciting than a spider. "Huh, it's no fun hunting for robbers. Guess I'll spin ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... Paul Nicholas, Ralph's little pepper-pot of a room-mate, had never ridden a horse in his life, and the running he would come in for at the hands of his fellow midshipmen if they suspected that fact might have made almost any other lad hesitate before taking his initial spin in the company of experts. Not so little Jean Paul with his broad shoulders, the brace of an Admiral and his five-feet-six-inches; a veritable little bantam-cock, ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... provides the earth which we furrow; she grows and ripens the seeds that we sow and gather. She furnishes, with the help of human labour, the wool that we spin and the food that we eat. And it ought never to be forgotten, that however rich or poor we may be, all that we eat, all that we are clothed with, all that shelters us, from the palace to the cottage, is ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... 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 hour, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... Relief Committee, which, except the proceeds of a little employment now and then, was all that the family of nine had to depend upon for food, firing, clothes, and rent. He said that he was forced to make every little spin out as far as it would; but it kept him bare and busy, and held his nose "everlastingly deawn to th' grindlestone." But he didn't know that it was any use complaining about a thing that neither master nor man could help. ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... taken from the tomb of Thot-nefer at Thebes, who was a royal scribe in the middle of the 18th Dynasty, circa 1425 B.C. In his tomb his house is shown. He himself sits in the hall, while inside some servants spin and weave, make bread, store the grain, etc. The roof of the chambers is supported on pillars, and between two of these the looms are set up which are here depicted. They are not attached however, ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... balls of cotton all ready to spin into thread. Will you spin one half of them into thread for me, if I give ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... after a deal of negotiation he consented to take me to Los Pasages. Thanks to Republican vigilance, but principally it may have been to the nature of the ground, the road thither was clear. We started at six o'clock in the evening, and after a lively spin through sylvan scenery drew up in less than an hour at the outskirts of a village on the edge of a quiet pool, which we had bordered for nigh a mile. No papers had been asked for, on leaving, at the bridge over the Urumea, where a post of ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... happy reconciliation between Monk and the Government. But Monk's Commissioners had been too hasty, or had been outwitted; and Clarges, who arrived in London that day, had come too late to stop them and spin out the time. A pledge of both parties against Charles Stuart or any single-person Government was in the forefront of the Treaty; and the rest of the Articles simply admitted Monk and the officers of the Scottish Army to a share in the Government as then ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... The Kid was lighter and more supple than I; and got out of it some easier than I. I had picked out a rangey lank bronco; he would quit the earth and climb the sky like a flying machine; and drop down and strike the rocks with his legs stiff as a post. He would then spin like a top several hundred times play razor back and sun-fish, His head and tail would touch one instant between his legs; and the next instant over his back. I held my breath while he exercised all his tricks then he plunged ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... but hands, 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 ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... them. Are not ye of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto his stature? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore anxious, saying, ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... exclaimed the justice. "The court is adjourned till after dinner. I hope the distinguished gentleman will be able to spin out his yarn ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... its usual food of ants, it lies concealed under leaves as this one had done, and darts out on any passing prey which it believes it can manage; or if not, it climbs trees and seizes the smaller birds when at roost, or takes the younger ones out of their nests. It does not spin a web, but either burrows in the ground, or seeks a cavity in a rock, or in any hollow ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... it is customary for peasant girls to keep for themselves all the yarn they spin on St. Andrew's Eve, and the Hausfrau gives them also some flax and a little money. With this they buy coffee and other refreshments for the lads who come to visit the parlours where in the long winter evenings the women sit spinning. These evenings, ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... time a poor miller who had a beautiful daughter. It happened one day that he had an audience with the King, and in order to appear important he told the King that he had a daughter who could spin straw into gold. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... going to be a mile run, and not a hundred yard dash, as Jack would say. So come in, sit down, get comf'y, wait until you and your breath—are on speaking terms, and I'll listen. But first I want to tell you all that happen to me. Why didn't you come for a spin? ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... them blindness and obstinacy, or that He, solely from His purpose and mere counsel, irrespective also of sins, has foreordained them to damnation so that they cannot convert themselves and be saved. In all such and similar passages, therefore, we shall and must be sedulously on our guard, lest we spin therefrom this blasphemy, that out of His free purpose and counsel, irrespective also of sin, God has decreed to reject eternally these or ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the Illinois side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that place, so we warn't afraid of anybody running across us. We laid there all day, and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri shore, and up-bound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. I told Jim all about the time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jim said she was a smart one, and if she was to start after ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... spin this thing up to a proof load," he said. "Might be interesting to see what kind of an assembly job they did on you. But we'll just leave you this way. All you've got to do is keep quiet. You're deaf, dumb, and blind, you understand?" ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole
... we spin both black and white yarn, and if the windows were kept open the lint from the black yarn would blow on the white ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... all, for he saw everything flat. His favourite colours were red and yellow; black and green he particularly disliked; everything ugly was called green. He could not be persuaded that a ball did not roll because it wished to do so, or that his top did not spin of its own accord. For a long time he saw no reason why animals should not behave like human beings, and was much annoyed because the cat refused to sit up at table and to eat with its paws, blaming its disobedience in not doing as it was ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... about his distinguished patient. "Tell the B.P. that P.B. sleeps like a top. This is no hum. He is up at 7 A.M., and wishes everyone 'the top of the mornin' to you,' puts on his top-boots and top-hat, and then goes out for a spin." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various
... what we'd get for that diamond, Tom and I—when his time is up—could live for all our lives and whoop it up besides. We could live in Paris, where great grafters live and grafting pays—where, if you've got wit and fifty thousand dollars, and happen to be a "darn sight prettier," you can just spin the world around ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... for themselves, and were constantly wanting me to perform some little job or other for them. I was thus oftener in the cabin than out of it. While I was attending on them, my great amusement was listening to the yarns which the old gentleman used to spin. They took in all he said for fact; but there used to be often a twinkle in his eye which made me doubt the truth of all ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... He'll spin you yarns from dawn to dark—and half of 'em are true! He swears in a score of languages, and maybe talks in two! And ... he'll lower a boat in a hurricane ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... our easy-going way that birds "toil not" because they "do not spin," because they have not surrounded themselves with a thousand artificial wants, as we have. But the truth is that nobody can work harder than a pair of robins, for example, with four or five hungry mouths to fill, and every mouthful to be hunted up as it is wanted. No one would guess what ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... latter, a force which attempted to take Sant' Ubaldo, immediately southeast of Arsiero, on May 31, 1916, was driven back by the Italians beyond the Posina, thus relieving the strongest pressure on the town. A little further west another Austrian force attacked the Italian positions on Monte Spin, southeast of Posina. The Italian lines held on the mountain slopes and the Austrian advance here was checked. West of Posina an Austrian assault on Monte Forni Alti was repulsed. On the Sette Comuni Plateau, where the Austrians were advancing against Asiago, they began ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... of a pair of strong hooks at the posterior end of its soft defenceless abdomen. Their food appears for the most part to be of a vegetable nature. Some species, however, are alleged to be carnivorous, and a North American form of the genus Hydropsyche is said to spin around the mouth of its burrow a silken net for the capture of small animal organisms living in the water. Before passing into the pupal stage, the larva partially closes the orifice of the tube with silk or pieces of stone loosely spun together and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... when we met our third general, and this meeting was quite by chance. Coming back from a spin down the lines we stopped in a small village called Amifontaine, to let our chauffeur, known affectionately as The Human Rabbit, tinker with a leaky tire valve or something. A young officer came up through the dusk to find out who we were, and, having found out, he invited us into the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb |
